Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#181

Post by o-__-o » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:27 AM UTC

gonzo41 wrote: post #173

jsjw7sbw wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with filling shelves, that job felt sometimes a lot more complex than my development job nowadays. The store I worked for didn't in general allow anything extra to be stored in the warehouse. This lead to the filling load sometimes having excess products that you had to fit somewhere. I really enjoyed making space by moving and rearranging products on the shelves. The products came in wrapped in big rol…

I used to have a job in the back warehouse of a white goods store. I was moving around fridges all day long. It was a really good job. The best part was I couldn't take any fridges home with me in the evenings. I'd get home and my fridge would be already where it's meant to be. Also no one wanted me to do a fridge moving side project in the evenings.

this comment wins the thread. so apropos.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#182

Post by marcus_holmes » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:27 AM UTC

bobosha wrote: post #59

That even the best experts are winging it.

Came here to say this.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#183

Post by circlefavshape » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:27 AM UTC

All the world is a stage

Everything you do in work is a performance for an audience. Know your audience (it's probably not your actual customers), and know what they are looking for

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#184

Post by devurand » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:29 AM UTC

jgresty wrote: post #119

Software is bought based on how big the vendor is, by people who will never use the software.

This is painfully on point where I currently am.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#185

Post by kerrsclyde » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

Clients only care about getting their job done.

Past work portfolio, companies you've worked with, your qualifications - give it 2mins max, then spend the rest of the time talking about their project.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#186

Post by UK-Al05 » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

jakobegger wrote: post #175

austinjp wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that the reason why SaaS have problems all the time is that typically devs are changing stuff all the time and accidentally breaking things left and right, not that software is inherently unreliable. While I'm sure that some developers go rogue, this feels like a business or management issue. Teams pushed to release fast and early. I wonder how often the developers in teams that release buggy software have…

> this feels like a business or management issue It's not a management issue, it's deeper than that. Whenever you change something, you risk breaking something. It doesn't matter if you have unit tests, integrations tests, code review, staged rollouts or whatever else. Every time you change something, you risk breaking something. It does not matter how good your QA process is. > improve processes and legacy code Refa…

That old software is full bugs, they've just figured out to work with them.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#187

Post by CyberFonic » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:33 AM UTC

gonzo41 wrote: post #173

jsjw7sbw wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with filling shelves, that job felt sometimes a lot more complex than my development job nowadays. The store I worked for didn't in general allow anything extra to be stored in the warehouse. This lead to the filling load sometimes having excess products that you had to fit somewhere. I really enjoyed making space by moving and rearranging products on the shelves. The products came in wrapped in big rol…

I used to have a job in the back warehouse of a white goods store. I was moving around fridges all day long. It was a really good job. The best part was I couldn't take any fridges home with me in the evenings. I'd get home and my fridge would be already where it's meant to be. Also no one wanted me to do a fridge moving side project in the evenings.

When I had my pickup truck, friends would ask me for help in moving fridges when moving between rentals. Typical payment was beer and pizza so not too bad.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#188

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:34 AM UTC

TheGallopedHigh wrote: post #115

asimovfan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The state of having tasks to be done is alone declared as the greatest of sorrows. When that exists, how do the two, happiness and absence of sorrow, arise?" Tripurarahasyam (from wiki: The Tripura Rahasya (Devanagari: त्रिपुरा रहस्य, Tripurā Rahasya) meaning The Mystery beyond the Trinity, is an ancient literary work in Sanskrit believed to have been narrated by Dattatreya to Parashurama. It is an ancient prime tex…

Can you explain this a bit further and how it applies to this context?

Not the parent, but the fragment in question explains how the so-called mundane pleasures give no permanent satisfaction and that one should instead focus on the true meaning of life, which the text defines as the deepest level of consciousness that is present in the three modes of being (being awake, dream, and deep dreamless sleep).

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#189

Post by CyberFonic » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:36 AM UTC

Antoninus wrote: post #96

I'm a developer like many people here. One thing that people who don't program don't realize is that its a laborious job. It seems like its a fun job with lots of 'hanging out' but its more like 4-5 hours a day / 5 days week looking at a text editor and a terminal trying to focus and not be distracted. At the end of the day, I'm exhausted

I find the programming part Ok. It's the meetings and constantly being interrupted by managers that sends me batty.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#190

Post by Infinitesimus » Tue, Jan 14, 2020, 10:36 AM UTC

ipnon wrote: post #140

Gnarl wrote: post #44

How almost no one understands that simply trading your time as units for money is ridiculous.

An equally terse generalization: You're trading your labor for money. Your time is marginally valuable.

It's often about time instead labor for those not self-employed though.

Time has a universal ceiling for us humans and is the ultimate boundary