Reddit IAMA. An ex Google programmer switched to a job in the lumbering industry
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My feeling is he probably gave up too early on finding a way to integrate money making and his passion. Maybe this works best for him though.
From the AMA : "Now I've moved into to the lumbering industry and this has to be the best choice I've ever made. I kind of think of my job as a paid workout and I get to hack on OSS in my free time; After all I do have a passion for software development and I'm deeply involved in various OSS communities."
He says "However the programming industry is a lot of stress. I am not cut out for the stress and seemingly arbitrary deadlines."
He tried the absolute default plan: Get CS degree and work at $MEGA_CORP. He didn't like it, so he gave up the idea entirely. He could instead have tried creating his own custom plan. It's totally possible, especially if you're willing to take a 50% pay cut.
I started programming computers when I was very young. Because of the skills I developed, and because of some connections I had, I got a very high paying job in the data processing department of the Livermore School District while I was still a junior in high school. (I was on independent study at the time.) I literally made more money than I knew what to do with, unfortunately.
A couple of years later, I had been talking to a girl online, who lived in Florida. We met a few times. I've never been all that good at the relationship thing, so this seemed important to me at the time, so I moved to Florida. Shortly after getting there, I learned Oracle PL/SQL and another language I can't remember any more in the course of a few days to get a job at Ceridian Benefits Services; in time I became one of their lead techs with a path into their software development department. Again, more money than I knew what to do with.
After about a year of this though, things weren't working out, and there was a part of me that felt starved. It was the part that enjoyed hiking, enjoyed being outside, enjoyed being fit and in good physical health. I also had a strong feeling that everything up to this point had been too easy for me, that I wasn't getting as much out of life as I wanted to.
So I quit.
I moved back to California and resolved to spend the next few years starting over, completely from scratch; I wanted to take the hardest possible path through life for the next few years. (Boy, I had no idea what I was in for.)
I got into rock climbing, and then got a job as a climbing instructor. I had the opportunity, through my style, personality, will, and determination, to influence people around me. I made a lot of friends, many of whom I'm still friends with. I got to feed the outdoor side of my personality for a while. The job didn't pay much though, and eventually I fled, in debt, to a job in the retail part of the outdoor industry, in another part of the state.
During this time I didn't use computers, unless it was as a cash register or inventory system. For a period of a couple of years, I was completely disconnected from the internet, computers, toys, and gadgets. I learned how to fix cars, I chased sheep down the street, I climbed a lot, and I wandered around.
I'm back in computers now, obviously. It took me only about a year to catch up to the changes in the industry, and I'm one of the leading consultants in my area now, with a successful business of my own.
But, I'm really, really, really glad I took that road. It taught me so much that I couldn't have learned by staying behind a computer desk all day long. It taught me how to relate to people, for one. It taught me how to maintain some balance in my life, and how to pay attention to the needs of my spirit. (My girlfriend, who's reading this over my shoulder -- she's really patient with my need to hear myself talk! -- is reminding me that it's also how I met her, which is probably the best part of all. :-)
So my main point, in so much as I have one, is that abandoning your core skill in an area, and putting yourself in over your head for a while, can lead to some really valuable experiences. You don't need to worry about whether or not you'll still be able to get back in later, or re-acquire old skills; they'll come back, in time. Don't worry about that at all.
i genuinely hate suster and calacanis. they're a big part of what makes me want to leave this fucking industry.
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/04/22/never-hire-job...
confronting their mentality (by reading what they write, by reading what others write about what they write) feels productive. more productive than cultivating a kind of detachment towards 50+ hours of every week of my life.
but maybe it isn't - i'll give this a try. thanks.
This is not specific to programmers and it is imaginable that a slow learning programmer with domain specific knowledge has value.
The ability to learn what users need.
The ability to learn how a how a system works.
The ability to learn the cause of a bug.
The ability to learn from mistakes.
And the ability to solve complex problems.
While fast learning per se is an asset in any field, however, in many occupations learning seems to be taken as a necessary evil that merely makes you wish you could do things like you used to and go on like that. You get trained to be something and when your field changes, you're forced to learn something new and you only do it then.
Programmers on the other hand—well, their job is to learn new stuff. Sometimes it's a new codebase, sometimes it's a new framework or library or language or protocol or a set of tools but there's always something new. The ultimate new thing is writing a program that hasn't existed before: everything is new. And even that new stuff doesn't have value per se, it's just a prerequisite for a programmer to "get things done". Stuff gets into the fashion and stuff becomes obsolete, but the programmer is riding on the front wave.
Not only good programmers have to be able to learn, they have to be able to learn fast. Programmers can't afford to take a six-month course to learn something new. If you can't learn new stuff and successfully map out the diffs of how it relates to stuff you already know, you're out soon.
As someone pointed out, while being able to learn also means that the programmer has undoubtedly learned a lot, I still argue that the value is indeed in the ability itself. A junior guy with the good programmer aptitude and ability to learn can bump himself into shape in a few years of time. Another programmer who has already learned a lot but who has lost the willingness to learn anything new is toast sooner than that.
Learning is implicit in the job of a programmer. When your job is to circle around the boundaries of unknown, it is something that you can't avoid.
The topic of relating to people always fascinates me. Would you say it is more about not facts but sharing feelings? What would you want to tell and teach your future son or daughter about relating to others? Thanks in advance.
OK, so, I've always been kinda cerebral, so communicating with people was something I had to "figure out". I'm not so much that way any more, but I do remember most of what I did to learn it.
It's definitely more about feelings than facts -- purely factual statements make a lot of people turn off to you -- but it's also about empathy. Not a new-age touchy-feely kind of empathy, but merely the ability to quickly understand the other person's habits, backgrounds, emotions, and personality. Think of it as learning to communicate in a different language, like speaking Russian to a Russian.
I studied some psychology, and although on the whole I think it was not terribly valuable, it did help me typecast people a little bit faster. For example, I tend to notice whether a person talks about what they think, or what they feel. If they say that they feel like x or y is right or wrong, then they're talking from an intuitive, emotional standpoint, and being all cerebral around them isn't going to get you very far.
There's also body language, the kinds of jokes a person tells, the sorts of phrases they use, and the dialect of language they use. I don't for example talk to boulderers the same way I'm talking now ... unless I want them to laugh at me. :-)
It started out as something I had to think about and study, but now it's intuitive and I don't think of it the same way anymore. It's just something I do.
I think this is a really valuable thing for other people to do; it would help communication between people a lot. There would be fewer misunderstandings.
Or, as my much-more-personable-and-outgoing girlfriend who again is reading over my shoulder says, "Well, yeah, it teaches you how to listen."
Guess I still have a lot more to learn.
Part of the misfortune with making money early on is that I never learned how to manage it, or save it, so I had no savings within a few months of leaving Florida. Having savings would have made a lot of the struggle much easier, but I don't think I would have learned as much, either.
I honestly would not say I have "immense talent"; that makes me kinda uncomfortable, actually. I'd say I have average talent, and immense determination, if anything.
I had a classmate at high school and then at university that was the brightest student I ever saw at math. He could prove theorems in his sleep, and often did a different proof than the one taught "just for fun" (and giving teachers headaches).
Sadly his parents were quite rich and also a troubled family, so he went into recreational drugs, partying and D&D. Last time I saw him, he still hadn't finished university and had accomplished nothing with his life (well, he'd had a lot of girlfriends and partying AND D&D, so maybe he hadn't "wasted" time from his point of view)
I didn't downvote you, but I think that there is something missing here. Nobody that has ever brought a child in to the world had absolutely everything in order. And even if they thought they did they would have soon found out that it was not the case.
Then there is the period (pun not intended) between conception and delivery, in which a lot can change.
Waiting for the 'perfect time' is the best way to guarantee that you will never have children, there never is a perfect time, there will always be one more thing to fix.
Instead, if you want children, go for it while you are young, adaptable and have tons of energy. Worry about fixing problems if and when they appear. Try to do the best you possibly can and if you fail at something try to do it gracefully.
That is not a call to go and procreate if you for instance are not able to feed your kids or take care of them, but let's not overdo it on the having everything in order, that's a complete illusion.
My parents had 'everything in order' when they got me and my sister, fast forward 6 years and they had a very messy divorce, there are countless examples like that. And there are plenty of counterexamples too, of people that had a pretty tough life, decided to have children and simply did an amazing job of creating a place for them in the world.
In the roughly three years between when I was conceived and shortly after my sister was born, my parents went from having 2 jobs and no kids to having no jobs and 2 kids. 1981-82 was a harsh recession.
but i want to ask you to consider something without any incredulity about my seriousness:
if you had not been born, you would not be bothered by not existing. and when eventually your parents die, they would no longer be bothered by not having had children.
Ok, that's fine with me.
> if you had not been born, you would not be bothered by not existing. and when eventually your parents die, they would no longer be bothered by not having had children.
That's a statement, not a question.
edit: maybe you overlooked ^"to consider" and just read "i want to ask you ^ something".
It's a bit too philosophical for me, you could ask anybody to 'consider' that and they would most likely land on 'but that isn't how it happened'.
Asking someone to consider some alternate reality and what their position would have been in that alternate reality is difficult stuff, at a minimum you'd have to concede that you can't really consider any 'alternative universes' simply because this is the one we've got.
So, in this universe, I exist, I'm happy I do and my parents, even though they probably made a wrong decision or two did have two kids.
The line of reasoning you are pursuing leads to either a very empty planet or to a planet with different people, two random specimens of which could be having this exact same conversation on a nodesloc called latest.zjoiner.com.
I can appreciate the logic in that, but I'd caution anyone against jumping into a commitment of that magnitude before they've achieved some minimum threshold of maturity.
To illustrate my point, the rate of divorce declines rapidly as the age when married increases. In my experience, the same factors that contribute to a successful relationship also prepare (to the small degree that preparation is possible) a person for the utter, absolute responsibility and sacrifice that is parenthood.
Even if he could not save for his daughter's college, there are always other options available: scholarships, working while attending college, starting a community college and transferring (I did this for undergrad and paid my way through graduate school).
I voted you up (because your question deserves attention), but "only families with two six digit incomes and significant savings should have children" (what you need for a "comfortable life" while saving for a college educate) is a very scary argument to make. Note, I am _not_ saying families shouldn't hold off on children until basic financial situation is stable: you should still be able to provide a healthy life for yourself and your children, etc...
That's a very odd comment. Two six digit incomes is a family of two engineers (2-5 years into their career) in Silicon Valley. Two $120,000-$150,000 incomes in Silicon Valley means "can afford a single family home, as long as both spouses are employed".
"They're" (I think you meant their) existence is not dependent on the lives of people who do not earn six digit incomes, amongst them are also people (doctors, engineers, scientists) who are making the lives of less fortunate much less miserable.
That also describes my parents and would very likely describe my own family (I've been earning a six digit income since two years out of college), so it's not something extra ordinary.
Is it really מecessary to drop everything? If so why?
It was necessary for me, though.
17: data processing department; 19: florida; 20: quit; 22: returned to computers ?
what phase of the industry did all of this happen in? it seems like you've managed without a college degree?
17 (almost 18): data processing department, starting in 1996; 20: Florida, in Summer 1999; quit almost exactly a year later, at 21; got my first computer job again at 25, in 2004. So it was actually a 4-year gap (!).
I left the computer industry just months before the big dot-com crash, but I was really burned out by then, and predicted the crash anyway. (IPOs had gotten completely out of control.)
And no, I don't have a college degree or much in the way of a college education at all, unfortunately. I'm really not proud of that, but I haven't been disciplined enough for college until more recently, and now I'm too busy and have other goals. I would never brag to anyone that "I've gotten this far without a college degree"; I'm not fond of that trend these days, and I do think that having at least some college education is very important.
My story is quite the reverse. I grew up on a dryland wheat farm in Montana. Nature has a way of enforcing its own deadlines. There, you are never not aware of the issue facing you, hail, no rain, early fall, short crops. Software deadlines seemed to pale in comparison.
Sure personally he feels less obligation, but it just seems like eventually that will catch up with him, i know it would to me... especially for someone who professes to love the outdoors, and then contributes to its destruction. The motivation is a little hypocritical...
Considering that the lumber industry gets the bulk of their wood from farms and tracts that are continusouly replanted, they aren't cutting down old growth forests like "the old says". Compared to aluminum or steel, wood frame construction is fairly renewable and to be encouraged.
Google is creating new products and services that increase demand for energy. Everything they do requires more computers sucking up power, more devices to be made with crazy materials in them etc.
The argument about wood as a good renewable building material is a good one, however, not getting the "bulk" and not getting most are two completely different things, and the world really needs to get on a renewable system fast.
Also, while in a lot of places you will find reference to there being zero net change in the amount of trees being cut down, the fact of the matter is that a lot of old growth forest is still being destroyed.
This reasonable looking article: http://ecology.com/features/paperchase/, says that 9% of wood for paper is taken from old growth forests.
Here is another place that lays it out in a graph: http://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/figtableboxes/figure-2-.... http://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/.
After reading the IAMA more closely, I think that I was wrong in my initial assessment of him, he is doing it because he want the exercise, and is still participating in more "real" projects on the side in a less stressful setting, which is cool. My real point was that it would be really easy to do something like this, thinking that it would be great, and then realizing some time later that you were part of something that you really didn't like on principle.
That's because there are none left. Check out the maps over time here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest#Importance
"the lumber industry gets the bulk of their wood from farms and tracts that are continusouly replanted"
I believe most commercial logging is clear cut. This is devastating to not only trees, but soil, animals, watersheds, migratory birds, and who knows what else down the line.
We need wood, so we have a lumber industry that grows trees and cuts them down. But don't think for a second that replanting a clear cut wasteland with monoculture seedlings is in any way "renewable" or "encouraged".
If you have any doubt about the effectiveness of replanting, zoom in and around British Columbia with google maps. What appears to be a massive unbroken forest is actually riddled with clearcuts.
Also, what happens if you get injured on the job?
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-sou...
One thing to note: Crawford is a motorcycle repairman, but he's still a knowledge worker to some extent. And, of course, the book length treatment of the subject was subsidized by a university.
We haven't sat at desks long enough to affect us as species. You've got everything you need to be a hunter-gatherer or a farmer apart from the skills.
And I don't recall any hunter-gather tribe that had those.
Muscles grow faster than hacking skills. And if you're used to hacking skills, you probably find a way to do it better and safer.
Also, what happens if you get injured on the job?
What happens if you subject your body to sitting 100 hours a week in front of a computer for decades?
I average about 45 hours a week, with no more than 35 from the office. I ride my bike to and from the office, spend most weekends outside either climbing or riding my bike, and spend the warmer evenings with my family in the backyard. Oh, and I just got back from a one month road trip.
Certainly, I've put in some long days (this is not limited to sedentary labor--ever talked to a farmer?), but these are almost always offset by flexible schedules and comp time. I suggest, perhaps, if you like programming, that you look for another gig.
Yourself?
Have you been to Seneca Rocks? I had my first trad experience there. The exposure was awesome.
I've not been to Seneca--we are tried-and-true boulderers/sport climbers.
None of those problems seem to be because you don't live in a forest. They will not magically disappear even if you did live in a forest.