52 karma · joined September 3, 2014
Over a few years I worked on several projects, which all became the company's product suite. They all gained adoption, became very valuable and were sold to several customers, but they were not reliable. Even less so after they moved me off. But they were solving real problems, and customers were still happy, and so the company still kept them alive with bigger teams.
The company attained unicorn status, but I never really got ownership of any 1 project or product. I'd get increasing requests for help across the growing product suite, was able to help effectively, and simultaneously took on new feature development work.
In the latter part of my time there, I found out I may have been in the bottom quartile of pay for the team I was in, while being perceived as the top performer by coworkers.
I was in a slow 'burn out' but never fully checked out. Maybe because I think I rarely put in over 50 hours a week. Never touched comms during weekends.
I was in the mindset to follow Sheryl Sandberg's advice “If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat.” But what ended up happening was the people who knew how to ask for better seats actually got them.
https://www.airplane.dev/blog/no-code-has-no-future-in-a-wor...
I learned through pain that stacking up miles is about patience, not pushing harder. Right before tapering, I was averaging 80miles / 10.5 hours per week for 4 weeks in a row. About 1.5 hours per day.
As a thought exercise, running avg 7min/mile (MUCH harder + higher injury risk!) would decrease daily time by 11 minutes. 6 min/mile average (~olympian level training pace) decrease daily time by 22 minutes.
If you want the miles, you can get them. But you have to wake up 2-3 hours before work and run every day. And don't drink too hard on any weekend, otherwise you can't get quality long run in. And don't run too fast, otherwise you get injured/sick. And don't build weekly mileage too fast either for the same reason.
How come I couldn't keep my peak 80mpw average and hit >4000mi last year? Well firstly I wasn't fit enough in Q1. And then I failed to adhere to the simple rules above 39 weeks in a row afterwards!
This phrase is just insanely well-crafted for making me crave coffee.
Is this your personal experience or do you have data on this? YSL is one example has very tight (thin) fits on their jackets. You will buy the one that fits the best, otherwise it's gonna look ridiculous.