This is a shitty post
Hello to the wonderful world.
Today I submitted a little clip of why integrity was important to me. I don't feel that I did an adequate job.
This is the story of my life.
None of my work is ever perfect and it extremely annoys me and I'm still learning to live with it. Becoming increasingly self-aware is rough and I don't know if I'm going to be able to use this self-awareness to become a really awesome person, or if I'm just going to spiral into a deep depression for never feeling "good enough." This is a more accurate version of how I feel about integrity than the video snippet I came up with.
In other words, I have really high standards for myself and this has pros and cons. I don't always meet the standards, so that can make me depressed. When I do meet the standards, I end up making new ones with loftier goals and never really feel good about having met the standards. Mostly I never feel like I meet the standards.
For instance, to me, this entire post so far is completely stupid and I'm better off deleting all of it because it feels like a rant and not like anything anyone can possibly learn from.
Integrity means your data is what you say it is. You didn't say your data says more than it does. You didn't say it says less than it does. You said what your data is. Integrity. Black and white.
That's not exactly integrity either though, because in that data is a lot of gray area for interpretation. A surprising amount of gray area. You can see it play out with coronavirus. There are a number of people infected. There are a number of people dead. And there is a number of reported deaths and reported infections. But what happens is people see those reported numbers and think that's the end all be all. It's not.
For one, there's a delay in reporting. It's not real time. People have died since the numbers were updated and people have gotten sick and infected since the numbers were updated. People are waiting on test results. People are sick that haven't been tested yet. People have died that were never tested. (New York's reporting is affected by this.) People have gotten sick that will not be tested. And that's not even getting into the rate of false positive and false negative tests. I'm not even sure if they're aware of what the false positive and false negative rates are on their tests besides claiming that false negatives are "low."
And so this is where integrity gets tricky. Because then you have to do things like define what "low" means. And you have to wonder if your data is sound.
So it's usually easier to define integrity by what it is not:
1. Making up data.
2. Omitting data.
3. Lying about how the data was obtained.
I am fortunate enough to work at a place that values not doing those things. Or at least they're not done without proper justification. (Data is purposely omitted sometimes due to the way it was obtained, for instance. Sometimes extreme outliers are also omitted from data sets with justification.)
I am unfortunate enough to have worked at a place that DID do those things.
So I think what should be taken from this post is that maintaining integrity is important. I am way better off at my current position than the past one. And when a position is asking you to compromise your integrity, the only way to maintain your integrity is to leave.
But what I want to leave on is that even if you break your personal rules or don't meet your personal standards or don't meet other's standards, there's always tomorrow to try again.
Integrity is a habit you build.
Today I submitted a little clip of why integrity was important to me. I don't feel that I did an adequate job.
This is the story of my life.
None of my work is ever perfect and it extremely annoys me and I'm still learning to live with it. Becoming increasingly self-aware is rough and I don't know if I'm going to be able to use this self-awareness to become a really awesome person, or if I'm just going to spiral into a deep depression for never feeling "good enough." This is a more accurate version of how I feel about integrity than the video snippet I came up with.
In other words, I have really high standards for myself and this has pros and cons. I don't always meet the standards, so that can make me depressed. When I do meet the standards, I end up making new ones with loftier goals and never really feel good about having met the standards. Mostly I never feel like I meet the standards.
For instance, to me, this entire post so far is completely stupid and I'm better off deleting all of it because it feels like a rant and not like anything anyone can possibly learn from.
Integrity means your data is what you say it is. You didn't say your data says more than it does. You didn't say it says less than it does. You said what your data is. Integrity. Black and white.
That's not exactly integrity either though, because in that data is a lot of gray area for interpretation. A surprising amount of gray area. You can see it play out with coronavirus. There are a number of people infected. There are a number of people dead. And there is a number of reported deaths and reported infections. But what happens is people see those reported numbers and think that's the end all be all. It's not.
For one, there's a delay in reporting. It's not real time. People have died since the numbers were updated and people have gotten sick and infected since the numbers were updated. People are waiting on test results. People are sick that haven't been tested yet. People have died that were never tested. (New York's reporting is affected by this.) People have gotten sick that will not be tested. And that's not even getting into the rate of false positive and false negative tests. I'm not even sure if they're aware of what the false positive and false negative rates are on their tests besides claiming that false negatives are "low."
And so this is where integrity gets tricky. Because then you have to do things like define what "low" means. And you have to wonder if your data is sound.
So it's usually easier to define integrity by what it is not:
1. Making up data.
2. Omitting data.
3. Lying about how the data was obtained.
I am fortunate enough to work at a place that values not doing those things. Or at least they're not done without proper justification. (Data is purposely omitted sometimes due to the way it was obtained, for instance. Sometimes extreme outliers are also omitted from data sets with justification.)
I am unfortunate enough to have worked at a place that DID do those things.
So I think what should be taken from this post is that maintaining integrity is important. I am way better off at my current position than the past one. And when a position is asking you to compromise your integrity, the only way to maintain your integrity is to leave.
But what I want to leave on is that even if you break your personal rules or don't meet your personal standards or don't meet other's standards, there's always tomorrow to try again.
Integrity is a habit you build.
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