Life and Career Lessons – 2012 | Hacker News Reader

Life and Career Lessons – 2012

codercowboy.com

92 pointscodercowboy24 comments

Thanks for this post. I expected a fluff lunchtime read here; a quick bulleted list of platitudes that you see over and over again this time of the year. But it really was a very well told, personal and clearly authentic story of your year and the hard-learned lessons you learned along the way. It reminds me of the power of a story. I think we tend to jump right to the TL;DR these days, but in a rush to condense everything into concise take-aways, we lose something along the way.

>> ...stick with me, this’ll be worth it.

Glad I did, and I definitely think it was.

I don't have much to add regarding the actual content. Some of these lessons I've learned as well (salespeople are surprisingly great, right?), some I haven't. I just felt like this post deserved more praise than a simple upvote.

This is why I read Hacker News. Every now and then you find something so candid and real that it makes you sit back for a moment afterward and really consider the decisions you're making and the things you're focused on.

Thanks for sharing.

I don't agree with the OP's definition of "asshole". Some people set a higher standard, and this oftentimes rubs people the wrong way. It's a mistake to label these people assholes, because they usually serve a valid purpose.

The people that you really have to watch out for are the Machiavellian assholes who care nothing about the job at hand and will do anything to cut others down for their own aggrandizement.

from one jason m baker to another, hello :)

It sure is a mistake to label them that way, but that's how they are usually labelled, so making his point this way really makes the point best: it may cause some reflection by the masses who really mislabel. Emphasis on "may".

Great essay, much better than the usual year-in-review.

Re: telecommute and resultant lack of face time, highly recommend non-purposeful video/audio calls - video ping me just to chat.

Took me 5+ years of being a remote worker to learn the value of those - they sub to some degree for the random hallway/kitchen type conversations of the office. Very different experience from the audio/video of the normal remote meetings, and helpful in making up for the lack of face time.

What's great about this post is that it's a win/win: the author gets a lot of value out of simply crystalizing his thoughts on paper, and readers share that benefit.

I'd encourage everyone to write as much as they can (especially periodic reflections), as writing something like this probably gives you 10x the value of reading it.

Usually, these "about my year" posts are filler, but this was some excellent stuff. Thanks for sharing it. That takes courage.

I’m not advocating ladder climbers, I’m not advocating jerks being jerks for the sake of jerktitude, I’m just saying, they have a place, and when you find the right asshole, they’re going to deliver and kick ass while doing it. The delicious irony will be, 5 years from now when your midsize is larger than midsize, the asshole who everyone hates will be the only executive of the lot who arguably deserves his merit badge title. Think on that.

Yup. I call this the "DFA Light". DFA = Done Fucking Around. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/flow-ownershi... DFA usually means that in 6 months, you'll either be running something or fired.

On open-plan offices:

What you describe isn't open plan. Open plan is this horrible bullpen where everyone's visible and no one has personal space. It sucks. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/no-idiot-disc...

What you want is for people to have laptops, and have private offices for people who need them, and open/communal spaces. I worked at a think-tank that had 3:00 tea (with board games that occasionally went till 7:00) and it was brilliant. Let people choose whether they work in the open or in private. Work space is not to be skimped on. 150 SF per person of private and 150 SF of communal. It pays for itself, because typical open plan offices reduce productivity by 50-80%. This hybrid-plan is something Google does extremely well (although it's technically cubicle-based, anyone who wants privacy can take an office).

On getting fired: there are good fires and bad fires. I won't share my "number" but its nonzero on both sides (being fired and participating in firing) and I've seen good and bad.

A good fire is when they treat it as a no-fault lack-of-fit, come up with a reasonable severance (depending on their finances, this could be zero for a cash-strapped startup, or ~6 months for a rich corporation) and a positive reference. Then it's just a breakup: good people break up with each other all the time. A bad fire is when they cold-fire you and refuse to support your career recovery needs.

For me, it's really about references. I don't need a severance, but if you don't agree on a good reference I will do everything in my power to fuck up your reputation. No or bad reference => war.

if you don't agree on a good reference I will do everything in my power to fuck up your reputation

But what if you don't deserve a good reference?

That's never been my situation.

Well, we'll never know now, will we? :)

This is why real reference checks rarely rely on the references you provide.

That's a huge invasion of privacy (except in national-security cases, wherein people know to expect an intensive background check) and of questionable legality, but yes, it happens.

This is why it's a good idea to speak with someone after you're called for a reference. If their prospective employer is calling shadow references (e.g. references they didn't volunteer) they have a right to know that it's going on.

ETA: If you're worried about shadow references, the best thing you can do is fake an offer with an "exploding" date to get a decision shortly after you interview. If they only have 2 days to make a decision, they'll stick to the references you provide and not nose around in your past where they don't belong. One can question the ethics of faking an offer, but it's no worse than calling shadow references, so do what you will.

I disagree with you that shadow references are a huge invasion of privacy. You are not normally entitled to a private work history.

For whatever it's worth: in almost 8 years as an employer, I've never rejected a candidate over their references. For my part, I've been rejected both from jobs and by investors as a result of shadow references. I've come to the following conclusion: I don't coach any references. Like everyone else, I have flaws that can at times make me a bitch to work with. I'd like to think deliberate dishonesty isn't one of them.

I disagree with you that shadow references are a huge invasion of privacy. You are not normally entitled to a private work history.

Would you allow a complete stranger in your house, for no other reason than a desire to know what's there? Let's assume he has no intention of damaging or stealing anything. He just wants to see what you have in your house. Would you be okay with this? I don't know you, but I'm guessing that the answer is, "no". Additionally, you have the right not to be unlawfully searched. This is considered to be a fundamental privacy protecting your domicile.

When you volunteer a reference, you're giving permission for this person to be involved in your career. It's like inviting someone to be in your house; he's allowed to be there because you invited him in. Shadow references are a different story. The employer is, without your consent or even your knowledge, inviting people into your (metaphorical) house, and that's wrong.

For my part, I've been rejected both from jobs and by investors as a result of shadow references.

I hope you inflicted some Nordic Indignation on the fuckers. They effectively committed theft against you. It's a pain in the ass to chase bad guys down, but someone needs to do it to keep society from going to hell.

Asking someone who has worked with Michael O. Church in the past about their experiences with him is not comparable to breaking into Michael O. Church's house.

Fine, but let's say that a relative stranger started investigating your past in all sorts of ways you didn't know about, compiling information with no regard for whether it was valuable or true. You'd be a bit creeped out, wouldn't you?

If you check a person's volunteered references, you get a good sense of how that person was to work with, but if you start doing shadow references, you don't know what you're getting. It could be pure falsehood and you'd have no clue. You're just snooping where you don't belong in the life of someone who didn't give you permission.

That is (a) also not a situation analogous to a potential future employer asking questions of people who have worked with you in the past and (b) a dramatically different assertion from "effectively committing theft" and "dragging society to hell".

What on earth makes you think that other people's experiences interacting with you in the workplace are private? There is no such thing as "employee-employee privilege".

Additionally, concern over false references is a bit strange from the guy who just finished telling us it's a good reference for him, "or war". The reality is, whether you get your shiny reference from the candidate or a gossipy one from a former coworker, you still have to use your brain to evaluate the data.

[A] dramatically different assertion from "effectively committing theft" and "dragging society to hell".

I disagree. The shadow reference who shot you down with the investor cost may have cost you millions of dollars. How can you not be mad about this? If someone said something that cost me millions, I'd be livid.

Additionally, concern over false references is a bit strange from the guy who just finished telling us it's a good reference for him, "or war".

If someone fires me and won't agree on a good reference, then it's on. If you're cash-strapped and absolutely can't afford a severance, fine. I'll bounce. If you decide to fuck with my career later on or interfere with future relationships, then war has been started and for me to fight back is appropriate.

In normal circumstances I don't "coach" references and trust them to give a decent account, but we were talking, in this thread, about getting fired. When someone is fired, he has a right to reach an understanding on what kind of reference will be provided.

You sound like a crazy person. Nobody "cost me millions of dollars". It wasn't my money. People are entitled to make decisions based on the information they're able to obtain from conversations. I am not entitled to a private career history, and neither are you.

You sound like you have no respect for privacy.

You, of course, have the right to compromise your privacy as you wish-- I blog and post under my real name, which is a compromise of privacy I choose to make-- but not the right to make that decision for other people.

A conversation about you with someone else is not an invasion of your privacy. People's thoughts about you do not belong to you.

A conversation about you with someone else is not an invasion of your privacy.

It depends what is in that conversation. If someone is rooting around our past in a way you didn't give permission for, that's an invasion.

People's thoughts about you do not belong to you.

No, but those thoughts may not be legitimate. Many people are useless idiots and their opinions are valueless.

If I've offered someone as a person whose opinion I trust, and that person says that I'm an idiot, that's a good sign that I'm doing something wrong. On the other hand, the opinion of some random person doesn't have much legitimacy.

Yeah in this case it was totally the former, on good terms, I'd highly recommend working at the place post-fire, and many of my colleagues, including the guy who had to do the fire and didn't necessarily agree with me offered to be a reference. I'd be a reference for him as well, any day.

I'm with you on the personal space per employee thing with communal areas being the right way to go, completely. It just seems the new kool-aid to drink is open space big brother/weird style where it seems to be mostly about minimizing sq foot per employee, which sucks, I agree.

Thanks for your comment, it's nice to hear some intelligent feedback :)

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