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Career Advice (2013)

moxie.org

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Re: Career Advice (2013)

#41

Post by CalRobert »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #28

Pretty good combined life+career advice I heard a long time ago and followed: If you're going to move countries, the best time to do it is right after college. Starting from scratch in an entirely new country, with no connections, no professional ability to speak the native language, and rapidly dwindling cash reserves, was one of the scariest and most thrilling things I've ever done in my life. I recommend it to no…

I did it myself, and right after college. It worked out OK, and I know now that making friends in your 20's is 10 times easier in your 30's, and in your 30's is ten times easier than in your 40's (though if you have kids in school that can help a little as you meet other kids' parents)

But why not do it _in_ college?

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#42

Post by FlyingSnake »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #28

Pretty good combined life+career advice I heard a long time ago and followed: If you're going to move countries, the best time to do it is right after college. Starting from scratch in an entirely new country, with no connections, no professional ability to speak the native language, and rapidly dwindling cash reserves, was one of the scariest and most thrilling things I've ever done in my life. I recommend it to no…

I did that (twice!) and honestly it was the riskiest and most rewarding experiences of my life.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#43

Post by farmeroy »

I spent my twenties riding freight trains across the US and cycling across Europe and Asia, living off of music. I'm not sure I would recommend that to anyone who is looking for career advice - Now I'm trying to build a solid career for myself as a software developer and I have no idea if it is easier with all that behind me or not. While I'm hoping that the soft skills and self knowledge I may have acquired over the years pay off on this new path, there is no guarantee. But there generally isn't. I certainly agree with this interpretation of Treyf and I'm glad that I have at least Moxie to look up to as freight hopping software engineer who has tried avoiding a lot of the same futures that I have, but it certainly is a path less traveled.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#44

Post by AtlasBarfed »

kstenerud wrote: post #11

No. What the experiment showed is that you can be TEMPORARILY coerced into certain behaviors in abusive environments (especially by authority figures - as was exemplified in the Milgram experiment), but it won't change who you actually are. The SPE is really a study in toxic workplaces and abusive relationships. I really wish people would stop quoting the SPE without researching what actually happened and why (and th…

You don't think post college jobs and experiences change you? You don't think being a salaryman vs a school teacher versus world travel changes your perspective values and behaviors?

But it is healthy to keep this perspective (Tyler durdens assertion) and always try to grow in some way that isn't involved with money

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#45

Post by Swizec »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #28

Pretty good combined life+career advice I heard a long time ago and followed: If you're going to move countries, the best time to do it is right after college. Starting from scratch in an entirely new country, with no connections, no professional ability to speak the native language, and rapidly dwindling cash reserves, was one of the scariest and most thrilling things I've ever done in my life. I recommend it to no…

I moved countries soon after college with not even a job lined up. From Slovenia straight into SFBA because if you're gonna do something that hard, you might as well go all the way.

To anyone asking if they should do the same, I say: Don't do it.

Because if you have to ask, the answer is no. The ones who succeed don't ask for permission, they ask for tips about how to get it done. The mind is already made up.

Same is true for starting a business. "Should I start a business/move countries/other high variance thing?" --> no. "How do I overcome ?" --> advice time!

edit:

For the downvoters -> this was, for me, the best thing I've ever done. But you really do need a lot of internal resolve to make it work. To give you an example of an unexpected difficulty: I used to practice facial expressions in the mirror because Americans had trouble reading my emotes. Like practicing your accent away, but for your face.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#48

Post by OrderlyTiamat »

arduanika wrote: post #16
whiddershins wrote: post #10

I didn’t read the whole article because I stumbled on the Stanford Prison Experiment part. As far as I can tell this experiment was largely debunked, or at best widely questioned and not reproducible. It’s one of those stories that lives on because it’s simultaneously so implausible yet seems to say something believable about human nature. But I suspect it was between 90 and 100% b.s.

That's totally fine. You're allowed to have your own brown M&Ms. There's a lot of thinkpieces out there, and you need some means of deciding which to read. Citing a debunked experiment w/o disclaimer is a totally reasonable criteria for you to close one of those hundred tabs. But FWIW, I found the rest of the article pretty good.

Thank you! I wasn't going to read the article for the same reason, but your recommendation changed my mind, and it was actually a good read.

It's definitely diminished by it's non qualified citation of Zimbardo, but there's some insight there regardless.

Ultimately the point Moxie is making is served by the stanford prison drama play just as well as if it had been an actual experiment.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#50

Post by gcanyon »

> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there.

> They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often young people imagine a different projection for themselves.

> Look at the real people, and you’ll see the honest future for yourself.

Maybe I'm the outlier, but this is 100% not true for me. My title, Product Manager, didn't exist 30 years ago. I was a developer 20 years ago, and 10 years before that I was managing and supporting a network of 200 Mac Pluses and the like. I've done other things besides, and at no point did the older people where I worked look the way I did years later.

I do focus a significant amount of energy on keeping up with the development of technology, and that has changed so much that I couldn't help but be different.

But I think that applies to everyone working in technology. The developers I work with now are using TypeScript and we organize using Notion. Ten years ago it was PHP and Jira. Ten years before that it was Java and Office docs. Who knows what it will be in ten years, but almost certainly none of those. Two week sprints have been a thing for fifteen years, so maybe that will still be true, but I doubt it.

Plan for change. It's coming for all of us.

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