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Being OK with not being extraordinary

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Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#131

Post by nitrogen »

op03 wrote: post #46
umvi wrote: post #2

> Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before. I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone. For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier sta…

What people haven't realized is you dont need to think in terms of Hierarchy anymore. Which is the way people have thought about anything for thousands of years. Fitting into domination or skill based hierarchies was optimal when resources where limited. The Network and its explosion in the last 20-30 (not even one generation old) challenges the reliance on anything Hierarchical. Just one example - I can connect to m…

I can connect to my boss's boss's boss with a tweet or an email or whatsapp message and establish a connection

And then your 3boss recommends firing you for insubordination regardless of your value.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#132

Post by borroka »

ska wrote: post #116
borroka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It is one those things that are said once, repeated enough and make enough sense to be believed, although I suspect they are not true. If you combine an average programmer with an average statistician, you get a profile that is not particularly attractive. If the comment that follows is: but is it not what data scientist are? the answer is that good data scientist have good (or great) programming for what…

I suspect you are looking at this the wrong way. Someone who is average at a number of things is probably a decent generalist; valuable but not particularly are. But the argument is being above average in two or more areas can make you as impactful as being top of your field in one area, even though you are nowhere near that talented in any different field. Even with your example, I would counter that a huge number o…

A decent generalist that nobody may want, though.

You are right that "successful in data scientist roles would not be successful (or at least, much less so) either as programmers or statisticians", assuming they do not train a bit more and become better statisticians (a subject in which world-class experts have wildly different opinions about the very foundations of the field) or programmers (a 1X, say).

What I had maybe issues articulating is that the Dilbert's creator is focusing on the system of skills (and, what does "better than average" mean? Better than the population average or better than the average of people professionally working, say professional comic artists? Because we are talking about two different things) instead of the application of the skills. He had a brilliant (a posteriori) idea that did not require to be neither Caravaggio nor Dave Chapelle. The lesson is that you can have success drawing like a 6-year old (which is better than what I can do) and some deadpan humor about office work which is funny one every ten times. Which is, IMO, way below the average skills of professionals.

His "lesson" is between "nothing new" and "so what": nothing new because we have seen many successful people having near-zero talents or skills (that would be a long book for me), and so what because it is not the above average skills (and I ask again: average of what?) but the more or less fortuitous choice of a profession or activity.

We have vague-casting, vague-posting, and, in this case, vague-philosophizing.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#134

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

sethammons wrote: post #110
jcadam wrote: post #87

I'm the most extraordinary software engineer in my office. I mean, it's my home office, but that still counts, right?

I dunno, you sound kind of average for the folks in your office.

It also seems like he's the least extraordinary software engineer in his office. The things you can do when you control the sample size.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#135

Post by sh461 »

cyberpunk wrote: post #57
heleninboodler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, you may have a heavily skewed view of what's extraordinary "these days." There are lots of tech companies that are mature enough to not flog their people to death. Companies with strong engineering cultures that also highly value seasoned developers tend to be this way. Where I work, the office is (well, was pre-covid) pretty empty by 5:30.

There are two sides to this coin; sometimes some late hours are unavoidable -- I don't blame my employer for it, they're not forcing me to work these hours at all, but I think if you're a professional you can't avoid such circumstances sometimes and that's why we get $megabucks right? The right mix for me is working like a daemon about 9 months a year then having 3 months off, but YMMV..

> they're not forcing me to work these hours at all, but I think if you're a professional you can't avoid such circumstances sometimes and that's why we get $megabucks right?

No, you could make the exact opposite statement and it would sound just as valid. Watch:

"they're not forcing me to work these hours at all, and if you're a professional who does get the megabucks, you can avoid such circumstances."

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#136

Post by roystonvassey »

umvi wrote: post #2

> Climbing to a higher vantage point can also unlock new forms of extraordinary that you might have never noticed before. I read an article once about how the amount of work to get into the top tier in a single area is astronomical, but the amount of work to become top tier in a combination of 2-3 fields is attainable by almost anyone. For example, becoming a top tier statistician is hard. But becoming a top tier sta…

This is spot on.

For a while, in my career, it felt like I was pursuing multiple career paths and in fact, there were many times I wondered if those were wasted years.

Turns out, that being a fairly good jack of a few trades does pay off. A mix of knowledge of analytics, statistics that was honed through a few years in economic research and most importantly, business understanding. I see that all of these skills, together, help me understand and grasp problems much better.

I am not the best cloud ops guy or the one with the best code or in-pace with the latest arxiv paper on machine learning but when faced with the latest business question on how to use data to help drive sales or reduce costs, I know enough to piece the different bits together and build a prototype at the least.

This is hugely empowering. I owe it to luck and fortune of course, but when the opportunity presents I felt these cross-domain skills made me more confident and helped visualise the solution better.

PS: I have not mentioned the most important skill though - how you work with people but I believe that is only gained through experience

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#137

Post by dredmorbius »

dstick wrote: post #10
danhak wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this idea very much. "Find your niche," in other words?

I remember reading this somewhere as well. If I recall correctly it was called something like “compound skills”. Could have been... Linchpin.

There is the notion of skill shapes. Typically, I, T, M (sometimes Π, N, or E), and X (describing leadership), sometimes dash ("—", pure generalist), also tree.

The idea being to have some mix of depth and breadth. Multiple depths is often quite useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills

Horrible quickly DDG'd blogs (the concept tends to attract — shallow exposition):

https://peoplecentre.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/the-m-shaped-e...

https://www.leadingagile.com/2017/02/e-shaped-staff/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/which-letter-shaped-future-em...

https://tcagley.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/productive-agile-te...

https://aboutleaders.com/skill-shape-leader/

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#139

Post by zikzak »

coldtea wrote: post #129
pizza234 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respect Scott Adams for his comic, but his blog is (in my opinion) a bunch of mass-produced rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings¹, trading out quality for (a very large) quantity. Scott Adams is definitely not famous because "he is an ok graphic artist and has an ok humor". He's famous because his satire was fairly unique and very sharp. I think he's very talented in the humor department; in addition to his creating…

> I respect Scott Adams for his comic, but his blog is (in my opinion) a bunch of mass-produced rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings¹, trading out quality for (a very large) quantity Not so sure about the "rhetoric-pseudo-rational ramblings". He writes his opinions and gives arguments. Nothing "pseudo" about them, though they could still be (and often are) wrong, either factually or as a reasoning. > It's very unlikely…

I'll probably regret posting this at some point because Scott Adams is smart (just not particularly aligned with my own moral compass). I don't think he is AS smart as he thinks he is but that doesn't mean he isn't smart, it just means he has a particularly large ego.

See, I predicted Trump would win as well. It seemed incredibly obvious to me despite it being the worst possible outcome I could imagine. I based my "prediction" on my time spent in the US and a gut feeling. I guessing Adams did as well, and found ways to justify it (not exactly unique to him).

Adams tends to think in terms of "persuasion" as a skill. In that sense, he probably sees the world transactionally and cynically. I have heard him debate people with a good command of the facts and a similar combination of ego and articulation. He comes off as smug, too confident, and more like a small fish in a big pond than he does when he is just writing on his blog or "destroying" someone in social media.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#140

Post by remar »

rvn1045 wrote: post #86

The internet has made everyone feel inadequate as it's easy to compare yourself to people you see on the internet. Couple of things to keep in mind if your comparing yourself: 1. There aren't as many uber successful people out there as the internet makes it seem. It's far fewer than you think. Lets take a simple example of dudes who go to the gym and are strong. Instagram makes it seem like all dudes bench press 400…

Well, did you train at commercial gyms or powerlifting/weightlifting gyms? What if the lifters just happened to be on high volume blocks, or tapering for a meet whenever you visited?
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