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Some terrible personal news

mattcutts.com

101–110 of 234 posts

Re: Some terrible personal news

#101
post #80
post #46

I got married last year. Before I met my wife, I wasn't sure what I was doing with my life. For a time, I was fairly depressed about lots of mistakes I had made. I wasn't sure I had anyone who could understand me or help me. My brother introduced me to my wife and we hit it off. My wife gave me emotional stability and motivation to do things. The few times we've had fights, I cry when I hurt her. She is everything to…

Please do see a psychologist. Depending on your personal background you may find this advice offensive or annoying, but give it a try.

Reading my comment, I can understand why you'd advise this. I think it's unnecessary at this point because I understand a lot more about myself that I didn't before and was getting to a good place just before I met her. Thankfully, never had been suicidal or anything like that. Thanks for the concern though. :)

Re: Some terrible personal news

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have long felt that death certificates are done completely wrong. Instead of just listing the proximate medical cause, they should list the true cause: he died of loneliness; he died of a broken heart; he died because he was homeless and couldn't find his way to the help he needed. When those are the causes of death that we start to track, perhaps the world will become a better place.

The farther you get from the proximate medical cause, the more supposition and speculation is involved.

True, but his point about missing information that could lead to the root cause is very valid. In some cases addressing the root cause is the only way to really prevent death.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that....weird? My coworker has worked here for 25 years now, and he's still "just" a programmer, was never interested in taking a managerial/lead position. There's plenty of programmers who have 10~20 years of seniority here. And it's a games company, so it's not like these people work on some archaic systems - major, triple A releases everyone heard about.

Yes, because it's common knowledge to change companies every ~3 years to get a 20%+ salary increase instead of a miserly 0-10%.

When you make enough, making more money means less to you and you care much more about the workplace, the people, the mission.

Either that, or find a company that does raises in line with what you’d get from moving. Netflix is famous for this (and has high retention), but there are other companies. The company I work for has a similar approach and I know I’m unlikely to make more at another company unless I move into finance, in which case see above.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#104
Loss like that is terrible.

If it helps any, Matt, I found that writing down as much as I could somehow helped me get my head around it. It didn't help with the pain, but it was somehow reassuring to know that the feelings I had right after the loss had been captured somewhere forever.

I don't have any words of wisdom, and my sharing my own story probably won't help. Somehow we must carry on. There are many times that I forget why we must somehow carry on, but I find if I just cling to that phrase long enough, I eventually remember again. Our thoughts are with you.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that....weird? My coworker has worked here for 25 years now, and he's still "just" a programmer, was never interested in taking a managerial/lead position. There's plenty of programmers who have 10~20 years of seniority here. And it's a games company, so it's not like these people work on some archaic systems - major, triple A releases everyone heard about.

Yes, because it's common knowledge to change companies every ~3 years to get a 20%+ salary increase instead of a miserly 0-10%.

In western Europe, you do this couple of times (not as external consultant of course, but as perm employee), and you get semi-permanently branded as unreliable and unstable. For good reasons. I can see reasoning for this and it makes sense to me (i did it couple of times myself when younger, wouldn't' do that now). In growing economies, or where there isn't enough experienced IT people this isn't valid though.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that....weird? My coworker has worked here for 25 years now, and he's still "just" a programmer, was never interested in taking a managerial/lead position. There's plenty of programmers who have 10~20 years of seniority here. And it's a games company, so it's not like these people work on some archaic systems - major, triple A releases everyone heard about.

Yes, because it's common knowledge to change companies every ~3 years to get a 20%+ salary increase instead of a miserly 0-10%.

Quality of life is much more important than pay past a certain point.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#107
Matt Cutts is one of those rare persons who appear to be so nice that I find it admirable. I wish him and his family all the best in processing this tragic event. Life can be so unfair.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Fifteen years in a single company.

Is that....weird? My coworker has worked here for 25 years now, and he's still "just" a programmer, was never interested in taking a managerial/lead position. There's plenty of programmers who have 10~20 years of seniority here. And it's a games company, so it's not like these people work on some archaic systems - major, triple A releases everyone heard about.

At my company anyone here less than 10 years is a newbie. You're not an old timer until you reach 30 years, and a few grandees make it to 50.

It's a big old company though (one of the oldest in the field), and this is in broadcast engineering which is far more conservative. IME Peoppe in the Internet facing parts are far more flitty.

While some older engineers are happy to retreat into comfortably old technologies like cameras and microphones, there's plenty more who havve spent the time to learn about the trend towards IP. They are very valuable, in contrast to say a "generic" network engineer, because they understand the domain, they fundamentally know a 20ms outage on a network is catastrophic.

Re: Some terrible personal news

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because it's common knowledge to change companies every ~3 years to get a 20%+ salary increase instead of a miserly 0-10%.

When you make enough, making more money means less to you and you care much more about the workplace, the people, the mission. Either that, or find a company that does raises in line with what you’d get from moving. Netflix is famous for this (and has high retention), but there are other companies. The company I work for has a similar approach and I know I’m unlikely to make more at another company unless I move into…

How do you plan to move into finance?
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