This is a well worded blog post:

• You’re learning coping mechanisms rather than skills.

Every organization has their quirks that people find their way to work around. ... Over time, we learn to cope with these things – we set aside extra time for the reports, make sure we take the time to sell the political person on our ideas, or learn how to argue.

The trap: Sometimes organizations are (or become) sufficiently toxic that we’re investing more time in developing and refining the coping mechanisms than the actual skills. If your list of things to develop is really a list of things that you won’t have to do in a more functional environment, none of which will make you more employable elsewhere… it’s time to walk away. [emph mine -mfn]

Everything we do that doesn't make us "more employable" could be wasted time. I mean, having effort, eg, helps because you get better at estimating stories, and knowing what you need to know to get those high-quality estimates and "ready-ready" stories. That's not wasted time (even if I don't always love those meetings).

But if we're coping just to cope -- and when it's safe to say a decent amount of it won't translate to a "more functional" workplace -- that's a workplace smell.

Nothing earth-shattering, but I liked the "does this problem make me/us/whoever more employable?" and "do I spend more time coping than learning?" metrics.

Labels: business, development, Jobs

What do you think Stanford's annual operating budget is? ... It's 750 million dollars. Michigan's is over a billion. These are Fortune 500 companies disguised by another name, and a lot of myth.

Labels: business, Jobs, Other Stuff

So I'm unhappily debugging some inherited Python code, a language I've never used before, that's causing trouble (it's comparing .csvs, and was using giant dictionaries to keep all the rows from the first in memory, removing keys when a matching "id" column was found in the other file. But did it anticipate repeated keys in multiple csv rows? No. No, it apparently didn't), and got the attached "results" from googling for "python try catch". Hello, surreal...

And, as you can tell from the second picture, if you choose to play, after the search results are replaced by a command-line environment, things get a little Hideo Kojima-y. I remember once playing the original Metal Gear Solid with a buddy and running into Revolver Ocelot (?) in a boss battle, and he said something about how long it'd been since we'd saved, and that we weren't allowed to save now. I'm not even sure he was telling the truth, but we didn't try to save, and the battle was that much more exciting because of it.

So "This invitation will expire if you close this page," certainly convinced me into going down the rabbit hole. I mean, even if this is some sort of strange, elaborate hack, who wouldn't? I'm your huckleberry.

Turns out there's a file in my "home" directory called start_here.txt, and I'm given a programming challenge. Not too difficult, but a challenge, and a timer, and a time limit of 48 hours (I guess that was my first hint I should've waited until I was home). I don't know Python, but Java is allowed as well. Haven't really used Java seriously in a while, but I happen to have javac on the workstation (though no Eclipse or Netbeans), left over from when I decompiled an app we were using from [a vendor] to fix a bug of theirs (a casting error; they were pushing essentially a double into a single), so let's try this. A quick click on Sublime Text, a quickly hacked bat file to compile and run my class, a cmd window, and we're off.

The worst thing? I completely foobared the Google/foobar. What a freakin' idiot. I did sort of figure it was an application for employment, and I couldn't've done worse. The first problem wasn't tough, but I did my usual "race through and figure out errors later" and obo'd all over the place, which was obviously the point of the problem. I got it, but it took about 17 minutes of setup and fixing dumb errors. Idiot. I'm sure they see every failed verify call. Idiot.

Oh well. I logged in to save and guess I'll try the remaining tasks later. Not that I'm even looking for a job. Not that it's particularly ethical to interview me for a job while I'm working in my current position without telling me that's what we're doing. But that was fun, in a way.

This is what I get for searching to fix a Python issue! Programming languages are all "different dialects of the same language", a prof once told me. He was right, but it's strange what googling those dialects can do to you.

Anyhow, more about what's going on with Google/foobar here. And yes, it turns out it was an interview. Dang it. Still, from debugging Python in VIm via ssh to javac-ing an answer in 17 minutes isn't horrible, I guess. ;^)

Labels: easter egg, Google, java, Jobs, python, wtf

As part of an interview with Charlie Rose that aired on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday, a visibly shaken and humble Bill Gates detailed his final visit with Steve Jobs, in which the two discussed everything from family life to empowering the future of eduction [sic] through technology.

Labels: education, gates, Jobs, tech

In what appears to be an internal error with Apple's iCloud management system, a number of users are seeing their accounts credited with 25GB of storage space, with the next renewal date coming up 38 years from now.

June 30, 1992.


In those days, Microsoft was a lot less bureaucratic. Instead of the 11 or 12 layers of management they have today, I reported to Mike Conte who reported to Chris Graham who reported to Pete Higgins, who reported to Mike Maples, who reported to Bill. About 6 layers from top to bottom. We made fun of companies like General Motors with their eight layers of management or whatever it was.


In my BillG review meeting, the whole reporting hierarchy was there, along with their cousins, sisters, and aunts, and a person who came along from my team whose whole job during the meeting was to keep an accurate count of how many times Bill said the F word. The lower the f***-count, the better.

Bill came in.

I thought about how strange it was that he had two legs, two arms, one head, etc., almost exactly like a regular human being.

He had my spec in his hand.

He had my spec in his hand!

...


I can't for the life of me remember what they were, because I couldn't stop noticing that he was flipping through the spec...

He was flipping through the spec! [Calm down, what are you a little girl?]

... and THERE WERE NOTES IN ALL THE MARGINS. ON EVERY PAGE OF THE SPEC. HE HAD READ THE WHOLE [goshdarn] THING AND WRITTEN NOTES IN THE MARGINS.


He Read The Whole Thing! [OMG SQUEEE!]
...
Finally the killer question.


"I don't know, you guys," Bill said, "Is anyone really looking into all the details of how to do this? Like, all those date and time functions. Excel has so many date and time functions. Is Basic going to have the same functions? Will they all work the same way?"


"Yes," I said, "except for January and February, 1900."

Silence.

Labels: apple fail, Jobs, testing

This is different. These ads are causing a widespread gagging response, and deservedly so. I honestly can’t remember a single Apple campaign that’s been received so poorly.

Labels: apple, apple fail, hats of money, iPad, Jobs

According to Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with tiny Global Equities Research, 7 minutes of Steve Jobs' keynote is allotted for Microsoft. Microsoft will reportedly be talking about their development tool Visual Studio 2010. The new version of Visual Studio will reportedly allow developers to write native applications for the iPhone, iPad and Mac OS.

The move would be a big surprise given Apple and Microsoft's competitive history. In addition, the announcement of PC-based development suite for iPhone and Mac OS would be major announcement.

Update: Barron's reports that Chowdhry has retracted both of yesterday's claims, indicating that there will be no Microsoft announcements at WWDC. Chowdhry notes with any remaining credibility he might have, however, that his contacts "insist that both MSFT and AAPL are working on development tools - probably our timing is off".

Labels: apple, iphone, Jobs, microsoft

'According to a person briefed on the telephone call, Mr. Schmidt-Holtz and Mr. Jobs had a heated exchange by phone on Christmas Eve,' the Times reported. 'Eventually, Sony gave in and agreed to a longer waiting period.'

Labels: apple, iTunes, Jobs

So while Jobs may be the visionary, Gartner analyst Mike McGuire told BusinessWeek not to underestimate Cook in that department, either.

"I don't know Cook that well, but my guess is he isn't just an ops guy," said McGuire, who said Apple's new interim chief will have learned how to launch successful products from being around Jobs for a decade. "I don't think you survive at Apple as just an operations guy. I don't think you get let into the inner sanctum as just an operations guy."
...
'I think he's wickedly smart and he doesn't have a big ego, which is useful at Apple,' said John Landforce, who dealt with Cook for years on an Apple advisory board. The Journal goes on to describe Cook as 'analytical and detail-oriented', with such a strong memory that he 'rarely consults notes when recalling minutiae from past meetings.'

Labels: apple, Jobs

Labels: DRM, iTunes, Jobs