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What Is a Wildcard Person?

wildcardpeople.com

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Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#121

Post by randomdata »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…

The generalist’s solution to income is to have multiple jobs. If done correctly, the sum of those, even if individually lower paying, jobs should exceed a specialist role.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#122

Post by soggylaundry »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…

> You'll just never make the same kind of money as the person that knows Kubernetes backwards and forwards and not much else.

is there a statistics on this?

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#124

Post by lokimedes »

robmerki wrote: post #66
lokimedes wrote: post #23

This is me, this is how I generate value as a full-blown ADHD case. I wonder if there’s a correlation? To add credibility in a corporate setting I have somehow achieved a fearsome combination of Physics PhD, MBA and 25 years of wildcard software development / entrepreneurship. That, combined, legitimizes why I’m allowed to be the wildcard. How have you others managed to be this deep generalist in a specialist’s world…

This entire article was born from conversations I was having when doing research for my book on ADHD ( https://adhdpro.xyz/ ), so it’s a pretty strong correlation I would say :)

Thanks for the link! I just bought your book :)

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#125

Post by i386 »

Laakeri wrote: post #119
thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…

For example Google hires mostly generalists and lots of people who care about income and career progression work there.

Google does not. It hires a lot of specialists and fungible people.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#126

Post by exmadscientist »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #32

17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…

> Well-run organizations -- that is, organizations that can afford to pay good money for talent -- have clearly defined roles for people, and need only a few generalists to handle the nitty-gritties of cross-department communications and management.

> The organizations that most need generalists are the ones that are constantly struggling to get their crap working right, so they need people who can do a little bit of everything, and as a consequence, they also can't afford to pay such people a lot of money.

> It is much easier for a specialist to argue their value than a generalist.

Yes, but... when these organizations need to staff a small weird project or straighten out a mess, they often hire a consultant. Consultants get paid a lot of money and their work changes frequently. This is a great place to be if you're a "wildcard". You can work for yourself (high risk, high ceilings on pay, lots of sales time) or a consultancy (low risk to you, modest employer risk, lower ceilings on your pay, little sales time).

If you have to market yourself as a "wildcard", remember that just like you never want to be a "programmer who can do X", you want to be an "X who can program", so it goes with being a generalist. No one really wants to hire someone who doesn't have some specific talent. So you're a "generalist X", not just a "generalist". (Probably, hopefully, you do have some area or other of more-detailed knowledge!)

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#127

Post by Manjuuu »

J_cst wrote: post #3

That's basically talking about me. On my job they call me Mr. Wolf and I love it. The description is quite accurate, main difference being that the article focuses mainly on semi-marketing tasks instead I tend to be assigned higher level issues (I mainly deal with emergencies raised by our CEOs). It was nice to read it, I feel less lonely now.

To make you feel even less lonely, you are not the only one that was called Mr Wolf :)

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#128

Post by Manjuuu »

synu wrote: post #22

I tried hiring on these traits in the past, one challenge there is that almost everyone self-identifies as this kind of person (and it’s probably even true, to an extent.) It’s hard in the end to evaluate effectiveness of T-shaped people across a wide spectrum of potential tasks, but I am curious if others have figured it out.

Everyone can self-identify as they like, the real ones in this case are easy to spot just asking them to tell you some stories of absurd problems they solved. They always have a boatload of war stories.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#129

Post by Ehh_01 »

robmerki wrote: post #66
lokimedes wrote: post #23

This is me, this is how I generate value as a full-blown ADHD case. I wonder if there’s a correlation? To add credibility in a corporate setting I have somehow achieved a fearsome combination of Physics PhD, MBA and 25 years of wildcard software development / entrepreneurship. That, combined, legitimizes why I’m allowed to be the wildcard. How have you others managed to be this deep generalist in a specialist’s world…

This entire article was born from conversations I was having when doing research for my book on ADHD ( https://adhdpro.xyz/ ), so it’s a pretty strong correlation I would say :)

Thanks for the book. I managed to "read" it whole in about an hour. And basically, yes I do have ADHD as you described half of my life even the "smart girls" example did hit me as I did had similar smart girls back in the day in my classes. Also I did already try most of that stuff in the book, but I don't want to try let's say shrooms and I already quit somking tobbacco 3 years ago after 10+ years smoking. So I guess right now all I need is to be diagnosed and get some meds which I already had a schedule for the next week done like two days ago and your book only solidifies me in that move. Only thing I'm scared of is that the doc wont take me serious and will try to avoid prescribin the meds. Or will try to extend the whole process for another 2-3 months before prescribing anything as its not that easy to get ADHD meds from where I'm from due to their bad "rep".

But yea thanks for your book I am 100% sure I have ADHD and I was sure of it for at least the last few years but it is really difficult to find a good professional to get the help you really need.

Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?

#130

Post by exmadscientist »

captainkrtek wrote: post #40
lokimedes wrote: post #23

This is me, this is how I generate value as a full-blown ADHD case. I wonder if there’s a correlation? To add credibility in a corporate setting I have somehow achieved a fearsome combination of Physics PhD, MBA and 25 years of wildcard software development / entrepreneurship. That, combined, legitimizes why I’m allowed to be the wildcard. How have you others managed to be this deep generalist in a specialist’s world…

I relate to this with my ADHD as well. I work for a certain cloud provider, and made my name by ambulance chasing both on my team and company-wide for interesting problems. Turned debugging complex networking/systems/security/etc. issues, regardless of my day to day role, into my “specialization”. My actual role is still as a software engineer on a team in the networking domain, so it works nicely. Over the years has…

Remember also that "ADHD" is more complicated than a binary off-or-on thing. I've never been diagnosed with ADHD and doubt I would be if specifically evaluated for it, but I have another diagnosis that comes with "ADHD-lite" behavior as part of its usual phenotype. It originates from a different place (as far as anyone knows) but it sure looks pretty similar.

So what I'm saying is, you should think of "ADHD" as a lens through which you can choose to view yourself and your brain. Some things might fit or describe you well, other things will not, regardless of "diagnosis" or lack thereof. And that's normal. Make use of the conclusions and techniques that work for you and make your life and the lives of those around you better, and forget about the others. That's all anyone can hope to do.

(You'll need a diagnosis should you want meds, though.)

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