722 karma · joined June 11, 2015
Come back in a year.
Also, it would be better to ask the manager's observations regarding productivity. Biases and all, you see.
It is a mad world in which "not enough profit" equates to failure. They made a profit, gained market share, started something new. Still, hedge fund managers and investors are selling their shares.
People want to make money for its own sake, no matter what gets exploited. Being a middle performer is no longer acceptable, but no one seems to stop and think WHY.
In just 20 years they will be spending their money on canned fresh air. There is a moral in that somewhere.
I speak from experience.
So cut some slack, put in the hours contractually necessary, but don't break your neck being at work 9AM sharp, meeting arbitrary deadlines set by management, or attending the meetings you could have just set to "tentative, but I'll probably pass, thanks".
But for fuck's sake, read/listen to the thing you comment on. Is this how engineers should behave? Do you build a new tool instead of understanding the old one? Do you re-do the library based on functional requirements (which you may or may not have read) instead of understanding and maybe refactoring it?
You made an ass of yourself, with your name, blog and github account searchable via your profile. This was a minor offence. Breathe and do better next time.
So yeah, being able to quit and leave whenever I want and take 2-3 months of break does take off a lot of weight from one's shoulders. 40 hours a week with no overtime or on-call for me! I will not be the employee with the mad bonuses when the time comes for that, but I will also be the one not on medication/suicide watch/psychiatric aid. The company will have a stable workforce that is able to care an adequate amount for the company's well-being, and I will not spend my bonus on keeping my health intact. If you don't want to employ such a person, I don't want to work for you either. Easy as that. :^)
So yeah, the essence of my comment, I would say, is that make sure you have financial get-away. You don't have to subscribe to the crazy USA way of overtime>money>health issues>expenses>overtime to compensate for expenses. Having a small vegetable garden also helps, or just caring for plants on your windowsill.
Also, cats.
This mentality is why the quality of HN went to shit.
I feel that most people crave attention more than they crave growing in whatever they are writing about. Maybe it all boils down to how I felt back then. These days, I read much more and write very little. It fits me at the moment, and I am better for not craving others attention and approval.
Oh well, I'll stick to fountain pens for now. :)
People read successful people's blogs, not yours nor mine (had one 15 years ago, no one read that either). So stop wasting time on tweaking the front porch and work on the piping instead.
Land of the Free - as long as you do not encrypt your shit, that is
As for a subcontractor, however, I enjoy high mobility. The client sucks? Stick to it until the next release cycle and work for another one the next week. You like working remotely? Look for a full-time client that offers that, or work for multiple who enjoys not having to pay rent for your ass in their offices.
The trick is to find a company, or consortium, which actively seeks clients and offer them services. This means they are constantly "recruiting" and moving people in-between projects. You don't have to be an employee within said company, you just have to be able to bill your hours to said company/consortium. Having my own company allows me to seek clients within the EU as well as overseas, if I wish to work those hours. It also allows me to drive prices higher than average, since I provide the advantage of "disposable workforce". That later part would be an issue, if I wasn't in connection with such company groups I mentioned earlier.
Your mileage may vary. I have to put it forth that I have no desire for kids, or owning my own house, so that removes a lot of stress and monetary obligations. I understand this is not the norm, though I do not understand why. We have it way better with my partner than couples with kids, and our observations over the years enforced our hunch that people generally start families because they have no idea where they want to go in life. So they try new things, which is nice, but maybe they should start with raising vegetables in their gardens, which is a daily, year-around responsibility. You gotta water and check for weeds, invaders every day, no matter how tired you might feel. If you give up two months in because the kale died due to overwatering and you never checking resources online, or the brussel sprouts never started budding because you never checked that in needs sulfur in the ground, well, maybe raising kids ain't for you either.
Hey there, honest question incoming. Any chances of you chaps making Word a better documentation tool in the future? Edit history storing formatting and data changes on the same tree is making it impossible to use Word for anything serious. This really comes to light once you start working at an MS tech company on documentation, where it is obvious that you should use MS products for work. Some tech writers I know just end up using separate technology branches for their group efforts, since neither Sharepoint nor Word is a professional tool for this job.