231–240 of 505 posts
I was a teenage intern, and my software engineering team was crunching in the evening on a project, when there was a problem on a workstation. The sysadmin was gone for the day, so I was asked for help. I saw the root filesystem was full, partly due to a bunch of junk files in `/tmp/`, including some files/directories that started with `.`... You might guess where this is going, when someone hadn't yet developed good…
Working at the NSA. I am no longer able to travel to mainland China out of concern for my safety. I work closely with hardware and the inability to visit Chinese factories is becoming a career limitation.
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This is frequently still beneficial for the organisation, even when you're doing it for the wrong reasons, and is almost a necessary stepping stone towards achieving true understanding. It's hard to identify nuance until you discover some strongly held belief doesn't apply as well you once thought. But I suppose if you could go back and do it differently, you would, so I can appreciate why you consider this to be a m…
One important distinction is between holding strong opinions personally vs being in a position of authority and forcing those (strongly held, weakly justified) opinions on the rest of the team. That’s a quick way to erode morale. Flip side of the coin: having strong opinions but being open to discussion and reconsidering your position in the face of new evidence is a great way to earn respect.
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.
I had the benefit of my first 4 companies imploding within 2 years.
Not having a lawyer review my ESOP.
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What do you mean by having an "intact career"? Did leaving too early harm your career, and if yes, how so?
Depends on the company you’re interviewing with and (IME) region you’re looking for work. In my 26 years since graduating university, I’ve had 13 jobs. So an average of 1.8 years per job. My longest was 6 years at Amazon (ironically enough considering they have such a high turnover) and my shortest was 3 weeks (I knew during the interview it wasn’t a good fit, but I was young and they threw a stupid amount of money a…
What's the answer?
Not keeping up with professional connections as I made them from the start. Even a "happy birthday" card would've been enough, but here we are.
Why do you consider this to be a mistake? I've thought about this in the past, but can't really articulate my motivations, and in the end I haven't followed through. Some of my previous colleagues have fit into the gap between co-worker and friend. I would never spend time with them outside of work and since we no longer work together I'm not sure what I'm really missing, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
I am guilty of the same.
And it actually depends more hugely on exactly particular goals which are always going to change over a career anyway.
Especially if you allow for this in advance, the very same actions or inactions of the past can turn out to be a great advantage in case an unforseen future comes along.
Where you can respond to a moving goalpost or even help place it in the path of your most applicable strengths, when you need it most.
You certainly won't be able to change those early career actions or inactions regardless.
If you're working at a place where you'll be punished or "get fired" for mistakes such as the ones you exemplified, and you have the chance (most of us are fortunate enough to have more plenty of options) - avoid that early career mistake and change jobs (-: