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You Have to Feel It

mitchellh.com

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Re: You Have to Feel It

#161

Post by noisy_boy »

pendenthistory wrote: post #159
noisy_boy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whenever someone claims to enjoy or love their job, I'm extremely suspicious. Usually it's some form of cope, because without it how could you stand having to work 8+ hours a day for 40 years? But you are not doing the exact same thing for 40 years. Since I started my career, there have been so many new projects, new ideas, new things to create and so many new ways to do it. But underneath it all is the common deno…

Programming makes me feel good too, but there are very few programming jobs I would do for no pay, if any. I would work on my own projects though. But that's what I'm saying, I'm sure you can enjoy or even love some aspects of a job, but the totality of it? That's probably very rare, and most who say they love their job are doing it as a form of cope or because it's provides some sort of social status to love your jo…

> I'm sure you can enjoy or even love some aspects of a job, but the totality of it?

Sure, it isn't/can't be 100% peachy 100% of the time but then I'm not sure if anyone is asserting that. I don't think anything is that way.

Re: You Have to Feel It

#162

Post by mock-possum »

pants2 wrote: post #154
mock-possum wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you’d count disagreeing with an expert as a ‘worse’ decision, particularly in such a subjective space as the taste of jam. If I taste something, and carefully critically consider my experience, I would count that as a better decision, and the opinion of experts don’t really factor into it, because they’re not me.

For fun a few years ago I went through the process of deciding what my favorite song was. I had a gut feeling but wanted to take a scientific approach, I listened to my top listened songs from the last decade over and over as part of a bracket system, where I was trying to explain logically why one was better than the other. Anyway at the end of it I chose a song that I later realized was definitely not my favorite d…

Fascinating. What a fun experiment for one thing - makes me want to try - and what an unexpected outcome. It seems so paradoxical that it’s hard for me to even think about what might have caused that.

Re: You Have to Feel It

#163

Post by underlipton »

ghaff wrote: post #150
underlipton wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of two minds on this. 1) If such a short probationary period is involved, there's no reason to permanently move during it. A short-term rental will do. If the position works out, then move. (I have done this, it is doable.) 2) Then maybe the job isn't right for you. The point is to strip the desperation to find The One True Candidate/Job On The First Try, from both sides. Companies are already hiring based on vib…

>Employees are already subject to swift termination, based on their employers' whims Except in practice, they mostly aren't because onboarding takes time and cost and relocating employees (if applicable) has costs. Of course, if you're a pro football player, here today/gone tomorrow is the norm. But I'm not sure that is or should be the expectation for an engineer. In part, because I doubt there is a "One True Candid…

You're talking about a social contract. That's something that barely exists, these days. The problem here is as much timing as expectations. It is difficult to tell if you're signing on with a chop shop until you're suddenly on the block. I would rather we dispense with the games and people be upfront. Companies don't want that, because they can market it as stability while reserving an edge over both their employees and competitors (the same with many benefits). If what I described becomes the norm, employees lose that sense of stability, but they gain an edge in that businesses can no longer hold it over their heads.

Let's be clear, though, that it's not actual stability: it's a sense of stability, and it's often false.

Re: You Have to Feel It

#164

Post by borski »

kibwen wrote: post #119
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> something like the iPhone was inevitable given all the experimentation going on in the market. I agree, but I don't think it would have been as polished as the iPhone out of the gate. > Apple also made the Newton. But folks don't call back to it or praise its makers very often. As a sibling comment mentioned, I think the Newton was perhaps better than you're giving it credit for, but my point isn't that Apple makes…

> as polished as the iPhone out of the gate I think people are forgetting how extremely unpolished the iPhone was out of the gate. No app store. Even something as fundamental as copy/paste took until years later.

You’re talking about features. It didn’t have that many, sure.

But the features it did have were extremely well polished.

Part of the reason it took them forever to add copy/paste is because Android phones had 12 different ways to do it and it was unintuitive as a result. I’m not suggesting Apple’s solution is better; but it’s definitely intentional and thought-through.

At the time, Apple was one of the very few companies with really intentional design. Now many companies have adopted that philosophy.

Re: You Have to Feel It

#165

Post by henrebotha »

mock-possum wrote: post #142
henrebotha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Various studies have shown that trying to explain the reasons for a decision can often cause people to make worse decisions. I remember there was one where lay people were able to taste and rate jams with a high degree of correlation to the ratings of expert tasters; but when asked to explain _why_ they rate one jam better than another, their ratings suddenly drastically disagreed with experts'.

Interesting that you’d count disagreeing with an expert as a ‘worse’ decision, particularly in such a subjective space as the taste of jam. If I taste something, and carefully critically consider my experience, I would count that as a better decision, and the opinion of experts don’t really factor into it, because they’re not me.

> Interesting that you’d count disagreeing with an expert as a ‘worse’ decision

"Less correct" is perhaps more what I mean. Disagreeing with the opinions of experts is, generally, the same thing as being less correct.

> If I taste something, and carefully critically consider my experience, I would count that as a better decision, and the opinion of experts don’t really factor into it, because they’re not me.

A different way to test this would be to make two judgements — one snap decision based on vibes, and another based on a thoughtful chain of reasoning that you explain or write down — and then see which judgement was actually more correct _for you_ (perhaps after some time has elapsed).

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