I know at some point politics will get me and my style of insulating my engineers will cost me my job, even though by doing so we have great productivity metrics.

Mine ultimately did cost me my job. Or at least it was a contributing factor. I was so sick of the relentless conflict and the toxicity. When I eventually got fired, I missed my team but I was also relieved. It was like a huge weight being lifted. Knowing what I know now, I would never have taken the job to begin with. On the other hand, I do think it helped me grow personally and figure out what my values are. I decided I was ready to put my career on the line if I had to choose between keeping my job and doing the right thing. I did the best I could and my conscience is clear.

17 years in tech. Made it to director level. Decided I hated ladder climbing. Transitioned to software engineering full time and spent the last 5 years doing that. The work life balance was a lot better but the corporate BS was not. I’ve decided corporate jobs may not be for me.

Currently working on a software project of my own. If that works out, great. If not, I may get out of the business instead of going to another corporate job. I’ve got enough experience to do just about anything I want to but I honestly don’t know what that would be.

You know its me it’s a me…

FTFY

I was listening to NPR a few days ago and they were talking – in the context of Jimmy Carter’s passing – about the global community having to grapple with two different sides of the United States. The side that is incredibly generous and has contributed an enormous amount to the welfare of people throughout the world and the side that is a basically a bully that uses it’s vast power and influence as a means to further it’s own selfish interests.

Both of those things can certainly be true. The US has contributed a lot of positive things to the global community and at the same time, the US is effectively the most powerful and sophisticated empire in human history. Empires cannot maintain their power without oppression. Over the last 249 years, we have created some truly horrific disasters, at home and abroad, in the name of acquiring and maintaining power. That deserves criticism no matter who’s doing it.

There are a few things you can do that will help make everyone’s life easier.

First thing, ask engineering what can be done to reduce technical debt and then fight for it aggressively. This is often a hard sell to the product owners at first because it can increase the time it takes to produce new features, at least initially. In the long term, it will pay huge dividends to everyone involved.

When tech debt gets ignored on a new project, the timeline usually goes something like this:

• Project is barreling toward MVP at lightening speed. The Product owner said “move fast, break things” and engineering is delivering based on that mindset and everything seems to be going great.

• MVP is almost ready but uh oh! Now a new feature has been requested.

• “Move fast, break things” doesn’t allow time for code that is easily understandable or extendable to fit new use case scenarios so a huge chunk of the codebase has to be rewritten to accommodate the new feature.

• Wash, rinse, repeat.

Without a major change in design philosophy, the cycle tends to get worse over time with small features requiring more and more extensive refactoring and the number of regression bugs skyrocketing. Not to mention the code base is now a disorganized, smoldering pile of spaghetti that every dev loathes having to work on. Stakeholders are unhappy. Customers are unhappy. Engineers are unhappy. Everyone is unhappy.

Second thing, talk to some actual users, people who are NOT involved in the project, to get their feedback. As an engineer, I like working on projects that add value to someone’s life, or at least make their work day easier. I want the user experience to be positive. I want the features I’m working on to enhance that experience. I don’t want to waste my time working on features that are completely useless and will be rejected by the users as such just because some VP who doesn’t understand what the users want has a bright idea. I’ve experienced this a lot throughout my career and to some degree it’s curbed my interest in software engineering, simply because I feel like a lot of my time and effort were wasted on projects or features that were DOA.

He also had a drivers license. Basically state sponsored terrorism.

Y’all aren’t gonna believe this but the guy used electricity in various ways while planning the attack.

My wife and I always get a kick out of it when sports commentators say things that are just stupidly obvious. I think the best one so far was “if you want to win you gotta win.”

I think that was Joe Buck during a Jets game but I’m not positive.

I remember when Emma Watson turned 18, and there were websites that counted down to it. Same for Lindsay Lohan. It was so creepy, and also weirdly presented as ‘normal dude behavior’ back in the aughts. I’m glad that’s no longer acceptable. It always gave me the ick.

I’m with you there. Anyone who looks at a person and thinks “I can’t wait until they’re 18 and legally fuckable” needs to go spend some time seriously re-examining their life choices.

Younglings, if you’re reading this, rest assured, you look great, and I’m just an old twisted weirdo with specific tastes.

This is great btw. There are some awesome things that come with getting older. Maybe not hair loss or joint pain. Or the decline of your metabolism that happens in your early 20’s when you’ve finished growing.

You’re gonna lose the “cool” factor. You will. It’s inevitable. But you won’t care. I’m 35. I like myself now. I don’t give a shit what other people think of me and 99.9% of the time they’re not thinking about me at all. My 30’s have been my favorite decade so far. I would have thought you were crazy if you told 16 year old me that was gonna happen.

The man is literally a walking national security threat who has no problem blabbing state secrets for free because in his mind, it’s a way of showing how important he is.

I know a few couples like that. I also have a 16 year old daughter with plenty of 16(ish) year old friends. For the life of me, I cannot fathom what a 30+ year old man could see in a 16/17 year old girl, other than maybe being easily manipulated. That may be enough. Cause it’s definitely not their personal hygiene, conversation abilities, or depth of experience in any given area.

“Maybe if you tell me the bad news in a good way, it won’t sound so bad.”

Them: “Wow. I can’t believe jubilationtcornpone would do something like that.”

Me: “Yeah, well that makes two of us. And are you seriously trying to tell me you’re JUST NOW hearing about that? You actually missed my compete and total public humiliation? That was like ten years ago.”

Preach. Some of the worst engineering in the industry over the last 40+ years.

We know. Even if some of us don’t want to admit it.

I would like to once again thank the motion picture and recording industry associations for their contributions to both the sophistication of media piracy and the quality of content.

Without their efforts, we would probably all still be playing Russian Roulette on Limewire for a low quality copy of Zoolander. The first person to record a movie on Betamax would probably shit themselves if they could have seen what could be accomplished with some arrogance, incompetence, and blind greed. There’s no doubt that you guys are the real MVP when it comes to promoting media piracy.

The anti-piracy industry couldn’t be more Mickey Mouse if it were run by the Marx Brothers.

Yes. Washing isn’t that hard on them. Hang dry only. Putting them in the clothes dryer is what causes them to shrink and wear out faster.

I have a few pairs of jeans that are probably ten years old and have been washed many times that still look nice.

Tesla originally had some star power because they were doing things that traditional automakers claimed were impossible. A litany of poor engineering decisions and Elon showing his true colors have worn off any remaining novelty.

Humbug.

They can do anything. Of course they can!