A software engineer based in Bengaluru has sparked a widespread social media discussion after designing a custom tool that tracks which of his colleagues cause him the most stress during workplace meetings. By cross-referencing physiological data from his fitness wearable with his professional calendar, the engineer managed to pinpoint exact moments of high tension during his workday.
The developer, identified as Pankaj, shared details of his unconventional project on X, explaining how he managed to map out his physical stress responses. He disclosed that he reverse-engineered his fitness device’s data stream to capture granular, minute-by-minute heart-rate readings, which he then systematically aligned with specific scheduled calendar events and meeting participants. “I hooked my whoop to my work calendar to find which coworker gives me the most stress,” he wrote.
The programming experiment resulted in a digital ranking list that cataloged his team members by the level of cardiovascular spikes they seemingly induced. “I now have a leader board and I think about it daily,” Pankaj added. His online post features an image of his wrist-bound tracker alongside blurred code snippets displaying the attendee stress rankings. The viral project has triggered a mix of entertainment and skepticism online, while fueling a broader debate regarding alternative uses for biometric data.
