131–140 of 322 posts
Sadly, after more than 20 years building software, _NEVER_ trust a business person. My faith in humanity had to have me bitten by this the hard way more than once.
My "life lesson" happened when I was about 18. I was running a game server hosting company, everything was organic and I took it from 1 physical 1U server which I owned and co-located to about 10 servers, before I made a catastrophic mistake. Anyway, I reached a point where my colocation fees were about 1.2k per month, I had been with my supplier from the very beginning, so from 1 server... At the peak I was grossing…
I don't really understand the issue. Didn't you buy a bunch of prepaid servers and server administration software for just 12k?
A few things: 1) People's words are like deep water. Pay careful attention to what people say--it's profoundly revealing (more than they realize). By listening, I've been able to identify people who intended to trouble me in some way. It's incredible, they just can't keep it inside even when pretending to be nice. 2) Actions speak louder than words (given #1, this is really saying something). Don't look for people to…
HR is there to protect the company, not you.
My SO is a HR Manager. I hear the constant drama first hand over dinner. My take: HR are angels after hiring and during onboarding. After that, any correspondence will be kept to an absolute minimum.
Never write something in e-mail that you wouldn't be happy seeing forwarded to the person you're talking about. Always keep records of what you've said and agreed, people will have a different recollection of events down the line, and a written record is very handy at that point.
Give negative feedback in private email, then it gets forwarded to multiple layers of management behind your back, then a single quote from this email out of context is cut-n-pasted into your perf review few months later by management. (Happened in big advertising company that also runs search engine).
Because doing the later can give you physical symptoms like real back pain and migraines (collectively known as TMS) and millions of people suffer from it, get surgeries, medicine yet don't know that their persona is the cause of their physical pains.
This is what I learned the hard way after suffering from such aches and pains daily for nearly two decades and geting better quickly by just understanding the most basic thing about how our mind and body works.
It isn’t the most capable person who gets promoted. It’s the person who can make their superiors believe they’re the most capable.
I've got a slightly different take, though I think they have some overlap: Capability for a job is more than raw competence, which is why most people reject the Brilliant Asshole, even when that person is genuinely brilliant. I've seen some inarguably mediocre workers get some great roles – and I've worked alongside of some of them. And I loved every minute. If you're cranking out 65% of the work and make the team 40…
My "life lesson" happened when I was about 18. I was running a game server hosting company, everything was organic and I took it from 1 physical 1U server which I owned and co-located to about 10 servers, before I made a catastrophic mistake. Anyway, I reached a point where my colocation fees were about 1.2k per month, I had been with my supplier from the very beginning, so from 1 server... At the peak I was grossing…
> So, things went sour literally from day one. It turns out that he either fudged all of the sites on the billing software or they decided to just exodus on day one of me taking over. I don't really understand the issue. Didn't you buy a bunch of prepaid servers and server administration software for just 12k?
I bought him with the intention of moving into "web hosting", since at that time my business was entirely focused ONLY on providing services such as "teamspeak", "battlefield 2" hosting, GMod, Call of Duty etc, I thought I needed to diversify, because when I started "1 slot" was about 1.50-2.00 per user. Then it just started being cut throat and I ended up overselling to keep up with the competition's lower prices.
I ended up inheritting bills I could not pay at the datacenter. Old servers that weren't worth the scrap metal and obviously a loan... I started to struggle to cover the loan and ran into huge/unbearable stress from my mistakes. It was just a series of rushed decisions, head down, plough through a purchase because I thought it would help me grow, when it was the complete opposite.
I can't even remember what the billing software was, but it was something off the shelf... and was for an industry (web hosting) I really didn't know much about. Not that that mattered since I never had to support any of the customers...
Update: [1]: I researched it for my curiosity.. It was called TCAdmin. Was pretty critical to my early success, without it I wouldn't have had a clue what I was doing.
Sadly, after more than 20 years building software, _NEVER_ trust a business person. My faith in humanity had to have me bitten by this the hard way more than once.
Also, watch out for business people disguised as tech people. They're the most dangerous of all.