How building a chair taught me a lesson in coding and life in general

The Mission

I finally ended up purchasing my dining set for my new home. I had relocated to Las Vegas over the summer of 2015 and the empty space in the dining area was staring back at me for a while now. I had the set delivered to my home and it was now time to put it together.

I had procrastinated in putting it together and now here I was, a few days before Christmas and we were hosting our family party so I had a deadline. Luckily, I was able to work from home a day before I officially started my vacation. Work and building these damn chairs were on my agenda.

I cut open the boxes, pulled out the instructions and realized it wasn’t that bad at all. Looked pretty straightforward. I first knocked out the table itself. No surprises here, 4 legs with screws and add the leaf in the middle. Boom. Done.

Then came the chairs…

I had six of them to put together. SIX of them. I immediately regretted buying a 7 piece set. However, we knew it was a necessary evil. The instructions were clear on how to put them together. I had all the tools and pieces required. They were even nice enough to include a hex key for all my tightening needs. The steps required to put the chair together involved screwing the back of the chair to the seat itself first (then the two front legs), which required six total screws for just attaching the back to the seat. Fair enough.

Here comes the pain

I proceeded to work on the first chair. I lined up the holes from the back piece to the seat itself and then realized the screws I needed to use for the two center holes were just long enough to latch on. The issue was the angle of the back piece relative to the seat itself. There was a small gap just big enough to drive me nuts for the next hour…

Being the perfectionist I am and the willingness to follow instructions to the tee, I was set on not deviating from them. I was also set on not moving on to the next chair until I finished building this first one. They must have put these instructions in this order for a reason right??

After 30 minutes of trying to get these freaking screws to latch on, I sat there staring at the chair with frustration. I took a step back.

I know I am not the most “handy-man” around but I swear these chairs were teaching me a lesson today. I sat there looking at the holes and then I did what a lot of good problem solvers do when you hit a wall. I stepped away. My fingers had cramped up by then so I needed the break anyways. I grabbed me another cup of coffee and maybe even took a bite out something sweet and delicious.

This moment reminded me of the times I struggled with some more complex coding problems I’ve been recently tackling. Be it algorithms or minor nuances of a new framework or programming language you are learning that you overlooked and are now haunting you. Why doesn’t this work?! I asked myself.

Back to the grind

After indulging in my delicious treat and coffee, I went back to the problem at hand. I started to analyze it a bit more. Should I be approaching this problem from a different angle? (not that angles are my best friend right now but that’s besides the point). Instead of working on the same chair, I decided to move on to the next one thinking maybe this one was being a little more difficult. However, I decided to take a different approach on the second one and see if I got a different result.

I realized that instead of trying to screw the two middle ones in first (like the instructions stated), I instead decided to screw in the side ones first. And voila — just like that, those pesky screws in the center latched on. Geometry I suppose.

Victory. It was a happy and glorious moment.

Like looking at fireworks. So happy and exciting

Kind of like the “aha” moment in coding when you finally figure out something or make deep sense of it. It’s a really good feeling.

Valuable lessons learned

To most people reading this would probably say: “ok idiot, I would have thought of that an hour ago”. To that I say — well good for you! though chances are you are probably much more experienced at putting chairs together than I am. Right?

The point is, what did I really learn here?

As simple and mindless one would think putting a chair together would be, there’s a few valuable lessons this damn chair taught me that day.

If you've been tackling a problem for a while with no resolution in sight, take a break and come back to the problem. This applies to developers starting at their screens for six straights hours (you know who you are) and everyone in general. Step away and come back with a fresh mind.
Don’t get stuck (or stubborn) on one direction or approach to a problem for too long. Sometimes, you just need to learn to “move on” and try something new or different. You’d be surprised what you learn.
Be patient. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t figure it out right away. Anyone and everyone who’s good at something didn’t get good overnight. Stick with it. Live and learn my friend. Live and learn.

I hope this helps as a reminder to anyone out there struggling with solving a problem. I know it did for me.

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