It sounds like you'd burn out in any profession. Perfect is the enemy of the good. If you're holding your work, and that of others', to a perfectionist's standard, then you're just causing yourself unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Most of those bugs and failures you listed are really inconsequential in their contexts.
Car won't play your phone's music? Use the radio.
Game has bugs? Play another game until it's patched, or find inventive ways to use the bug.
Can't see your CC? You can still charge on it and pay its balance.
Experian and Equifax don't report same credit score? Your creditors aren't reporting to every credit bureau.
Ashamed that someone else's system doesn't work? I can't help you there. That's some deep psychological issue.
About 10 years ago I came to understand that mediocre runs the world. All these people, who are your bosses, who are getting raises and promotions, they're the B/C students from college. They don't care about perfect. They really only care about finishing what they're assigned and going on with their outside life.
> Most of those bugs and failures you listed are really inconsequential in their contexts.
Yes, I expect that for most things we could find a context that could render them inconsequential.
> Car won't play your phone's music? Use the radio. Game has bugs? Play another game until it's patched, or find inventive ways to use the bug. Can't see your CC? You can still charge on it and pay its balance. Experian and Equifax don't report same credit score? Your creditors aren't reporting to every credit bureau.
Elevator doesn't work? Use the stairs. Public restroom is filthy? Hold your breath and don't touch anything. Lost a tooth on the right side of your mouth because of an incompetent endodontist? Chew on the left side.
I'm not being facetious here. I really do agree that almost anything is tolerable if we decide to. That last example is from personal experience: I have lost three teeth on the right side of my mouth and I have to chew on the left. Most of the time, I don't even think about it anymore. And it really isn't that big of a deal -- it doesn't have a very significant impact on the quality of my life.
> Ashamed that someone else's system doesn't work? I can't help you there. That's some deep psychological issue.
It could be. Like I commented elsewhere, I would expect a doctor to be ashamed of Andrew Wakefield, but maybe most of them aren't. And even if they are, it could be a deep psychological issue that I choose to compare the state of our industry to what Wakefield did in his.
But here's the thing: I know that we can do better. Not perfect, better. But we don't have to, because we lack accountability.
Sure, perfect is the enemy of the good. But complacency is the last refuge of the mediocre.
> Ashamed that someone else's system doesn't work? I can't help you there. That's some deep psychological issue.
Personally I get angry in those situations... the larger the company, typically the more safeguard crap in place that's supposed to prevent those issues, the more pissed off I get. But that's just me. I get angry when I see evidence of poor/buggy quality in business software the more visible it is.
Most of those bugs and failures you listed are really inconsequential in their contexts.
Car won't play your phone's music? Use the radio. Game has bugs? Play another game until it's patched, or find inventive ways to use the bug. Can't see your CC? You can still charge on it and pay its balance. Experian and Equifax don't report same credit score? Your creditors aren't reporting to every credit bureau.
Ashamed that someone else's system doesn't work? I can't help you there. That's some deep psychological issue.
About 10 years ago I came to understand that mediocre runs the world. All these people, who are your bosses, who are getting raises and promotions, they're the B/C students from college. They don't care about perfect. They really only care about finishing what they're assigned and going on with their outside life.
If you want perfect, do it on your own time.