COVID fatigue and π factor

These months whether I am walking the dog and meeting fellow dog walkers, speaking to family and acquaintances on the phone, or reading news, I hear how people are tired of Corona lockdowns, they are fed up, depressed and so on.

In a conversation with a neighbour while walking my dog this morning this popped up again. She said: “I always hope it will end soon. Like next month or so. And then I am disappointed. Again. And again.”

Inspecting my own feelings, I feel nothing of that. Not that I am cheering this mess, but my life feels kind of normal - in this specific respect. Partly it’s due to engaging in remote-since-ever environment, partly because my social life does not depend on things coming to me, but me seeking them out. Still, why I don’t feel the same about lockdowns and all that?

And then I realised that part of the problem is that naive optimism of my neighbour. She “overexpects” and the world “underdelivers”. Not that it’s too different for me, but there is a slight, yet important difference: As an engineer, I am acutely aware of the world being a notorious under-deliverer.

Especially in the art of software development velocity estimations, we are deeply aware of the existence of the (hidden?) π factor (e.g., here):

1. whenever an engineer provides an estimate, to arrive at a more realistic figure, multiply by π=3.14…
2. apply rule 1 even if the engineer claims he/she already used the π factor.

In effect, whenever somebody tells you that this COVID pandemic will be over in 1 year from now, use the π multiplier. Since the beginning of this situation, it was clear to me that we are in this for a long-haul. Better to get to terms with the new life style, then being constantly disappointed and perhaps even depressed.

My thoughts are with all the people who have it tough these months. Especially the lonely ones out there.

P.S.
Reality check: in December’20 I finally delivered a project which was originally planned for 18 months. The real devel time was almost exactly 5 years. There goes 3.33! Well, let’s better not speak about the deep black hole in the budget we dug up along the way :-).