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Comment by taternuts | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I'll reluctantly reveal I'm a 'programmer' sometimes, but most the times I'll avoid the question. It's especially true in certain cities, where the first thing people ask you is "Where do you work/What do you do?". DC and SF are terrible with this, and if the wrong person finds out you can program they'll bother you all night with terrible ideas they want you to implement for them when all you want to do is get drunk.

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I had an eye exam where the receptionist / salesperson read that I worked at Company X on my insurance. As we made polite conversation, I relayed that I worked on Project Y (a popular consumer product). A couple of weeks later, she used my patient info to call my private phone at 6:30am to ask for tech support. I was appalled, but politely informed her that this was inappropriate and how to seek support through the designated channels.

I thought about contacting the office to inform her superiors about the privacy violation, but didn’t. I sometimes wish I had. I always wonder if I dropped an opportunity to protect others from similar abuse of patient records.

6:30 am, I don't think I would have been polite.

I'm surprised that they answered. I had a recruiter try calling me before 9 the other day.

As far as anyone but friends and family, whose numbers I have saved, I don't exist outside the hours of 0900-1730.

>DC and SF are terrible with this, and if the wrong person finds out you can program they'll bother you all night with terrible ideas they want you to implement for them when all you want to do is get drunk.

So? Take them for an equal ride. It's a lot of fun.

Or follow it up with "Sounds awesome, lets start! I'll need 40 grand up front and 5k/m every month after that :)" they usually respond to that with some sort of "idk if it would be worth doing that".

My wife's former coworker tried to pitch me on her super-secret idea a few years ago, which was basically an AR/VR system. She and her husband were convinced that billions were being left on the table, and that I could write the necessary software and build the necessary hardware solo in just a couple of months.

I got them to stop asking me about it, but I don't think that either of them ever believed my assertion that I wasn't a technology magician.

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