Pixels don’t care
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Pixels don’t care
1–10 of 141 posts
Re: Pixels don’t care
#2Good for him. My brother had a similar experience selling things online. If you are able to write professionally, people are more willing to trust you - even if you are 13.
Re: Pixels don’t care
#3I had the totally same experience with early online communities (Everything2, Slashdot), and for a long time made a conscious effort of keeping my avatar off the Internet.
It's a little utopian, yes, but being able to deal with people based on their ideas, ideals, and quality of work, and develop fast friendships without ever being aware of so much (Great line: "How could the internet know you were gay? 80 years old? Hispanic? Transgender? Karl Rove? It just didn’t matter.") is what made the pre-Facebook net magical for me and so many others, and what, in many ways, makes the rash of so many social-mobile-local startups so boring: They trade personal flare for personal expression, let users show off badges instead of actual achievement.
Re: Pixels don’t care
#4Reminds me of the Malcolm Gladwell anecdote about how orchestra auditions are usually biased unless they hide the musicians behind a screen, so that the music is judged free from distraction.
You can see the same principle at work on a new TV show called The Taste, where contestants cook up and serve a single bite of food that the judges eat without knowing who the contestants are. So far the home cooks have been not only holding their own but beating out the pro chefs.
Re: Pixels don’t care
#5Good for him that he managed to get around that.
But personal, face to face interactions are much better are gauging how a person is going to be when joining a team. Any sort of team.
People on paper sound nice, but when you meet them they are a bit off. I have a scary knack for this and can call out caustic people after the initial interaction.
Re: Pixels don’t care
#6Good for him that he managed to get around that. But personal, face to face interactions are much better are gauging how a person is going to be when joining a team. Any sort of team. People on paper sound nice, but when you meet them they are a bit off. I have a scary knack for this and can call out caustic people after the initial interaction.
Having worked on a lot of mainly (or entirely) remote teams, I think digital/chat interaction is just as good as face to face. Sometimes face to face personalities don't entirely match your chat persona but chat does a good job of passing along enough information to decide. I've worked with people for years while never having met them in-person. No need.
Regardless of remote/in-person, a piece of paper should never be the sole hiring decision.
Re: Pixels don’t care
#7Good for him that he managed to get around that. But personal, face to face interactions are much better are gauging how a person is going to be when joining a team. Any sort of team. People on paper sound nice, but when you meet them they are a bit off. I have a scary knack for this and can call out caustic people after the initial interaction.
It's not really that scary that you notice something that seems off to you, everybody has that. But how do you confirm your "gut feeling"? It's not like you hire the people you dismiss in that manner to see if you're proven wrong, so what makes you so sure?
Re: Pixels don’t care
#8I had more or less the same experience doing freelance work early on.
Clients who judge you based on your age, instead of the value you provide to their business. Clients who are uncomfortable taking suggestions from a 20 year old, and instead, would rather get lower quality work from someone older, and more "experienced".
Glad to hear you're doing well now, keep it up!
Re: Pixels don’t care
#9I've always heard of this happening but I never really had a problem with it. I thankfully learned early on about getting things in writing, agreements, etc. after seeing people getting screwed over. I learned that if people didn't want to work with you because of your age, you shouldn't want to work with them either. I heard Zeldman say that he only works with clients that he personally likes. Something to that effect, but it rang true for me even to today. Only work with people you like. Don't get stuck in a crappy job like OP. You can get out there and do it if you try hard enough.
I'm 19 now and it hardly affects me at all. In fact I feel behind. I am cofounding a startup and working full time at another startup, and I still haven't had my great succes yet. I work hard everyday and that's all that matters. Work hard, meet the right people, and use your gut. What really inspirers me are the ones that have gone out there and just killed it at a young age, it means that it is possible if you find the right way.
Re: Pixels don’t care
#10Kinda crazy to think about, but when China gets up to speed and communications between our countries are open, the scale of what he mentioned at the end will be huge. Today, you could be one of the most sought out programmers in the west. Imagine competing against another intelligent millions of programmers from the east too. I can't wait.