Is telling AI to do thing, doing the thing?
375 karma · joined October 3, 2014
I guess you could argue the same for a church.
Being a contractor is generally considered low status and temporary, so if you can get over that, then you can thrive.
The upside to this is the understanding that it is transactional and hourly. There is no expectation that you get emotionally invested. Which can actually be a much more health arrangement.
It gives so much more context to a PR.
Now days, you have to figure out which of the 10 download buttons is the real one. And then you have check hashes if you want to validate that you actually downloaded the installer that the publisher released.
I think that browser based software is a huge step backward in terms of richness of user experience. I can't believe that, in the year 2019, GSuite has usurped Outlook and the traditional native office applications in the corporate environment that i work in. But here we are.
But, there's no denying that any friction for the user getting the software will drastically reduce their likelihood of using it at all.
There is no right and wrong. There are only opinions and stylistic preference. There are solutions that are better and there are ones that are worse. But when you black box it and look at it from the outside, it either works or it doesn't.
Someone will say "false dichotomy", to which I say, "maybe".
Exit these relationships.
Of course, in the world of sales, those relationships can form quickly. Even if you've never heard of me and my staffing firm, I can present you tickets to a concert or golf tournament, or something similar, and win (buy) favor fairly easily.
Most of these middleman staffing firms are not really differentiated from one another. They find a client and leech on to it.
Things that have gotten worse: traffic and congestion, real estate prices
The needle is moving in the direction of wfh, I definitely believe that those that embrace it will be ahead of the game.
Management is playing a game of consistency and control. Blanket policies are the name of the game. I don't care if you are 100x more productive at home. I can't have all these other losers asking me why they aren't allowed to work from home. God forbid I consider a stratified policy where some people get privileges that others don't.
This is why small companies move the needle on innovation, because they don't have to cater to lowest common denominator of 5000 people. Large companies are ruled by old men, and are beholden to status quo.
At home, my breathers are more energizing, which is the point.
I can't believe how ridiculous it is that managers feign surprise when they are told that a task estimated at 4 hours will take a calendar day to complete. That is the nature of the work.
It's ok to treat adults with respect and empathy. Knowledge workers need more latitude to manage their pace.
There are the owners/middle management/laborers. To trick the laborers into thinking that they are part of something is pretty brilliant though.
Yeah that makes way more sense than just saying, "hey a client is coming in on Thursday, everyone assume your positions! And for FSM's sake, look like you're collaborating!"
But, alas, the pendulum swings. I think it's swinging back toward "I sure wish we didn't have to depend on finding skilled people, and our process was so bulletproof we could plug in any old schmuck and we can just continue to print money".
Damn, the business man is greedy.
It's geography, climate, and culture make it special. Tech companies don't get to show up and stake an ownership claim on this stuff. If the hippies told the hipsters "we were here first!", they wouldn't be entirely wrong.
If I profit off of you being sick, then I need to keep you sick.
The thing that businesses don't want to hear is that software development is a skill game. You win by having better players. You cannot put blind process around every facet of it. I know you'd like to, so that you can then pay very little for unskilled labor. But the fact remains that you cannot, even today.
Wysiwig html editors and drag and drop UI builders for rapid application development were trending for a while in the 90's. Then everyone realized that giving these tools to monkeys resulted in a big pile of poo. So the trend reversed back to hand coding UI layouts using markup, separating business logic from display concerns, etc
I guess what I am trying to say is that if there is any hope in putting a lot of process rigor around software development, it will be enabled by tooling. Until then, skill and experience matter. And they aren't cheap.
Put another way, if the Cleveland Browns stole the New England Patriots playbook, they would still suck.
Doesn't this sentiment have to be nearly as old as markets themselves? What makes you more angry, the fact that you cannot get the thing you want? Or the harsh realization that there is a class of people who can afford it, and you are not in that class?
Pricing is science, with a little art thrown in. EA is a publicly traded company whose stock has climbed from $12 to $120 in the last five years. Their imperative is to maximize shareholder value, not appease gamers.
The grown up thing to do is to focus on the things that you enjoy + can afford.
Also, the health insurance is bundled in to the compensation package, and if you don't need it, they're not going to increase your salary.
When you say "charge less than 10%", do you mean to say that if they bill the client $100/hr, that you will get $90/hr ?
As a software developer, it would be nice to be able to get a job in the engineering group, rather than in a standard IT shop.
Right out of the manager's playbook: "Well, you see, I'd love to give you more than a 3% raise, but, you know, budget is tight. No one is getting more than that. Most people are getting less, you should feel lucky to be getting 3%." You know he's reading from a script that he was coached to read from.
Same strategy as calling into the support line at Time Warner cable or United Airlines with a real beef. You are immediately worn down and dejected because you realize you're talking to someone with zero authority to do anything. So what do you do? Suck it up and keep working, or quit.
Also, it's much easier to shirk the "ownership" aspect of the products. FTE's typically handle the maintenance window in the middle of the night, the deployments, the firefighting. And they don't get paid for it. As a contractor, it's typically accepted when you say "I'm just a contractor, it's really not my product".
Yes, it's much more of a mercenary type arrangement. FTE's will oftentimes treat you as a second class citizen. But, you go home at 5pm.
But, what about job stability you say? Nobody has that. Working somewhere for 10 years and then suddenly getting put on the street is the worst case. You're hobbled. Finding a new gig every 1-3 years keeps you sharp.