gear_up_assignment.md

Turing Culture: Developing Empathetic Programmers

Reflection to Why is Empathy Essential and Can you teach people to have empathy.

• Empathy plays a sizeable role in my life, as a father and a husband, empathy is often times required to better understand what is going on in the lives of my children and spouse. Being empathetic not only in my family life but also in my work, has helped me build better connections with those around me. Empathy, is helpful when creating anything, including software. In the article Why is Empathy Essential they mention that if you think about the end user and empathyze with them, the product you design in this case software will be of better quality and more successful. Empathy is also helpful when working as a member of a team, empathy facilitates the building of connections between individuals. It is easier to work in a team when the members understand and respect eachother. A situation in which my ability to empathize was helpful... when I was in the military, I was in charge of a group of lower enlisted soldiers. In this group, I had an individual soldier that was seen by the command as a trouble soldier. He was often late to formation, the work he produced was subpar and his physical fitness scores were in desperate need of improvement. His previous NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) had simply written him off and gave little care to this soldier. When I took over as his NCO, I consistently pulled him aside to talk with him about what was going on, eventually I was able to find out that this soldier was under a lot of financial stress and was having problems at home. After helping him with recommendation of resources and someone to talk to, eventualy his performance improved and was no longer seen as a trouble soldier. THis would not have been possible if I had not placed myself in his shoes. It is most difficult to be empathetic in a professional setting when you are in a competition, either for a promotion or an award. The way I can improve my empathy skills when faced with a situation like this is to remember that regardless of what's going on, everyone is still a person deserving of empathy. We as individuals do not know what is going on in the lives of others unless we take the time to talk and listen with them. You may be surprised at what you learn.