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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)

#221

Post by brigandish »

robryan wrote: post #178
mjrbrennan wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just engaging in work theater I do not have firsthand experience at this, but from my understanding being a salaryman in Japan means staying in the office until the boss leaves. It does not matter if you are producing value or not in that time, it is more about appearance and company loyalty. I agree with you 100%...I think the most I've ever worked in a week was probably in the 50-60 hour range and that was one of…

I would think if some of these companies really had cracked some kind of method to double the productive output of their employees that they would have a massive advantange on their competition and grow to be some of the biggest companies in the world. The other aspect is that the lower the value of an employees time the more the business will be happy to have them undertake repetative tasks as the cost of them doing…

> and grow to be some of the biggest companies in the world.

Japan does have some of the biggest companies in the world and it's not a free market here, not by a long way, competitiveness isn't something particularly needed internally (monopolies and cabals abound) and possibly not externally either, if conditions are right.

> The other aspect is that the lower the value of an employees time the more the business will be happy to have them undertake repetative tasks as the cost of them doing it is lower than the cost of the work to automate.

The stereotype/joke about fax machines being prevalent isn't based on a myth. Don't assume things work the way they would in the West.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#222

Post by wvh »

piokoch wrote: post #60

"Don't try to make a career out of optimizing the SQL queries to display a preference page on a line of business app at a company that no one has ever heard of. That is not the straightforward path to having other people learn you are capable of doing meaningful work." This is so sad. Optimizing that SQL might require being really clever and can bring enormous value for the company that maybe nobody heard about but m…

This is probably the main struggle of my professional life: to see the difference and find the balance between doing a Good Job and doing a Sellable Job.

Creativity and perfection of craft versus efficiency and economy.

This balance is one of the most important things to get right when evaluating prospective job environments, especially when you're more on the thorough end of the spectrum.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#223

Post by ComodoHacker »

AlexC04 wrote: post #88
piokoch wrote: post #60

"Don't try to make a career out of optimizing the SQL queries to display a preference page on a line of business app at a company that no one has ever heard of. That is not the straightforward path to having other people learn you are capable of doing meaningful work." This is so sad. Optimizing that SQL might require being really clever and can bring enormous value for the company that maybe nobody heard about but m…

What's a funny coincidence is that I've been thinking about almost exactly this for a little while. Just in the last two weeks I decided to create a podcast where I interview the exact types of developers who optimize SQL inside business apps. In fact, literally just last night I recorded and uploaded (to YouTube and the various podcast platforms) episode zero. Not an actual interview yet, but a statement of purpose…

OK, you got me, as I've been in those trenches myself. Subscribed.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#224

Post by killtimeatwork »

Swizec wrote: post #119
Klinky wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you even know the actual impact you had on revenue/profits? Engineering is often many layers removed from customer interactions, sales and accounting. Some companies have complex and opaque revenue channels. Frankly I take any claims of direct revenue/profit growth/generation with a grain of salt. Typically at best, you're wildly guessing, at worst, you're outright lying.

The PM you worked with should be able to answer this question. If they can’t, your project is likely a waste of time. The signal from a hiring standpoint is that you asked and cared about this. Engineers who will just do whatever are less useful/impactful than engineers who push back and care about the value they’re delivering. Even if it’s sometimes fuzzy to estimate.

> The PM you worked with should be able to answer this question

Most software devs work on tiny fragments of large projects. Let's say I work in Microsoft on Bluetooth stack in Windows 10 - how do I translate that into increased Microsoft profits?

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#225

Post by aldarn »

AlexC04 wrote: post #138
iamacyborg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give it a try for audio editing make sure you record different podcast guests on separate audio tracks, makes the whole thing significantly better. I wrote a few thoughts on my blog about how I went about starting with the podcast including tools used, might be useful? https://www.jacquescorbytuech.com/writing/starting-a-podcast

You don't even know how valuable this is to me at this exact moment in time. My first interview is tomorrow night! Fortunately, it is with a friend and co-worker who has the hacker mindset and will be willing to work through hiccups in technology. I'm trying to pick a video conference platform to try. Do I discord? Zoom? Try to find a way to set up audio line-in from my android phone. I need a solution for tomorrow n…

You might want to try UberConference, which is free and also automatically transcribes conferences with high accuracy (note this may be a paid feature I'm not sure). It also does some extra neat NLP stuff to detect sentiment, topics of conversation, etc.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#226

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

blinkymach12 wrote: post #191
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know. I just don't feel that it's constructive to complain about it. I don't deny it; I just won't let it stop me. Despite all that, I have it real good. I am able to do work that I love (and not get paid a dime for it), and live a life that includes friends, health, wonder and joy. I may not be a TED-talkin', man-bunned, skinny-jeans-wearin' jargonaut, but the folks that end up working with me are very, very…

Thanks for sharing, Chris. Honestly it sounds to me like you're living the dream-- you're secure enough in your abilities that you can pursue the projects you're excited by rather than having to play career games as an employee for someone else. I hope it keeps working out for you :-)

Well, lots of people would write me off as an idiot for following my own muse, but I worked long and hard, to be where I am, and I don't think I could be coaxed back into the rat race again.

The biggest thing that I miss about working on tech teams, was being surrounded by people that made me feel like the dunce. Being the smartest guy in the room is overrated. If I wanted hero worship, I would have become a Cub Scout leader. It has no place in my tech work.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#227

Post by ColinWright »

chillfox wrote: post #201
theshrike79 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't start another podcast. Or if you absolutely must, please provide a text version of the content. Podcasts aren't searchable, they aren't skimmable and their content isn't indexed in search engines. Text is.

Not every format is for everyone. I personally listen to podcasts or audio books every day when driving and in my lunch break.

People are different, and I like to learn about other people's methods and the potential benefits thereof.

So let me ask ... when you're listening to podcasts, do you ever take anything away from them that is actionable? Do you take notes? Do you summarise?

How do you ensure that the lessons in the podcast don't get lost?

Do you "Listen with attention" or are they mostly just background?

I find that podcasts are there, then gone, and nothing remains. When I read I take notes, summarise, and use the results to enhance my personal version of a Zettelkasten. I can't imagine doing that efficiently with podcasts, and I'd be interested to know how I can change that.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#228

Post by GordonS »

vbtemp wrote: post #171

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working anything even CLOSE to that (in software/tech, maybe if you're in med school or work an an ER I can see it). There is no way in hell I could ever even be close to productive for that period of time for more than, say, one week a year or something (and even th…

I used to occasionally worked 80+ hours at a time in my younger days, during a period where I was working for an oil services company, building tooling for migrating different business systems to SAP.

The company has several locations across the globe, and each was using something different to be migrated to SAP. One time I flew to Brazil to build SAP integration tooling for the local division of the company - 3 flights over 20 hours (all in economy), and I was expected to go straight to the office on arrival. I then worked feverishly, drinking gallons of local coffee to sustain me. Everyone else was doing the same. We ended up making some bad decisions (I think because we were all so tired), and at one point I totally lost my shit with the Brazilian project lead, coming close to getting violent. I'm absolutely not a violent person, but that amount of sleep deprivation, pressure and caffeine are not a good combination.

I'd do this for 2-3 weeks at a time, and feel completely fried at the end of each stint.

I simply couldn't do that anymore, but I'm also convinced it was a false economy - if we'd just worked normal hours without all the pressure from above, we could have achieved the same result, without all the mess along the way.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#229

Post by b3kart »

mepiethree wrote: post #217
vbtemp wrote: post #171

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working anything even CLOSE to that (in software/tech, maybe if you're in med school or work an an ER I can see it). There is no way in hell I could ever even be close to productive for that period of time for more than, say, one week a year or something (and even th…

Workaholism is an addiction and a mental health problem. I have worked for 50+ hours a week for 4 years and last year I became a manager and have worked 60-80 for the last year. On bad weeks, I joke to my wife that I am headed to my 9-5... because I sometimes work 9am to 5am and get up the next day for another 9am meeting. I am absolutely doing real work, if anything, it's my non-work life that is "theater." I won't…

Have you considered therapy to try to get to the bottom of this? Not being snarky -- you yourself seem to realize that this is really detrimental to your wellbeing.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#230

Post by MaxBarraclough »

theshrike79 wrote: post #206
garmaine wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me add another data point: I never listen to podcasts. Ever. I've tried it, and I hate the format. Even when I am forwarded something highly relevant to my interests, I still check for a transcript, and if there is none I move along. You can't search audio. You can't skim audio. You can't easily hyperlink to audio, copy-and-paste audio, or auto-summarize audio. Audio is not indexed or cached by the big search eng…

I only listen to podcasts that are well-produced and edited. Very few actually are. There are way too many people who think podcasting is just turning on a microphone and babbling away with a friend or guest for however long they can do it. I only have a few hours a day I can spend on podcasts and I'm not going to waste it listening to some inane meandering chitchat. "Put it on the background then" ...yea, that's whe…

At the risk of pedantically zooming in on your choice of words:

> I only listen to podcasts that are well-produced and edited. Very few actually are.

I disagree. Good production is a nice extra, but it's secondary. I'd rather listen to Miles Davis on vinyl, than a mediocre musician on high-bitrate FLAC.

Some examples: I recently discovered the Happy Path Programming podcast. It's a good listen as the hosts are knowledgeable and insightful. The production quality is fine, but isn't at the professional standard. The hosts acknowledge this, but make no apology for it, on the grounds that they don't want their podcast to turn into a chore.

In contrast, the Security Now podcast has professional production. Again that's a plus, but that's all. If the podcast were no good, their high production budget wouldn't be enough to save it.

Good production quality doesn't turn a boring podcast into a worthwhile one, and mediocre production rarely spoils a worthwhile one.

> There are way too many people who think podcasting is just turning on a microphone and babbling away with a friend or guest for however long they can do it. I only have a few hours a day I can spend on podcasts and I'm not going to waste it listening to some inane meandering chitchat.

Sure, it makes sense to insist on good quality podcasts. The hosts need certain soft skills to deliver a good podcast. Not everyone has them, but it must be easy to convince yourself you do. People may be tempted to think I could easily do a podcast, or comedy, or acting. The skills aren't as immediately obvious as in, say, gymnastics or theoretical physics.

Podcasting may be the victim of Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crud, but fortunately it's pretty easy to filter out the ocean of poor-quality podcasts and find a few you like.

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