I’ve now given my “Let’s Talk About Mental Health” talk at various events. I will soon be sharing the recording of the talk from RSECon25. I’m mostly happy with the content of the talk, and hopefully none of it is particularly controversial, but there are a few points that I wanted to clarify.
I am someone who uses humour as a coping mechanism; as way of dealing with difficult situations. [Insert the “Hi, I’m Chandler, I Make Jokes When Im Uncomfortable” meme here]. Even when talking about a subject as serious as mental health! So, I wanted to take a moment to clarify a couple of the things I said.
“Subjected” to Agile Training
In the talk, I mention a discussion at Collaborations Workshop 2024 that led to the creation of the Task Management for Humans as Self-care project. Someone mentioned how they had used task management tools to keep track of their workload, and how they believe that it helped to manage their anxiety and improve their mental health. During the talk, I talk about how I was initially resistant to the idea, and in the Q&A afterwards, I talk about being “subjected” to Agile training.
These comments are based on my experience of working in the games industry, where they completely misunderstood and abused SCRUM to waste an hour of our time everyday with pointless meetings and task management overheads, which had a detrimental effect on our productivity, as well as our mental health. I’ve spoken to quite a few other people who have had similar experiences. I’ve also been involved in lots of conversations about how Agile is not really compatible with Research Software Engineering (but I know that’s a debate I will never win with its strongest proponents!).
Despite all this, I want to make it clear that I’m not anti-Agile. I was involved with Task Management for Humans, I’ve given a talk about my experience of using GitHub Issues and Projects to manage RSE projects. I’ve also been involved in a workshop on project management. I just think they need to be used in the right way and for the right reasons. I also think we need to accept that there is no solution that works perfectly for everyone, and make sure that we make sure we are not forcing it on people who will not find it helpful or effective.
I’m also made a joke about being someone who suffers from “Post-traumatic SCRUM Disorder”. I am very aware of the risk of making such a joke in the context of a talk destigmatising mental health. But, I also want to make the talk as engaging and light-hearted as possible. This is a difficult balancing act, especially when you’re dealing with such a serious and complex subject. I hope this will be taken in the way it was intended.
“Have you tried Yoga?”
I also talk about how difficult it is to do something practical to support mental health. I don’t have the power to make sweeping changes to pay, working conditions or recognition for Research Software Engineers. But, as I say, I also don’t want to be the guy who says, “Hey, you look stressed, have you tried yoga?”
Again, this is a joke, that seems to have been taken in the intended manner. It’s about finding a balance between giving out practical advice while recognising the limits of what one person can achieve. The other thing I say in this section is, “Your whole team seems burned out, have you tried throwing a pizza party? That will fix everything!” Again, I’ve been in a situation where a manager will ignore serious concerns about workload and lack of support, and will make these sort of comments, that are completely tone-deaf and unhelpful. In my previous job in the games industry, we regularly had takeaway food brought in when they “strongly encouraged” us to work overtime to meet deadlines. But they never actually paid us for that overtime, or did anything to address the poor management that is what led to crunch time being necessary in the first place!
*Deep Breaths* Anyway. this is the sort of behaviour that I am taking the mickey out of.
I acknowledge that yoga and other kinds of physical exercise and mindfulness are actually great for your mental health. It is also perfectly true that arranging social events for your team can be a good way to raise morale. “Pub!” is the number one response to I’ve had to the question: “What are some examples of good ways to people support mental health in your team?”, after all. (Read more about that in this blog post about the data collected during my talk.)
I just don’t think that it should be offered up as an alternative to good leadership, or to actual support for people who are struggling.
Final Thoughts
Talking about mental health is challenging. Not only is it daunting to admit your own struggles to a room full of your peers, but it can be difficult to get the tone right. We want to destigmatise the discussion of mental health, and its obviously a very serious issue. But I also want to deliver as engaging a talk as I can, in order to help kickstart the conversation. I deal with some heavy and difficult subjects, but I chose to try and keep it as light as possible, and there were times where it felt necessary to lift the mood.
As I said, I am someone who used humour as a defence mechanism, but not everyone is the same. It was not my intention to be flippant or dismissive, or to offend or make fun of anyone. Most of the feedback about the talk has been good, and I’m very grateful for that. But I’m aware that there are voices that I may not have heard. I would hate for my attempts at humour to undermine the message of ConveRSE and that they were taken in the manner they were intended.
Please get in touch if you think there’s anything I can do better.
Thanks for reading.
Take care of yourselves.
