Two types of work - by David R. MacIver

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Crunchy work is hard because reality fights back. Squishy work is hard because people are complicated. The experience of doing each is more different than its practitioners tend to treat it as and this is important.

There’s a distinction I often use that keeps coming up in conversations, and then people say “that’s really good, have you written it down anywhere?” and I have to shamefacedly admit that no, no I have not. Anyway, this is me writing it down somewhere. The distinction is this: There are two distinct types of work, which I call crunchy and squishy. The thing that distinguishes them is what makes them hard when they’re hard.1 Crunchy work is work that is hard because reality fights back at you in some way. This might be physical, it might be logical, but the point is that when you’re…

Two types of work - by David R. MacIver

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