Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 757 posts

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#611

Post by bonestamp2 »

pengstrom wrote: post #110
badtuple wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but the incredible depth of pretty much every field. Not every practitioner dives deep, but the masters of any job leave me speechless.

I worked a stint in fast food. I thoroughly underestimated the skill ceiling. Everything from burger wrapping, cleaning, taking orders and inventory could be optimized for time. It took almost a year before I was comfortable and by then I was doing things quickly, consistently and a few at the same time.

I worked at a McDonald's in high school that was adjacent to a major highway so we were always packed. Even now, getting in the flow of programming when everything is going right and I'm making huge progress, that feeling pales in comparison to being in the zone when working drive thru with 8 orders on the screen and each of them is in a different state as you build them as fast as possible as different components are coming in from different stations all at once.

When you tame that chaos, and it's saturday afternoon when all the best people are there and everyone is on their game... I've never experienced anything like it. It's like when you see a really amazing play in your favorite sport, but that same amazing play goes on for a couple hours. I imagine it's like being an air traffic controller or maybe a stock broker on the trading floor where you can talk to everyone and it's productive chaos at its glorious peak.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#612

Post by BlueTemplar »

juped wrote: post #480
BlueTemplar wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when we were taught (software) project management with GANTT, I smelled bullshit due to the lack of tolerance of uncertainty in the tool. Thankfully the exam "subverted our expectations" and strongly hinted that "no plan survives contact with the enemy".

"Gantt" is a person's name (Henry Gantt), not an acronym.

Damn, did I miss that or did they forgot to tech that ? Thanks anyway !

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#613

Post by galfarragem »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #543
gonzo41 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and google and the rest of those money hating software companies are just in it for the good of free speech and democracy. :S Trades are OK when you're young. If I'd been a carpenter at 18, i'd be bored of it by 26 and probably be thinking about starting my own company or time to pivot into a new thing. The big downside of trades is they aren't jobs you can do forever.

I did that carpentry thing too for a year, a long time ago. Hanging down head over by the knees from the ridge, and banging nine inch nails into the rafters from below. Up to 8 floors high. Looking like an animal. What can i say? In retrospective it was much more satisfying than much of anything i did afterwards. I really built something to last, immediately visible, tangible. Though of course it would have been hard…

Impressive comment. Literary style. HN still surprises me.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#614

Post by jefurii »

That work which benefits society goes unrewarded while work that is actively destructive towards our planet and our democracy is very lucrative. That most technical people seem to have no ethics, no morals, no empathy, and no scruples. That corporations are psychopathic parasites which do not have our best interest at heart. That nonprofits can be refuges and forces for good.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#615

Post by tome »

cryptica wrote: post #321

My work in open source and many different-sized companies (in finance sector and outside) has taught me that there are two categories of people. Those who create value and those who capture value. Most people are on a spectrum but will lean more towards one group or the other but there are people who are more on the extreme ends of the spectrum. - People who are fully focused on capturing value have a tendency to tak…

That's interesting. Personally I match roughly half of your first description and roughly half of your second!

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#616

Post by demadog »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #611
pengstrom wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked a stint in fast food. I thoroughly underestimated the skill ceiling. Everything from burger wrapping, cleaning, taking orders and inventory could be optimized for time. It took almost a year before I was comfortable and by then I was doing things quickly, consistently and a few at the same time.

I worked at a McDonald's in high school that was adjacent to a major highway so we were always packed. Even now, getting in the flow of programming when everything is going right and I'm making huge progress, that feeling pales in comparison to being in the zone when working drive thru with 8 orders on the screen and each of them is in a different state as you build them as fast as possible as different components ar…

Wow, my mind is blown right now at how well you captured this feeling. I also worked at McDonald's at 15 and it was thrilling to be working a real job for the first time in life, and see the inner workings of a corporation perfected over 50+ years, notwithstanding the terribly bad for you product.

I also remember working the order taking window and getting into the flow of quickly finding the items after you master the educational part. In a way it's like lego-building or very simple programming.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#617

Post by jstummbillig »

jmiskovic wrote: post #441
jstummbillig wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Seems sound enough. Unless you put forward more specific criticism – and I'd be happy to hear your thoughts – I'll be a poet today.

My criticism can be summarized as "map is not the teritory". The reality is messy. Sure, we can think in terms of feedback loops and interactive modules and it can be helpful sometimes. We just have to be aware we are imposing our puny models onto the infinitely complex beast. The model will break down at some point. Recognizing the correct model and extrapolating from it is not useful unless we know the limit at whi…

This criticism is unspecific to the idea of "everything is a system". You are criticising models for being a models.

Sure enough, models are problematic for various reasons, a few of which you have enlisted.

It's just an entirely different conversation to have.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#618

Post by DannyB2 »

sbarre wrote: post #594
DannyB2 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Accurate, precise estimates are more expensive than the actual task itself. That! That is is. You CAN get accurate estimates. But the cost of doing so is infeasible for any significant project. You can break things down into smaller pieces, easier to estimate. But the bigger the overall complexity, the more small pieces you will miss or fail to see. Or fail to see how parts interact. Or fail to recognize how far th…

After doing this for 25 years, I always say "you never get good at estimating, you just get less shitty at it".. Lots of people don't like that statement, but I stand by it.. I eventually stopped trying to estimate time required to deliver a specific thing, and instead started working backwards and seeing what can be done in the time we have. It's still estimating, but it's somehow a bit easier, especially if you're…

After almost 40 years of doing this, I can agree that you do get better at it. But perfection never seems to materialize.

Even if I get better at it, a lot of my younger coworkers do not. So the phenomena seems to continue.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#620

Post by [deleted] »

prometheus76 wrote: post #392
nkrisc wrote: post #327

How important it is to be able to inhabit another person's viewpoint and see things from their perspective. So much time and effort is saved in doing so. Much of my job has become translating and mediating between stakeholders going around in circles, because each one believes their viewpoint represents the entirety of the issue. They can not understand one another because they assume the other understands everything…

This concept led to me almost losing my marriage, and what saved it. I had been interpreting all of my wife's actions according to why I would be acting that way, instead of trying to understand how she is justifying her actions. Once I started asking more questions about her mindset, and really listening to her when she answered, the whole direction of my marriage changed for the better.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN