The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
BREWING THE BEER is a good excuse, ngl.
3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
181–190 of 421 posts
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn’t call the typical SW career “little or no reward”
Sure 300K TC seems impressive relative to the Barista you buy your Latte from but it pales in comparison to the amount that people like Zuckerburg, Musk, Bezos, etc have increased their wealth in the past 2 years for example, which is on the order of 10s of Billions. You are far closer to the homeless you guy step over on the way to Twitter HQ than to Jack Dorsey and sure if you deliver a great result this quarter ma…
You're only closer to the homeless guy with a completely naive take on the utility of money.
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#183Seeing the frequency of the days off and the reasons really humanizes these people that (at least I) just imagine as some alien beings that I had nothing in common with. Also there’s just some that are funny given cultural norms today - I’m assuming it was more akin to taking bereavement leave, but imagining telling my boss I won’t be working because I’ll be drinking for 3 days is pretty comical to me: day 24 (LIBATI…
I think "Brewing Beer" would be a perfectly acceptable excuse in a lot of these new hipstery startups
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#184The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
> Year 40 Penduauu: month 1 of Spring, day 14 (DRINKING WITH KHONSU) "Khonsu, you have any good ideas?" "I have a bad one."
Later on in the tablet, they refine it into "MAKING REMEDIES WITH KHONSU".
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't really think SWEs are being taken advantage of the same way other employees at successful tech companies are. (Coming from the perspective of an SWE)
My vote for most taken advantage of is the on-call Ops people. Salaries sometimes half that of the SWEs, expected to be woken up at 3am, interrupted all day by "urgent" requests ("I can't connect to the server I need access now " -> "whoops it was my SSH key"), responsible for the product running 24/7, respond immediately to security incidents ("patch this asap"), stay up overnight for maintenance or deploys to legac…
It's backup day, so i'm pissed off. Being the BOFH however, does have its advantages.
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4 seasons? Ancient Egyptian :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_calendar : “The ancient Egyptian calendar – a civil calendar – was a solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper. Each season was divided into four month…
So, a better calendar than ours :(
The Longest Year in Human History (46 B.C.E.) - https://youtu.be/fD-R35DSSZY gets into the "why the year we have is designed the way it is" ... though it takes 22 minutes to get to that part.
It wasn't really better as the 30 * 12 + 5 approach needed manual application of the + 5... which is what the new calendar was trying to avoid.
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#187Inscription translation:
Huynefer: month 2 of Winter, day 7 (ILL), month 2 of Winter, day 8 (ILL), month 3 of Summer, day 3 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), month 3 of Summer, day 5 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), day 7 (ILL), day 8 (ILL)
Amenemwia: month 1 of Winter, day 15 (EMBALMING HORMOSE), month 2 of Winter, day 7 (OFF ABSENT), month 2 of Winter, day 8 (BREWING BEER), month 2 of Winter, day 16 (STRENGTHENING THE DOOR), day 23 (ILL), day 24 (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 6 (WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER)
Inhurkhawy: month 4 of Spring, day 17 (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING)
Neferabu: month 4 of Spring, day 15 (HIS DAUGHTER WAS BLEEDING), day 17 (BURYING THE GOD), month 2 of Summer, day 7 (EMBALMING HIS BROTHER), day 8 (LIBATING FOR HIM), month 4 of Summer, day 26 (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING).
Paser: month 1 of Winter, day 25 (LIBATING FOR HIS SON), month 1 of Summer, day 27 (BREWING BEER), month 2 of Summer, day 14 (ILL), day 15 (ILL)
Pakhuru: month 4 of Summer, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7 (ILL), day 8
Seba: month 4 of Spring, day 17 (THE SCORPION BIT HIM), month 1 of Winter, day 25 (ILL), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING), month 1 of Summer, day 25, 26, 27 (ILL), month 2 of Summer, day 2, day 3 (ILL), month 2 of Summer, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7 (ILL: erased),
Neferemsenut: month 2 of Winter, day 7 (ILL)
Simut: month 1 of Winter, day 18 (OFF ABSENT), month 1 of Winter, day 25 (HIS WIFE WAS … AND BLEEDING), month 4 of Winter, day 23 (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING)
Khons: month 4 of Spring, day 7 (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 25 (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 26 (ILL), day 27, day 28 (ILL), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (WITH HIS GOD), month 4 of Summer, day 26 (ILL), month 1 of Spring, day 14 (HIS FEAST), day 15 (HIS FEAST)
Inuy: month 1 of Winter, day 24 (FETCHING STONE FOR QENHERKHEPSHEF), month 2 of Winter day 8 (DITTO), month 2 of Winter, day 17 (OFF ABSENT WITH THE SCRIBE), month 2 of Winter, day 24
Sunero: month 2 of Winter, day 8 (BREWING BEER), month 2 of Summer, day 2 (ILL), day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7, day 8 (ILL)
Nebenmaat: month 3 of Summer, day 21 (ILL), day 22 (DITTO), month 4 of Summer, day 4 (DITTO), day 5, day 6 (DITTO), day 7, day 8 (DITTO), month 4 of Summer, day 24 (ILL), day 25 (ILL), day 26 (ILL)
Merwaset: month 2 of Winter, day 17 (BREWING BEER), month 3 of Summer, day 5 (ILL), day 7, day 8 (ILL), month 3 of Summer, day 17 (ILL), day 18 (WITH HIS BOSS)
Ramose: month 2 of Winter, day 14 (ILL), day 15 (ILL), month 2 of Summer, day 2 (MOURNING HIS SON), day 3 (ILL)
Bakenmut: month 2 of Winter, day 7 (FETCHING STONE FOR THE SCRIBE)
Rahotep: month 1 of Winter, day 14 (OFFFERING TO THE GOD), month 4 of Winter, day 25 (HIS DAUGHTER WAS BLEEDING), month 2 of Summer, day 5 (WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS SON), day 6, day 7, day 8 (DITTO), month 4 of Summer, day 7 (WITH THE SCRIBE), day 8 (WITH THE SCRIBE)
Iierniutef: month 2 of Winter, day 8 (OFF ABSENT), month 2 of Winter, day 17 (WITH THE SCRIBE), month 2 of Winter, day 23 (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 27 (WITH THE SCRIBE), day 28 (OFF ABSENT), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (WITH THE SCRIBE), month 1 of Spring, day 14
Nakhtamun: month 1 of Winter, day 18 (BREWING BEER), month 1 of Winter, day 25 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 13 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 14 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 15 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 16 (WITH HIS BOSS), day 17, day 18 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 24 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 3 of Winter, day 25 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 3 of Winter, day 26 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 3 of Winter, day 27 (WITH HIS BOSS), day 28 (WITH HIS BOSS), day … (WITH HIS BOSS), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (WITH THE SCRIBE), month 1 of Summer, day 16 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), day 17 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), month 1 of Summer, day 25 (ILL), day 26, day 27 (ILL) month 3 of Summer, day 21 Nakhtamun (WITH HIS BOSS)
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#188Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#189The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum here: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
How is "With his boss" an excuse?
From the curator’s comments: “[The] next most frequent [reason for absence] is being away with one’s superior doing private work for him, a practice that was not forbidden if done in moderation.”
Re: 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
The more history I read, the more I realize this is true. Technology changes but people don't.
Too bad evolution doesn't install basic learning as part of the default system. Humans at this point should just be a new container being launched with a default level of software pre-installed. Would we be more advanced as a species if we didn't have to constantly teach each new instance 1+1=2 so that each new instance already new multiplication tables from 1 to 25 type of thing?
Instead we are booted with old useless drivers like "Recognize snake"