A teenager's guide to avoiding actual work

However, technically, switching an 'E' for an 'F' is flipping *two* bits :/

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The RDOS file system provided means for protecting files by setting attributes. Because RDOS, not being a multi-user system, had no notion of file ownership, attributes applied to all programs that accessed a file. The sense of the attribute bits was, in most cases, the opposite of that in Unix; if the bit was set, the operation was prohibited. Files were by default created with all attribute bits cleared, permitting all operations. The attribute bits, as identified by the letters used to identify them in a file listing, were:

    'R': prohibited reading
    'W': prohibited writing
    'P': "permanent file"; prohibited renaming or deleting the file
    'S': identified a "save" file, that is, one that contains an executable program.
    'N': prohibited symbolic links from linking to this file
    'A': attributed protected; prohibited any further changes to the file's attributes. (A file that had both P and A set became un-deletable, except by reformatting the disk.)
    'I': Prohibited reading or writing by means other than direct block I/O. (This was removed from later versions of RDOS.)
    '?' and '&': User-defined attributes, ignored by RDOS

http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/Data_General_RDOS

I was seventeen in 1990 and my girlfriend was throwing me out unless I got a job that week and I decided to cover myself and apply for a bunch of commission only telephone sales jobs that I felt that I could rely on one offer from the booby prize if I couldn't find better or a possibility that would buy me time. The first Monday afternoon interview I found myself talking to the manager of a magazine in the fastest growing quoted B2B publisher and I am thinking that I have blown it the conversation is faltering so I ask what format are media packs sent in and receive the most strained look so much to tell me I'm really done here and should make my excuses. Then I spot the pile of faxes overflowing the adjacent desk and work up the courage to inquire if the hard copies are needed for legal reasons and am I looking at a representative period of sales, spying the dollar invoices. This isn't helping me. The manager lifts up a nearby pile to reveal the first of many fax machines I am suddenly realising festoon every desk about 2 per 5 people. The room spins as I have flashbacks to my last summer job eternally loading and desnagging thermal fax rolls for my local pharmacy. Realising that I was done without a gambit I've still no idea what impetus was the cause but I blurted out "email doesn't have gophers in between you and your customers they'll answer your offers directly!" the cover sheets for every single fax had fluttered when the manager lifted them..Group Company... Operating Company... Country Region... Division... Department... Title...Recipient.... "URGENT ACTION REQUIRED TIME LIMITED QUOTATION ENCLOSED ACCORDING TO REQUEST "... and the longest paragraph of legal disclaimer insisting the recipient imdemnifies the sender for all sins expressly and especially in relation to the offered business contained within. "YOU mean I can sell through these things here!?!?!" the manager agitatedly pointing to the email address attached to the corporate address given by a display advertising page in his magazine. "Individually not only to some waste bin mailbox drop nobody cares about?". The total experience I held in any way whatsoever related to this was a blissful month using the Byte magazine exchange until C&D'd by my father on principle that I never told him about ancillary and necessary costs for a effectively essential second phone line he was certainly not putting in. I wasn't sure if I was right when I pointed to the ampersand @ sign and totally winged the dots were machine designation separators (thinking about bang paths) but in that very second my out reached and gambling hand found itself being shaken heartily and the smiling owner of this animated appendage was confirming "if I hire you you can't tell anyone else what you just told me - I hired you because I wanted someone who understands this not because you explained anything to me OK?". I was very OK indeed. I held my 18th birthday party in this office a few weeks later and I have just entered my 4th decade of finding computing knowledge goes very far indeed in the media industry.

I run a "CTO-for-hire" service with about 25 devs, product managers, and designers. I'd say at least a quarter of what we do is dropping in to rescue projects that have gone bad.

We're often treated like gold just for showing up, doing decent work, and bailing them out of a problem.

There's tons of work out there like this if you grow a reputation for being good and trustworthy, and you're willing to work through those really hard moments of everything being broken with no reason why yet. I'm 40 years old, and still just got the rush of excitement last week as I solved a major production problem for a company after a string of late nights. It's just fun.

2. Totally agreed about the value of other types of jobs as well. I will treasure my teenage and early 20s experiences as a Pizza Hut cook, Grocery cashier, and bet-taker at a race track for what I learned about those industries, how people work together, and the differences between intellectual and manual labor. As a salesperson, I also STILL reference knowledge from my experience in those industries when talking about new projects.