Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
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Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
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Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#2The first piece of advice has implications. Such as: product work is more highly rewarded than maintenance/keeping the lights on. You can’t show people the fire that didn’t happen. Even if you could show them (probably with metrics or something), it doesn’t have the same effect as “our product can do something it couldn’t before”.
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#3> [W]ork at higher profile companies/organizations -- AmaGooFaceSoft, startups or small companies with anomalously high profile (locally, nationally, whatever), or in positions where by your nature you're exposed to lots of people.
This advice is generally already followed. It's far more competitive when applying for roles with high visibility or companies with high brand recognition.
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#4I like this framing.
In graduate school, I worked for 2+ years before my first paper was published. In that time, I passed my PhD qualifying exam, took classes, wrote code, read papers, learned math, and so forth. Yet when I applied for internships, I received no interest from employers. I suspect this was because I had no concrete signal that I knew anything in my field.
While working on my second paper, I started blogging. In the language of this article, I started generating public intellectual capital for myself. I have definitely experienced the effects of this capital on subsequent job hunts. Now I can point people to my blog to demonstrate knowledge, technical skills, and communication skills beyond the scope of my peer-reviewed work. Furthermore, there is no question about who contributed to my blog, and when I learn something new, I can externalize that quickly.
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#5I like this framing. In graduate school, I worked for 2+ years before my first paper was published. In that time, I passed my PhD qualifying exam, took classes, wrote code, read papers, learned math, and so forth. Yet when I applied for internships, I received no interest from employers. I suspect this was because I had no concrete signal that I knew anything in my field. While working on my second paper, I started b…
I totally agree and had a very similar experience in graduate school. Writing about my experiences and things I had learned (technical and project management) had a huge impact on my ability to demonstrate my knowledge and is without a doubt why I quickly received two job offers before defending my phd (biology/neuroscience). I think papers are a really poor way to demonstrate the huge amounts of work you've done unless you stay in academia (and probably not even then).
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#6> A lot of day jobs structurally inhibit capital formation. If I were a Marxist I'd say "And this is an intended consequence of Capital's desire to keep Labor subservient to it", but I honestly think it's true even without anybody needing to twirl their mustache.
I feel for the author's Marxist friend. That no mustache-twirling is required is kind of the point. But I guess it's a hard one to communicate in our superhero-focused culture where everything happens because an individual intended it to.
Anyway, aside from Patrick's misguided idea that he's a capitalist, the article resonated with me. I spent 10 years working at a place where I usually had something built by the end of the week that I could show off, or talk about, or put to use on the next project, or that at least made my and my coworkers' jobs easier, and that kept me going. But I'm now at a job with a sprawling swamp of a codebase where it's plainly clear that nothing I do is going to matter.
Over the years I had moved away from software side-projects, but am finding now that having one now is kind of important for my sanity. It helps me feel like I've actually accomplished something more than just a paycheck, keeps the brain somewhat sharp, and might turn out to be useful as a thing to show off/talk about to potential employers, if not a useful tool in its own right.
Oh for a long vacation where I can just work on my side projects.
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#7> A lot of day jobs structurally inhibit capital formation. If I were a Marxist I'd say "And this is an intended consequence of Capital's desire to keep Labor subservient to it", but I honestly think it's true even without anybody needing to twirl their mustache. I feel for the author's Marxist friend. That no mustache-twirling is required is kind of the point. But I guess it's a hard one to communicate in our superh…
What makes you think that Patrick is mistaken about his claim that he is a capitalist?
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#8Reminds me of one of the 48 laws of power:
Law 6. Court Attention at All Costs
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#9Reminds me of one of the 48 laws of power: Law 6. Court Attention at All Costs
> 48 laws of power
Where are the others?
Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)
#10I like this framing. In graduate school, I worked for 2+ years before my first paper was published. In that time, I passed my PhD qualifying exam, took classes, wrote code, read papers, learned math, and so forth. Yet when I applied for internships, I received no interest from employers. I suspect this was because I had no concrete signal that I knew anything in my field. While working on my second paper, I started b…
This happened to me when I left academia. No “real credentials”. Math expert with strong computer background (phd, published papers, years of experience in research/teaching) didn’t said more than “one year data science ‘masters’ abroad”. It took me quite some time to translate my expertise into marketable skills. Before that, I got passed on even for entry level positions.