Pixels don’t care • Hacker News Board

Re: Pixels don’t care

#21

Post by potatolicious » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:04 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

sergiotapia wrote: post #5

Good 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.

I may be wrong but I think you missed the point. If "working together" is code for "we both have commit access to the same repo and the same functional test criteria and same target ship date" then it really doesn't matter at all if the person likes to work in their underwear and tell cat jokes since you're only interaction with them is going be through commits. In a strangely wonderful way, people who have condition…

> "since you're only interaction with them is going be through commits."

I have had many jobs. I have never had one where the sole (or vast majority) of my interactions with people were via commits.

I've even worked remotely, and Skype, IRC, IM were all critical. Personality and communication skills matter, even if you never see someone's face in person.

Re: Pixels don’t care

#22

Post by mduvall » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:09 PM UTC

I'm lost - where in the post is the discrimination for being short, and not just having the proper credentials?

Re: Pixels don’t care

#23

Post by daeken » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:09 PM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #14

joshmlewis wrote: post #9

I'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 effe…

> Work hard, meet the right people, and use your gut. I've done that all, and been successful out of it. But at least in my case there was one even larger element in play: Luck. And I can't even begin to list all the different ways that I've been lucky (and unlucky), but I always keep that in the back of my mind. I could have born in Somalia, or a Brooklyn ghetto, I could have tried to make my last career move a year…

"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Unknown (tons of attributions)

While some things are just random chance -- who your parents are, where you're born, etc -- but most things in life don't come from luck, much as we like to ascribe things to it. Most of the time it comes from hard work and -- probably more importantly -- tenacity. I've been "lucky" in a lot of ways, namely who has seen my work and decided to write about it, who's decided to hire me because of it, etc, but at the end of the day there were a dozen failures for every success. If I hadn't stuck at it, I never would've "gotten lucky".

Re: Pixels don’t care

#24

Post by suyash » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:12 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #13

What a strange claim. "Looking back", he can't help but feel discriminated against due to his height. It couldn't possibly be because of his "no formal eduction, no experience with any big clients", could it?

Agree, the author has confused us and not disclosed his complete background.

Re: Pixels don’t care

#25

Post by dhaivatpandya » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:15 PM UTC

I totally agree with the "too young" thing. I'm 15 and been freelancing since I was 12, and this gets in the way all the time. People try to take advantage of you once they realize that you're young(er) than most in the field.

Re: Pixels don’t care

#26

Post by Heliosmaster » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:17 PM UTC

This is a great article.

As a student of mathematics about to finish his studies and looking potentially at a job in software development, this gave me a boost in confidence, reminding me that I should not be afraid too much on competition from people that have the proper academic background (although one might say that I'm not that in a disadvantaged position, I do know a lot less about the technical core stuff of computing).

Everything is still possible!

Re: Pixels don’t care

#27

Post by noonespecial » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:17 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #13

What a strange claim. "Looking back", he can't help but feel discriminated against due to his height. It couldn't possibly be because of his "no formal eduction, no experience with any big clients", could it?

Height is actually a weird one when people get fixated on it. I worked with a guy once who was about 5,5 but was absolutely obsessed with "height discrimination". He filtered everything that happened to him through that lens and it severely warped his view on reality and it kept him from addressing real issues that would have made him a more hireable employee.

Re: Pixels don’t care

#28

Post by MattyRad » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:20 PM UTC

I know how it feels... I'm 22, 5'4", and look like I'm 17. This post reminds me of the Hacker Manifesto, by The Mentor: we exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias.

Re: Pixels don’t care

#29

Post by cgmorton » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:21 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #17

I had a similar experience when I bought my first new car. I was 23 at the time, but could have passed for younger. I went into the dealership and waited around until FINALLY someone came and talked to me. I talked a little, asked some questions and eventually got to do some test drives. I was already pretty sold on a certain car, but they didn't have any on the lot in the color I wanted. So I ask about it, the sales…

Or, one was a good salesman and the other was not. Or maybe the second one was strapped for cash and really needed the sale.

I'd rather not theorize until we get some more data points.

Re: Pixels don’t care

#30

Post by kerryfalk » Mon, Jan 28, 2013, 10:22 PM UTC

?

I, too, am short. I'm 5'6". I have always worked on teams with people much older than me (seems like a 15-20 year average). When I was in my early 20s and in sales selling high dollar value equipment I recognized that my age wasn't going to help. It took a few moments to dispel that once I began talking with someone as I just needed to overcome the view that I was inexperienced (As that would be associated with my age). It definitely did not hold me back and I'm fairly sure that if I lost a deal it was because of something other than my height.

We all face challenges and each are unique to us.

I meet a lot of people and I don't know anyone who would actively discriminate against someone short. I read through the article and based on it alone I got the sense that these challenges my stem from within the author rather than something external. I didn't read an examples of a situation that you'd reason resulted due to his height. Just interpretations.

"Ultimately, your greatest competition is yourself." - Guy Kawasaki