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Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#161

Post by brailsafe »

drewcoo wrote: post #43
daymanstep wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question and genuinely curious: what is difficult about showing up on time?

"Just showing up" can mean dealing with all the daily annoyances. https://www.inc.com/danny-iny/woody-allen-said-show-up-to-su... If it's not hard, why can't everyone seem to do it? I have a friend who's a defense lawyer. He tells me that prison must be the happiest place on earth, given the lengths that people go to just to get a chance of getting in. It's funny and illustrative, just like the Woody Allen quote abou…

While I agree with that version of the phrase, and have applied it in other areas, I meant literally showing up at a specific time, consistently over a long period. Applying the Woody Allen quote though, I absolutely believe this is why I'm in good shape and have a decent real in-person social network.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#162

Post by brailsafe »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #99
riehwvfbk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untreated ADHD can make this really really really hard. And the worst part is: nobody will understand because it is not hard for most people, so everyone assumes that being late is a character issue. To understand how hard it is, imagine that you have periodic blackouts during which you completely forget not only that you need to be on time for work, but that work is a thing that exists in this universe. You cannot c…

We should make it a social expectation that you can show up any time ±1 hour from the official start time of your office job. That way, "I'm ready half an hour early: I could catch the earlier train" becomes an actual thing, and you don't have to kill time for half an hour and risk missing two trains in a row.

It would be better, as long as there isn't an implied strict start time, like a morning scrum every day.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#163

Post by mablopoule »

massysett wrote: post #144
mablopoule wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just need to meet someone like that, they are rare but they exists. It doesn't means that they are good at everything , just that they are better than you in every way. I had a colleague like that. She was super nice, super smart, very good looking, was well-balanced emotionally, and dated a professional athlete. The kind of person who has a very good career, and then train for the marathon on the weekend. Even h…

> just that they are better than you in every way. Nope, I have never once met a person like that and am confident I never will. OK, so John Urschel plays football and is great at math. Are you telling me he is also a particle physicist, a statesman, a mountain man, a mob boss, and an astronaut? If not how is he good at “everything”?

Assuming you're all of those, then one day you might meet someone younger than you who does all of these a bit better than you, and also is good at piano. And he or she will be nice and graceful about it, too, so you won't even be able to hate on them.

It's not a personal attack against you, it can happen to (almost) everyone :D.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#166

Post by hnthrow289570 »

deadbabe wrote: post #146
hu3 wrote: post #83

Learning that some folks can produce so much value with crappy code. I've seen entire teams burn so much money by overcomplicating projects. Bikesheding about how to implement DDD, Hexagonal Architecture, design patterns, complex queues that would maybe one day be required if the company scaled 1000x, unnecessary eventual consistency that required so much machinery and man hours to keep data integrity under control.…

I wonder if you’ll still admire them when they leave and the burden of maintaining the mess they left behind falls on you.

I'm numb to it. It's just a fact of life because tenures are so short, quality is often very opinionated, and jobs are readily available, and you usually get a raise from the next job too. You do what you can to stay employed until you can get the next job lined up.

It has become overwhelmingly obvious that the industry is never going to reach a state where technical debt and bad code is exceptional and high quality is the norm. If there is a maximum amount of pessimism I could have, it would be for this.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#167

Post by medymed »

nicbou wrote: post #78

In college, meeting someone that was better than me by every conceivable metric. You'd think that he beat me at one thing by neglecting another, but nope, the guy was excelling in every category. Perfect grades, involved in many communities, and generally pleasant to be around. There was no caveat, no excuse. Dude just straight up rocked. I have met more people like that while travelling. I felt badass riding my moto…

I wonder if super-people like this balance their various activities so that doing each charges them up for some of the others, and then they can hit a resonance like state of being in-the-zone excelling at each one in turn. And not letting small interruptions derail the system. It would be the opposite of being stuck in a soul-sucking rut between unsatisfying work and unsatisfying non-work life.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#168

Post by bdangubic »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #24

From 2011-2012 was Senior intelligence officer for Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, which is one of the most strategic bases in the United States department of Defense. As SIO you are statutorily responsible for the joint worldwide intelligence, communication system (JWICS), maintenance, security, growth, interruptibility, etc… in addition to managing all Perssec for SCI holders, and maintaining control, security and f…

so… many… acronyms… is this a thing in military like there are million acronyms everyone uses??! :)

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#169

Post by mynameishere »

hu3 wrote: post #83

Learning that some folks can produce so much value with crappy code. I've seen entire teams burn so much money by overcomplicating projects. Bikesheding about how to implement DDD, Hexagonal Architecture, design patterns, complex queues that would maybe one day be required if the company scaled 1000x, unnecessary eventual consistency that required so much machinery and man hours to keep data integrity under control.…

That's not bikeshedding, but the product of these types:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_astronaut

...bikeshedding is when you have that all-day, all-teams meeting where marketing and design and management argue about whether to put X content in the header or footer.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#170

Post by penjelly »

maybe related, but everything I do for the first time, I will do incorrectly at least in part. Even down to things like opening a new type of jar, taking public transit in a new city, making a big purchase, etc. I don't know if it's just me, or says something about my intelligence or not.
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