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Career advice for people with bad luck

chiefofstuff.substack.com

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Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#381

Post by pmiller2 »

worik wrote: post #372
pmiller2 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, having money is nice, As someone who was broke for many years and now is less broke (cash is flowing, there's money in my accounts, but I'm deeply in negative net worth due to student debt), I think you're understating the issue, vastly. Simply put, money is freedom. If you have it, you can do things people who don't have it can't. If you have enough of it, you can do just about anything. And, I'm not necessa…

"* If you have an absurd amount of money, you don't need to worry about going bankrupt from getting sick." Or you live in a country with a socialised medical system.

I see you caught my implicit punch line. None of those things above the level of "unexpected car breakdown" really ought to be things people in the country with the largest economy in the world ought to be worrying about. We need to do something about that, whether it's a move toward social democracy, or even full on socialism. But, there's such a "fuck you, got mine" attitude among our political class that we're never going to see it in my lifetime, I'm sure. If it hasn't happened in the face of a global pandemic shutting everything down, I doubt the elite are going to get the message that workers are the ones that create everything of value in the economy, so we should try to elevate the lot of the average worker, rather than keeping him so stressed, sick, and insecure.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#382

Post by [deleted] »

burntoutfire wrote: post #328
adamsea wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno about Jordan Peterson. Some of his advice may be OK but he's also profoundly weird / not very self-reflective .... only eats meat? Meat cures all? IMHO the Socratic Dialogues, as basically the foundational text of all Western Philosophy, and being pretty friendly and approachable, are the right place to begin. Helps you figure out how to figure it out for yourself. You can make your own calls from there.

> Meat cures all? When did he say that?

[deleted]

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#383

Post by friendlybus »

adamsea wrote: post #262
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Read some philosophy. Buy a reliable used car. Look inward for contentment. Try therapy if your shitty childhood and shitty parents made inward a hard place to look. I'd recommend the following: 1. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius 2. 12 Rules for Life - Jordan B Peterson 3. Letters from a self made merchant - John Graham

Dunno about Jordan Peterson. Some of his advice may be OK but he's also profoundly weird / not very self-reflective .... only eats meat? Meat cures all? IMHO the Socratic Dialogues, as basically the foundational text of all Western Philosophy, and being pretty friendly and approachable, are the right place to begin. Helps you figure out how to figure it out for yourself. You can make your own calls from there.

He went on an elimination diet because his family has some nasty immune problems. It’s mundane, I don’t get the controversy.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#384

Post by pmiller2 »

alufers wrote: post #41
rb808 wrote: post #23

A lot of talk here that colleagues aren't friends. What is wrong with you people? If you like your colleagues you can invite them to do stuff after you or they leave. They probably haven't invited you because they never got around to it either. Most of the older generation people met through work is the only way to make friends. No wonder loneliness is so rampant now.

Yeah, I really feel sad when I see those articles and comments telling you not to share anything that you don't want your boss to know with your colleagues, or even better ignore them completely and automatically treat as deadly competition. If you cannot trust anybody and have difficulties with assessing if someone won't turn his back on you, it may be a problem with your social skills, not with other people. This k…

It may make you sad, but do you think "don't share anything with your colleagues you wouldn't want your boss to know" is bad advice? Treating people like "deadly competition," is probably not optimal, but being wary of what you say certainly is. I can tell you the Slack Police at my work think so, too.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#385

Post by friendlybus »

lovich wrote: post #332
Reedx wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To dismiss as dangerous is silly. Here are the 12 rules. Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back Rule 2: Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Rule 3: Make friends with people who want the best for you Rule 4: Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today Rule 5: Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them Rule 6: Set y…

Most of these seem fine to good, but number 5 is kind of just removing agency from children entirely. Its the same mindset of people who kick their kids out for being gay

It really isn’t the same mindset as intolerance. Why would it remove agency? Do you dislike children?

It’s about setting a boundary where it is most productive, children who are not socialised by the age of four hit problems in later life. Parents and kids who go to war help no one.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#386

Post by kaitai »

edraferi wrote: post #315
whitebread wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this greater goal you speak of?

In my experience, religions are happy to hand out pre-baked sets of objectives. Live a life like X. Stay away from Y. Put your money in Z. If you have trouble deciding what direction you want to go, religion can point you somewhere and surround you with a community that will encourage you to keep moving that way. For some people, that’s really valuable. You see this especially with people who’s prior independent expe…

I've actually taken an essentially opposite view, interestingly enough. As a younger person I read widely, rebelled in a very thoughtful way against my religion (in my opinion! haha!), took things very seriously, tried to really understand both atheism and other religions, etc. I think all of that was important. Through life experiences I've come to appreciate, strangely, the rituals of religion and the not-making-sense-ness of it. So I find it useful to consider the pre-baked objectives as a sort of rough draft I can push against, but more importantly, I've discarded the world view and taken the concrete. For Christianity, that's bread, wine, the holidays, the rhythm, the community, the directive to support charities generously. The concrete actions do something on a primordial level, as they're what my ancestors have done for oh about eight generations.

The actual pre-packaged beliefs? Meh. I'm less interested than I ever was in arguing the particulars of Paul with anyone. So, to summarize, for me religion is a reasonable place to get a default set of rituals and perhaps community, and long term that's the useful part because the rituals can continue even as my beliefs and circumstances change.

This may also be worth thinking about with respect to healthy eating, exercise, etc. Don't get sucked into a cult, but if signing up for (now-virtual) CrossFit or Pilates classes, or following Starting Strength, gets you doing something, it's a concrete physical ritual that can stay with you even as you change :)

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#387

Post by TeMPOraL »

rhizome wrote: post #365
xupybd wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly but this is more to counter letting your kids go wild such that as they grow up you don't like to around them. By ining them how to behave well you equip them will the tools to interact in society. Of course if you are a horrible person you might dislike them for their good behaviours. But if you're a horrible person chances are you'll mess up your kids with or without that rule.

I don't think people "let" their kids go wild so much as run out of parenting skills. That's what makes the idea irrational: use your parenting skills to make up for your lack of parenting skills. All you have to do is decide to do so!

This may be one of those cases where thinking about something explicitly is already half of the way to success.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#388

Post by OliverJones »

Lots of great insight here into the weltanschauung of scrambling startups. This one especially: "It’s the nature of boards that they ignore (externally) problems until their hand is forced."

Translation: if the execs are doing a bad job, the board WILL NOT INTERVENE. Nobody on the board wants to take over for an inept manager. If you're waiting for them to do that ... don't wait any more.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#389

Post by friendlybus »

rhizome wrote: post #365
xupybd wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly but this is more to counter letting your kids go wild such that as they grow up you don't like to around them. By ining them how to behave well you equip them will the tools to interact in society. Of course if you are a horrible person you might dislike them for their good behaviours. But if you're a horrible person chances are you'll mess up your kids with or without that rule.

I don't think people "let" their kids go wild so much as run out of parenting skills. That's what makes the idea irrational: use your parenting skills to make up for your lack of parenting skills. All you have to do is decide to do so!

That’s the same process we use at work everyday. When people run out of programming skill they get better by study and practice. All you have to do is to decide to.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#390

Post by decafninja »

throwaway987978 wrote: post #378
decafninja wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually just got my rejection from FB today. Purely JavaScript questions, no leetcode at all. If I were to rewind, I'd have focused more on purely JavaScript tricks and less on other parts of the frontend repertoire. i.e. the time I spent on CSS seems to have been a waste. Also got rejected from AMZN back in December. Made the mistake grinding leetcode during the weeks leading up to the interview, when it turned o…

Keep going. You only need to pass once. :) I'm kind of in the same boat. I failed all my interviews as well and I have about the same amount of experience as you. I agree that getting into these companies is easier as a junior engineer. You may want to look at an interview prep course like Outco.io or Interview Kickstart. I haven't attended one yet but will most likely do so once I'm ready to start interviewing again…

I've been in touch with the people at Interview Kickstart. They seem like nice people, but I'm pretty sure I know what my problem is - not doing the coding rounds with 100% perfect optimal solutions, when another competing candidate is doing so.

For example, in my failed FB interview above, I quickly and successfully solved two problems in the phone screen - thus I passed. The first onsite (virtual) coding round I struggled on the first problem but got it with about 10 minutes to spare. Main issue was that the optimal solution involved doing something in JavaScript that AFAIK typically considered bad practice. The second problem I waltzed through in 5 minutes. The second coding round I got the first problem, but there was an edge case bug I didn't catch, and fixing that took up the entire 45 minutes so I didn't get to a second problem. I'm guessing that was a big negative signal.

I know communication goes a long way, but considering how competitive these positions are at FAANG level companies, I'm sure there is someone else out there that communicates and vibes just as well as I do in addition to getting the 100% optimal solution quickly.

The one thing I can see a service like IK offering me is networks and referrals, but not sure how much that would be worth, especially since they aren't exactly cheap. That said, I'd pay the tuition without hesitation if they could guarantee me a job (of any level) at a FAANG level company, but that's not the case :). Or at least a 100% refund if I fail to get into such a company after a period following the curriculum - but I feel that's easier promised than done even if they were to offer such.

I have friends at some of these companies who have given me referrals, but ultimately all that does is give me higher odds of getting an interview, and in some cases, a chance to directly chat with the hiring manager prior to the interview. For whatever it's worth I've had managers express great enthusiasm about having someone like me on their team after a conversation, but then I get torpedoed for not being able to find the perfectly optimal solutions to some leetcode medium/hard.

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