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Healthy Self-Doubt

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Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#101

Post by [deleted] »

DangitBobby wrote: post #32
martindbp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, one particular pet peeve for me is the idea that the personal finance part of "adulting" is hard. It's really not. Live (far) below your means and invest the difference, that's it. Somehow 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30%, but people in the west cannot help but live paycheck to payceck? Of course, few people are willing to actually go through with it, but it's not difficult to understand.…

I'm sure it would be hard for you too if you living far below your means meant spending nothing or next to nothing.

[deleted]

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#102

Post by drapery »

Imposter syndrome is very much an internal struggle and I think for some people who exhibit imposter syndrome wouldn't let other people let on. So, the fact that admitting self doubt in public shows a break from it.

I had imposter syndrome while in business school and boy o boy did I try hard to fit in. Only when I realized that there is more to life than external achievements did I outwardly express any self doubt and only then to my close circle of friends.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#103

Post by ck425 »

TopHand wrote: post #33
tomrod wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposter syndrome or job security? I've seen both.

I learned a long time ago that if you share your knowledge freely with your co-workers that only increases your job security. I postulate this plays off imposter syndrome. Your co-workers think to themselves, if this person is willing to share that knowledge, what are they holding back?

I agree but I'd place more of it on the fact that people like people who help them. I've worked with a few engineers who have been incredibly helpful and gone out there way to share knowledge with me. I consider every single one of them to be a great person. If anyone ever mentioned them in a conversation I'd like say 'oh they're great, I love working with them' or some variation of. When it comes to office politics, like it or not, it exists and likeability is important.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#104

Post by jklehm »

x87678r wrote: post #48
TopHand wrote: post #23

For most of my career I worked with a small group (20 to 30) group of highly educated and mostly brilliant people. I barely graduated high school. As the years passed and we all began to age, I realized that the amount of knowledge we all had obtained during our tenure was an irreplaceable resource for the company. In order to help the younger incoming people bypass this learning curve I set up a wiki where group mem…

I've seen a lot of people waste time on writing documents that just sit there unread. No one wants to RTFM, esp one written a few years ago that is likely not accurate.

I think there's value in docs from a level setting perspective...it's usually way quicker to talk someone through what's changed since the last update than from scratch.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#105

Post by andrekandre »

x87678r wrote: post #48
TopHand wrote: post #23

For most of my career I worked with a small group (20 to 30) group of highly educated and mostly brilliant people. I barely graduated high school. As the years passed and we all began to age, I realized that the amount of knowledge we all had obtained during our tenure was an irreplaceable resource for the company. In order to help the younger incoming people bypass this learning curve I set up a wiki where group mem…

I've seen a lot of people waste time on writing documents that just sit there unread. No one wants to RTFM, esp one written a few years ago that is likely not accurate.

documentation has to be actively maintained, but even old and innacurate documentation can serve as a starting point (and be update to be accurate) when something needs to be investigated/refactored etc

without any documentation, all you have is word of mouth, and when people quit, the organizations knowledge DECREASES over time

> people waste time on writing documents that just sit there unread. No one wants to RTFM

documentation is hard... most documents that i have seen are mostly brain dumps, very badly formatted, just very hard to follow...

one thing i think severely missing in school and otj training is how to write documents people WANT to read

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#106

Post by draw_down »

ecocentrik wrote: post #45
draw_down wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they found the task of turning their brains inside out unappealing for other reasons. Maybe it was just more work, for example. Maybe they didn’t need their “brilliance” to be validated. It’s also not really a straightforward thing to do, there are all sorts of questions around how best to structure info for the purposes of those it will be used by. All of this is a pretty big undertaking. The more I think ab…

Fear of redundancy might be another reasons technical skills would not be readily shared by skilled employees. It's not something you typically see in startups but large corporations are full of people who actively protect themselves from perceived redundancy by obfuscating their skill set.

Maybe but incentives get to the point a lot faster and don’t require the silly pop-psychology angle that all this other stuff does. It likely just didn’t make sense for them in terms of incentive structure.

Look up thread at the person who spent a lot of time training juniors, without much to show for it. That’s how this works in real life. Some guy going “hey I started a wiki so it’s easier now” doesn’t change anything about that.

Imagine this same story when the person telling it is the boss of the other people.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#107

Post by verylittlemeat »

hnarn wrote: post #91
Negitivefrags wrote: post #3

Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. I see a similar sentiment all the time where people say things along the lines of "Nobody really feels like an adult, we are all just muddling through" etc etc. Actually no, some of us actually have our shit sorted out and are actual adults.

> Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. Most people who I have encountered that are really really bad at their job do not suffer from impostor syndrome, because the whole point of impostor syndrome is that you are open to your own vulnerability and your own incompetence. The people that are exceedingly and amazingly bad at their jobs are often b…

>The people that are exceedingly and amazingly bad at their jobs are often bad because they refuse to learn, because they don't feel they need to.

Humble impostors can "evolve" into arrogant incompetents. If you're praised for something you don't really understand it can lead to all kinds of unpleasant psychological dissonance.

Money + power + embracing that everyone is a fraud who is just "faking it to make it" and you end up with people who are defensively and openly hostile about their knowledge.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#108

Post by packetslave »

pnutjam wrote: post #99
hnarn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade Why is that?

Most employers ask you what your previous salary was, or get it from your past employer. Salary is not protected information. https://www.marketplace.org/2020/07/08/how-salary-history-ba...

except in a little-known place called CALIFORNIA

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#109

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

x87678r wrote: post #48
TopHand wrote: post #23

For most of my career I worked with a small group (20 to 30) group of highly educated and mostly brilliant people. I barely graduated high school. As the years passed and we all began to age, I realized that the amount of knowledge we all had obtained during our tenure was an irreplaceable resource for the company. In order to help the younger incoming people bypass this learning curve I set up a wiki where group mem…

I've seen a lot of people waste time on writing documents that just sit there unread. No one wants to RTFM, esp one written a few years ago that is likely not accurate.

The most valuable thing in software is knowledge. That comes either from experience (slow and painful, the jagged little pill), from other people (if you're lucky enough to have a local expert, I often don't) and from books/docs (easily available, if a little time-consuming to read). I go straight for the docs. They give the biggest ROI I can easily get my hands on. Really knowing your tools gives you a lot of power and it's a shame people don't seem willing to spend time on them.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#110

Post by martindbp »

hnarn wrote: post #95
martindbp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, one particular pet peeve for me is the idea that the personal finance part of "adulting" is hard. It's really not. Live (far) below your means and invest the difference, that's it. Somehow 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30%, but people in the west cannot help but live paycheck to payceck? Of course, few people are willing to actually go through with it, but it's not difficult to understand.…

> 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30% This is a good example of a statistic where the average is meaningless if you don't also know the median. Also, which specific statistic are you referring to?

For example: https://data.oecd.org/natincome/saving-rate.htm I was wrong, it was 46% in 2015. I don't know what the median is, but it's probably much higher as well. Having Chinese in the family, I also know from experience that they are more frugal and save much more diligently.

Now there's a reason the savings rate is high in China: there is practically no social safety net, and borrowing for school or housing is not common I believe. But my point is that we in the west could save more if we tried, it's just that in our culture we feel like, or we're pressured to, spend. To keep up with the Joneses, or because we feel we deserve certain things, maybe the same standard of living as our parents etc.

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