I Work Best Under Stress (And My Family Pays For It)

I've always worked better under pressure.

High workload. Making things happen fast. Multiple projects I actually believe in.

That's when I'm at my best. When there's a lot on the line and I'm building something that matters.

The more projects on my plate, the more I want to take on. It's like a dopamine rush. Extra fuel to go even harder.

When work is calm, I get distracted. Lose focus. If something comes up, I'm not really in the mood. Then it becomes stressful, and suddenly I'm back in the routine.

High pressure Chris is the best version of Chris. At work, anyway.

At home? My family pays for it.

The Seesaw

Here's the pattern I've noticed:

The calmer work is, the calmer I am at home.

The more stressed work is, the more irritable I am at home.

It's like a seesaw. When one side goes up, the other goes down.

And my family is always on the losing end.

What It Actually Looks Like

Short fuse. No patience. No time to repeat myself.

I'm impatient with small things. Really dumb things.

Recently we had a lot of high-pressure projects at work. Things were intense. I was performing well. Getting shit done. Feeling good about it.

Then my toddler didn't want to put his shirt on.

And I just... couldn't deal with it.

Normally I'm patient with him. We play, we negotiate, we make it fun. But that morning? I needed to take a deep breath. Step away for a second.

That's my sign. The deep breath. The "I can't handle this right now."

I regrouped. Came back. We got the shirt on.

But then we went to walk the dog. And I had zero patience for the dog pulling on the leash.

It hit me: I get impatient and irritable easily when I'm under pressure at work.

My brain is eager to solve problems. Spit out more productivity. The pressure is calling and my kid needs me to help with a shirt.

The Professional vs. The Personal

Here's the thing that kills me:

At work, I can repeat myself three times to an engineer about an obtuse technical blocker, offer patient guidance, and feel like I'm doing my job.

At home? I snap at my wife after she asks me something twice.

I have endless professional bandwidth for problems that generate revenue, and zero emotional bandwidth for the people I love.

The people I care about most get the worst version of me.

I Catch Myself

I do catch myself in the moment.

I stop. Take that deep breath. Try to look at it objectively.

That's a good skill to have. But it doesn't mean I'm coping with it.

Sometimes I can pull it back. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes it just snaps anyway.

And it's almost always at my wife. She gets the brunt of it.

She understands the pattern now. It's not a surprise anymore. But it's definitely not the best thing to experience.

We talk about it a lot. But it's more implicit when it happens. In hindsight, we always discuss it.

What I'm Trying

I'm trying some stuff to manage it.

Meditation. Yoga. Natural vitamins for stress relief.

I'm not sure if it's working yet. I'm tracking it. So far, no real improvement. But also no negative effects. It just... seems not great.

The thing is, I've been like this my entire professional life. It's not new.

I don't know if I can change how I'm wired.

The Research Says I'm Not Alone

Apparently there's a term for this: high sensation seeking or Type T personality.

People who need high stimulation. Who thrive under pressure. Who enjoy having a lot going on at one time, are good at balancing competing demands, and work best with a looming deadline.

It's linked to dopamine - the neurotransmitter associated with reward.

That tracks. Work under pressure gives me a hit. Solving urgent problems feels good. The rush of shipping something at the last minute. The focus that comes when everything's on fire.

Your toddler asking you to play blocks doesn't give you that same dopamine hit.

But here's the part they don't advertise:

When life becomes too predictable, high sensation seekers look for ways to stir things up. They're quickly susceptible to boredom and dislike repetition.

In extreme cases, they may procrastinate on tasks or create stress where none exists.

And sometimes people who thrive on stress end up creating stress that affects their stress-avoidant peers.

Replace "peers" with "family" and you have my life.

The Fear of Exploitation

I haven't told my team I work better under stress.

I'm afraid they'd exploit it. Give me more high-pressure work because they know I thrive on it.

Maybe that's paranoid. But writing this publicly might exploit it anyway. We'll see.

My family knows. My wife is very good at trying to notify me. Trying to keep me from always being in stress mode.

She knows there has to be some balance. The seesaw can't always be tilted one way.

My Brain Never Stops

It's not just mornings. It's anytime throughout the day.

My brain wants to stop whatever personal thing is happening and get back to solving those high-pressure problems.

The toddler needs help with something. The dog needs walking. My wife wants to talk about weekend plans.

And my brain is already at work. Already running through the problems that need solving. The decisions that need making.

I can't turn it off. And when I'm under pressure at work, it's even worse.

The pull to get back to those problems is constant. The personal stuff feels like an interruption.

My toddler needs more connection now. More reassurance. Because we introduced a new baby into his life.

And I'm standing there mentally at work already, taking deep breaths so I don't snap at him about a shirt.

What Would Have To Change

I don't know.

Ideally, there would be some way to notify people at home that I'm in this mode. Some signal that work is intense right now and I'm going to be grumpy.

But that feels like asking them to accommodate my inability to cope.

I'm also trying to keep reducing the stress. Reduce the irritability at home. Find ways to separate work brain from home brain.

But I haven't really found high-pressure work that doesn't come home with me. Because it's mentally draining. Your brain is overfiring all day.

Then you come home and there's nothing left.

The Question I Can't Answer

Am I wired for this? Is this just how some people are built?

Or did I become this way? Professional life rewarding the high-pressure performance until I needed it to function?

I don't know.

I know other engineering managers exist. I don't know if they're like this too.

Are you the type who thrives on calm, predictable work? Or do you need the chaos to feel alive?

I genuinely don't know which is more common. Or if there's even a "normal" way to be.

What I Know For Sure

The seesaw is real.

Calm work = calm home. Stressed work = grumpy Chris.

I need to figure out how to design a system for my own high-sensation seeking personality, a system that captures the work reward without exporting the stress cost.

That's the part I'm still trying to figure out.

Let's connect on LinkedIn - do you thrive under pressure too? How do you keep it from bleeding into home?