It was a certain day.
One of the developers on our team suddenly started acting strangely.
He was usually quiet but always got things done precisely, but then,
At first, I had the usual suspicions.
“Is he stuck technically?”
“Is he having trouble concentrating lately?”
“Could it be burnout…?”
So, I made the typical manager move.
But the answer I got was completely unexpected.
“Sir… my home’s water pipes froze.”
…What?
“I couldn’t shower… couldn’t even use the restroom properly… I was completely out of my mind.”
At that moment, I realized.
This person wasn’t stuck on code,
he was stuck in life.
When a team member is struggling, we usually interpret it like this:
But sometimes, reality is truly simple.
The reason a developer can’t meet a deadline
might not be the
difficulty of the algorithm,
but the
difficulty of the restroom.
From that day on, I became convinced.
When schedules are delayed,
instead of asking “Why couldn’t they do this?”
we should first ask, **“Are you okay lately?”**
Development is done with the head,
but the head ultimately operates on top of life.
If the water pipes burst,
the sprint bursts too.
