Sometimes, a kind word is a bad sign
Like most other people, I think it’s a good idea to be nice to other people. I also like it when people are nice to me (which is practically always). However, there are times when kindness strikes fear into my heart.
Last week, I heard the words I dread most — “How ya doin’? Everything OK?” This may sound like friendly banter, but experience has taught me that people say this only under three circumstances:
- When they’re checking in on you
- When you’re styling
- When you’re falling apart
If one of first two possibilities don’t clearly apply, most likely the third does, and you just don’t realize it yet. I heard these words just minutes before I succumbed to heat exhaustion on the Ultimate Road Ride last year (I thought I was fine until I almost blacked out on the bike). This year, I heard them again towards the end of the Shasta. This time, I was smart enough to realize people were telling me something.
So when I heard this question in a work context, I was worried. Under normal circumstances, I tell people I’m happy if I fail only 90% of the time. If you look at the great advances made throughout history, it’s pretty clear that progress is what you get when you screw up so many times that you finally learn something useful.
However, sometimes the stakes are high, and the success through iterative failure model can’t be used. I have a project at work that’s like that right now (even if some specific components of it might be improved best by rapid, iterative experimentation). So when more than one person asked me if I was OK in the same week — I had no reason to believe they were checking in on me because I work with them all the time — I took it as a sign of crappy work at best and an early sign of meltdown at worst.
My prescription was to pound out a threshold ride (held the ol’ HR at 170+ for a solid hour maxing out at 184 
), knock back a few beers, and get my head screwed back on. This past week has been much better. No one has been asking except to check in. Good…