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Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

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Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#181

Post by beachy »

I was at IBM, fixing a critical mainframe that had brought the entire check clearance system for the country down.

An angry customer was breathing down my neck, making idiotic suggestions. I was rattled.

He wanted me to try swapping out some component. I said no, I was 100% sure that was not the problem. I was laser focused on fixing this problem.

Turned out I was wrong. Customer complained to my management and I got a sound bollocking and took a couple of steps backwards in my career.

I learned that day to always remember that, no matter how unlikely, you might be wrong.

As a sidenote, this is one of the 25 points of advice in John Perry Barlows "adult principles" which I discovered late in life. It is the only written work I have on my wall, with items 1, 3 and 10 marked with highlight pen by my wife as areas for personal development for me.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#182

Post by irateswami »

_y5hn wrote: post #97
Zelphyr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t feel too bad. My grandfather had the opportunity to buy some land in Atlanta in the late 60’s/early 70’s and turned it down because it was shanty town and the guy offering him the opportunity was a known crook. Shortly after that it became CNN Center.

This kind of feeling isn't really helpful to anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias It's better to stay in the present moment: What should you be doing now, to be/stay fulfilled? Your best successes are likely to be random, very hard to foresee and not what you expected at first, anyway.

When thinking about this, I always come back to the scene in "The Office" with Michael's Golden Ticket idea.

Long story short; Michael loses the company a bunch of money on a foolish marketing scheme, and gets Dwight to take the fall. David Wallace drives down to presumptively fire Dwight. Instead, when Wallace shows up, he gushes that Dwight is a genius because it appears that although the marketing campaign has cost an immense amount of money, somehow it worked out and Dunder Mifflin is, in the end, far in the black.

The moral of the story is judge decisions in the future by the information the person had at the time of making the decision. A stupid choice that happens to work out is still a stupid choice.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#183

Post by [deleted] »

texasbigdata wrote: post #171
ramesh31 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all hate it, but it pays the bills. It's ultimately better to be in this position as a thoughtful person aware of the consequences of your work, since they would just replace you with someone less conscionable otherwise.

Extended to absurdity this framework leads to cringey edge examples about could be justified on the basis “someone worse” exists.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#185

Post by rdtwo »

ckdarby wrote: post #130
rdtwo wrote: post #33

Report a defect in a product that production management did not want to fix. I got kicked off the project and it took years to clear my name.

Any reason why you stayed for years?

The low expectations and decent hourly pay make for great work life balance.

Besides at this point in my career my core competency is no longer being an engineer, it’s navigating organizational chaos to accomplish stuff.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#186

Post by clncy »

sdotsen wrote: post #20

Reinventing the wheel. So many hours wasted on creating something that already existed in the form of PHP libraries or Python libraries that are written by much smarter folks. I tell my guys now, tools such as Ansible exist, don't try to write a whole Bash program to mimic what Ansible can do.

Counter to that though, re-inventing the wheel is a great learning exercise.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#187

Post by rout39574 »

lucb1e wrote: post #55
somtum wrote: post #11

Staying in the first company of my professional career for too long. I would have learnt more and earned more if I moved companies regularly early on.

What if you're happy where you are, you're perfectly satisfied with your salary (above median income right after leaving school and increased ~35% since then), and there is basically 1 alternative company nearby (where you'd have a lot more travel) and the rest is either a leap (hoping that you'll like a different kind of work) or more than doubles your commute time (to >1h one-way)? I heard this advice before and at…

There's an opportunity cost in _moving_ too; ever heard the saying that three moves equals one fire? If you're in a position you find satisfying, and see a technical and financial advancement path that seems acceptable, don't trade the roots you're putting down for some theoretical improved later slope of earnings.

But keep your resume up to date, and go on interviews from time to time. See what the offers are, and do the math on them. And if the math says "Stay put", ignore the techbros who disdain roots. :)

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#189

Post by oldspleen »

ncmncm wrote: post #116

My biggest mistake, that I made again and again, was not leaving a job when it was time. I thought I had something to prove, but there was never any point to it. You don't owe anything to an employer. You can't prove anything to an employer. They have absolutely no loyalty to you, and care less than nothing about what is right or wrong, wise or foolish. So: If you ever think things might not turn out as well as you h…

> They have absolutely no loyalty to you, and care less than nothing about what is right or wrong, wise or foolish.

This is why one should choose opportunity over loyalty -- have no loyalty to location or corporation. Be an absolute opportunist, doing whatever is best for future in the current situation, unbound by the past.

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