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mweb posted:For anyone working remotely, do you ever reach a point where you just crave and need some kind of external validation about what you are doing?? Even if the answer to some issue maybe should be obvious you reach a point where you just need some kind of interaction to solidify it. It's not just you. I work 99% remotely and I experience the same thing when working solo. No matter how skilled and experienced you are it's really easy to second guess yourself a million times, getting a second set of eyes helps dispel that. If you can swing remote pairing in your situation, I recommend it.
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Jul 16, 2019 10:09
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Lord Of Texas posted:It's not just you. I work 99% remotely and I experience the same thing when working solo. No matter how skilled and experienced you are it's really easy to second guess yourself a million times, getting a second set of eyes helps dispel that. Yeah, I get that way sometimes too. I work solo on a lot of projects and I am much happier when I am part of a team and people have to interact with my code.
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Jul 16, 2019 10:55
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mweb posted:For anyone working remotely, do you ever reach a point where you just crave and need some kind of external validation about what you are doing?? Even if the answer to some issue maybe should be obvious you reach a point where you just need some kind of interaction to solidify it.
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Jul 16, 2019 11:09
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EDIT: Wrong development thread.
BaronVonVaderham fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jul 16, 2019 |
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Jul 16, 2019 15:23
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Jul 16, 2019 17:39
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just got to stage 3 I want to die
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Jul 16, 2019 19:33
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Fellatio del Toro posted:just got to stage 3 I want to die You can achieve enlightenment when you discover that in the current job market you can deny meeting requests often without repercussions.
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Jul 16, 2019 19:54
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Truth.
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Jul 16, 2019 20:12
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Stage 3 is “now that I’m important enough to be in these meetings, all these meetings are loving stupid and we actively suck for having them, we should get rid of them”
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Jul 16, 2019 22:25
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So does stage 4 mean you’re the one scheduling the meetings of the people in stage 3?
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Jul 16, 2019 22:29
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Stage 4 is I’m retired and don’t give a gently caress.
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Jul 16, 2019 22:30
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Pollyanna posted:Stage 4 is I’m retired and now have membership meetings at the golf club.
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Jul 16, 2019 22:35
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Stage 4 is where you microwave fish to make people cancel the meeting.
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Jul 17, 2019 01:20
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We see interns and fresh grads come in this time of the year and man, it really makes you feel old and cranky. There's a lot of naivete I see with them but the energy and idealism they tend to bring it more than makes up for it.
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Jul 17, 2019 03:05
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On the other hand, I am still fixing junior eng’s mistakes that have been around for like over a year.
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Jul 17, 2019 14:24
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mweb posted:For anyone working remotely, do you ever reach a point where you just crave and need some kind of external validation about what you are doing?? Even if the answer to some issue maybe should be obvious you reach a point where you just need some kind of interaction to solidify it. I personally just couldn’t get used to remote. Communication was difficult, I didn’t feel visible, flying around a bunch sucks, and the overlap of workplace and personal space was distracting. I wouldn’t do it again, unless I ended up with a >45 minute commute. People really like to hype up remote, and yeah, tech lets us do that, but sometimes it feels like a bandaid over the real problem of centralized tech markets, hosed up work-life balance, and a lack of investment in good public transport.
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Jul 17, 2019 14:27
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I've felt old and cranky for... ever? I started as a college instructor and even students older than me were flippant, ungrounded, unstable messes. I had better personal finances than them, more control over my life and pursuit of happiness (not that these things weren't perfect, nor free from depression, but I had coping mechanisms). Aaaand my masters is in mathematical logic, so I guess some similarity to Aristotle is unavoidable. Honestly I see a lot of interns that are relatively mature. They listen and try to learn. I've rarely seen them argue uncontrollably for ridiculous new hotness "just because"; at least they typically try to give reasons when proposing a new technology. Where they fail is on scheduling, organization, any sense of estimation, and problem solving. Most of this seems to be cultural (my culture, in fact), which permits skating through college without much effort.
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Jul 17, 2019 15:18
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mweb posted:For anyone working remotely, do you ever reach a point where you just crave and need some kind of external validation about what you are doing?? Even if the answer to some issue maybe should be obvious you reach a point where you just need some kind of interaction to solidify it. This is part of why I'm leaving my current company (hopefully soon). I've worked remote exclusively since 2012, except for 2-3 months back in 2015 which reminded me I am just not built for sitting in a cubicle. It's amazing IF that's what works for you. A lot of people see that I work from home and how much money I make and pester me to find out how to learn to "do what you do". They're always surprised when I start by warning them that it isn't that glamorous and it is sometimes harder than working in an office because 1) You need to stay focused and motivated, 2) You need to have a support system in place to not ruin your normal life at home where you always think you're "at work" all the time, and 3) You need to make sure others at your company are seeing your productivity so they don't think you're slacking all the time. The key is #2, really. You need to not underestimate the pitfalls and plan things out. I have a separate SSD that contains a linux partition I use for work (I'm not going to use the lovely macbook they gave me when I have a behemoth desktop with 4 monitors and enough power that our test suite doesn't take 40 minutes to run). When I "go home" for the day, I reset my machine and boot into one of my other "home" partitions (either Linux for personal projects or Windows for gaming), which all have very different themes and wallpapers. I will also physically walk out of the room while this boots so there is a sensation of actually "leaving work". Stimulus control is powerful poo poo. My gf is about to finish her PhD in applied behavior analysis, so this stuff rubs off on me. That said, the company also needs to do their part to support remote work properly. At my current company that is not the case. It was, for my entire first year, but ever since we hired this new toxic department head, remotes are being left out of decisions and conversations constantly, forgotten on meeting invites (or they'll invite us but not bother to attach a Teams meeting to the event for us to join). The recognition for my work bottomed out around that same time, since this toxic boss has his golden boy who was on the same project as I was. Golden boy got all the credit despite my writing 80% of the thing (he even went in to "clean up" the epic branch and now his name is on every commit). The fact that I'm remote and he is the boss' lapdog means I am now invisible. I'm bailing for so many reasons, but their exclusion of remotes like this is a big factor. One of the big things I've been asking during interviews is about exactly this: How many of you work remotely full time? I worked at AASHE a few years back and I'd go back instantly if they paid even close to competitively. They were a 100% remote company, with a couple people based in Philadelphia and a token office space there for meeting with third parties, but otherwise we were all over the world! A company like that not only knows how to handle remote work, but everyone from the top down is committed to it since we're all in the same boat. I just submitted a code test for another place like that. They do remote learning systems (I didn't actually study CS, I come from academia and was a math teacher, so that's a mission I can totally get behind), and the company is 100% remote like AASHE was. That is the biggest point in any company's favor for me, the best indicator that I won't have to deal with a lot of the bullshit at my current job, not the least of which is constant travel to HQ for no reason; I have to leave again on Sunday for what I really hope is the last time, I loving hate Nashville at this point (food's great, but I don't like Farm Emo so there's nothing for me to do). PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I've felt old and cranky for... ever? I started as a college instructor and even students older than me were flippant, ungrounded, unstable messes. I had better personal finances than them, more control over my life and pursuit of happiness (not that these things weren't perfect, nor free from depression, but I had coping mechanisms). Aaaand my masters is in mathematical logic, so I guess some similarity to Aristotle is unavoidable.  I went back to school in 2016 to finish my PhD at 30 when most of the incoming grad students are what....21? 22? I could not deal with them turning every assignment or project into a drama-fest. gently caress you guys, I was working full-time and had my dissertation research starting (most of them didn't even have advisors yet), and I still got my poo poo done on time without issue. I notice a lot of the same attitude among junior devs. I get it, I WAS them back when I was 21, I bitched about everything in undergrad I'm sure, but I guess with some perspective after working in this industry.......those homework assignments were nothing compared to some of the deadlines I've had to meet or all-nighters to fix fatal bugs. Plus, I was just grateful to be getting back to the field I love, so I actually enjoyed doing the work because it wasn't work to me, that spot was filled by my actual work. EDIT: Just saw what your degree was in. My masters is in astrophysics 
BaronVonVaderham fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Jul 17, 2019 |
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Jul 17, 2019 16:17
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BaronVonVaderham posted:They're always surprised when I start by warning them that it isn't that glamorous and it is sometimes harder than working in an office because 1) You need to stay focused and motivated, 2) You need to have a support system in place to not ruin your normal life at home where you always think you're "at work" all the time, and 3) You need to make sure others at your company are seeing your productivity so they don't think you're slacking all the time. All of this is true, but especially this part. I feel lucky to work remote because it works best for my concentration and productivity, but the reason it works is because my life has specifically been arranged to make it so. My partner works outside the home, leaves at 7 and returns at 5ish daily - those are my work hours. When they are home, I'm not at work anymore, and usually only go into my office to tidy. I take classes for my hobbies outside the home and arrange to get lunch with friends at least a couple times per week. I haven't quite got to the point where I'm turning off my laptop and chucking it in a drawer on the weekends, but I don't have any email or chat logins on my phone and it hasn't been a problem in 3+ years. I saw a post on HackerNews about downsides of working remote, and one poster said they needed to go back to an office environment because they "didn't have a social life anymore". My dude, apparently you never did.
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Jul 17, 2019 17:00
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vonnegutt posted:I saw a post on HackerNews about downsides of working remote, and one poster said they needed to go back to an office environment because they "didn't have a social life anymore". My dude, apparently you never did. Part of that is down to the individual company. I've interviewed a few places that made it very clear that they think remote employees are desirable because we're "always at work" since we work from home. In fact, my first position was garbage for this exact reason, I just put up with it since, in hindsight, NO ONE should have hired me with no actual experience or even knowing some basic poo poo (fake it until you make it applied there, and I worked my rear end off to not waste randomly getting my foot in the door). The owner of the company assumed we were "always on", so he'd call at all hours; at one point he got so frustrated that I turned my ringer off at night (he tried calling at 1am) that he bought me an old-school pager. I've actually found companies that explicitly mention "work-life balance" repeatedly are the ones who don't understand what that is and/or don't care and want to use remotes to get around an 8 hour day, whereas the ones who don't mention it just assume it's a given and are great. By far the best part of remote work is that flexibility. I usually roll in around 10:30, attend some meetings, write a little code, go knock off for lunch and running errands for 2-3 hours in the afternoon, come back and work some more, knock off to make dinner. It's nice to be able to just duck out for appointments or to hit the post office when it's empty (I'll never get why they stick with 9-5 hours when that's when everyone else is working and can't come in....at least here in the south). I'll also work some longer days to just take off a Friday to pop up to Universal for the day or go to a MTG event. I really don't see how this is miserable unless you actively make work your entire life.
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Jul 17, 2019 17:27
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I'm very anxious around phone or video calls so people not working in the same office as me might as well not exist as far as it concerns me. Unless they're super active in chats. Which I'm checking every couple of hours.
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Jul 17, 2019 17:37
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Pollyanna posted:On the other hand, I am still fixing junior eng’s mistakes that have been around for like over a year. lol if you’re not also fixing the principal eng’s mistakes that have been around for 3+ years.
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Jul 17, 2019 17:45
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Try 5  plus they’re not even at the company anymore and we can’t ask them why they thought it was a good idea to store SQL templates in SQL.
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Jul 17, 2019 18:43
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BaronVonVaderham posted:wfh... It's a pattern I've seen, that those who went through hard science programs with a research element are more likely to know how to organize a simple project. We also seem to have better notes about what hasn't and has worked as we muddle through building and extending things. I suspect that engineering degree recipients get "too much" of this and hate it, hence ignore it.Myself I hate working from home. I'm not set up for it and we have to use the work laptop. I'm not bothering with reconnecting keyboards and monitors, so it's not ergonomic. I have a desktop at work for a reason. (I'm more healthy at work, better/extant AC, I drink more water, take more frequent breaks, etc.).
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Jul 17, 2019 22:38
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If your job or product ever involves putting together CSVs for customers, run away screaming. The amount of horrible bullshit side effects a simple refactor has done to this now heavily delayed epic makes me wish the company had the balls to tell our big partners to eat poo poo and customize their own CSVs. White glove service is for poo poo-eating startup lumps that are hosed as soon as they try to scale.
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Jul 17, 2019 23:03
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Myself I hate working from home. I'm not set up for it and we have to use the work laptop. I'm not bothering with reconnecting keyboards and monitors, so it's not ergonomic. I have a desktop at work for a reason. (I'm more healthy at work, better/extant AC, I drink more water, take more frequent breaks, etc.). Yeah if I was forced to use this lovely mac I'd quit. They ask me all the time why I don't....it's not really feasible to swap my quad monitor setup and keyboard and junk constantly, so why would I limit myself to a laptop with one screen and 1/4 of the power? I miss when I was in high school and did computer repair for extra money. I had a cool set of big mechanical switches that let me connect the client's PC to everything my personal PC used (much easier back in the day when that was literally just keyboard, mouse, and one VGA monitor). That sort of thing doesn't seem realistic now with how many cables i have....tripling that is a bit much.
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Jul 17, 2019 23:08
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Pollyanna posted:If your job or product ever involves putting together CSVs for customers, run away screaming. The amount of horrible bullshit side effects a simple refactor has done to this now heavily delayed epic makes me wish the company had the balls to tell our big partners to eat poo poo and customize their own CSVs. White glove service is for poo poo-eating startup lumps that are hosed as soon as they try to scale. Are the CSVs (or, rather, their content) the actual product, or are they a by-product used for reporting about whatever your actual product/service is? What's the alternative here? Full dumps of whatever you use as a base for these CSVs, and let them pick and mix? We have a customer who has a similar problem, where a bunch of developer time is tied up in preparing and offering customised data sources/CSVs for customers to then use as a base for additional reporting, while our customer is essentially a telco. Since they are tired of this reporting base data eating up resources, they are going to essentially offer a self-service BI tool (Tableau, in this case) to customers, which means they will pre-package a set of standard reports etc as well as offer more direct access to (a copy of) the underlying operational databases. This way, they hope to shift some of the customisation towards the customer, because they essentially can tell them that the customers now have both a wider selection of data as well as a framework to help digest and analyse that information. This at least means that they don't have to deal with the pecularities of customising data dumps on top of the time they need to actually make the product itself fit the customers' needs. This, however, also means that you kind of have to be able to expect at least basic data literacy from your customers -- if they can't hack that, this won't help them (and thus you) either. I'm curious if this will actually solve their problem but it at least means they can offer their customers a more flexible solution, since this basically wraps raw(er) data while allowing them to customise things themselves, on top of what is already provided.
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Jul 17, 2019 23:35
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Hollow Talk posted:Are the CSVs (or, rather, their content) the actual product, or are they a by-product used for reporting about whatever your actual product/service is? What's the alternative here? Full dumps of whatever you use as a base for these CSVs, and let them pick and mix? Lol no one with any decision making power would ever read or listen to this. And they definitely wouldn't understand it.
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Jul 18, 2019 00:15
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At my old company our application was built to be super customizable and all that it really meant in the end was that customers would pay us more money to just set it up how they want it. The one client who did build their own customization was horrible about calling support and saying "the app is broken, you need to fix it" even when a stack trace indicated the offending code was in a custom code module, and it was working fine before a custom code only deployment, so they'd waste countless man hours telling us to fix something that was their fault in the first place. So, really, everyone is terrible.
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Jul 18, 2019 00:21
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About two years ago we discovered that practically nobody actually uses our fancy front-end for data entry, instead opting to create all their data in excel and import it in csv. Hell, one of the data standards we support is an 80-column card system from the 70s, and there are people out there building their data in notepad.
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Jul 18, 2019 00:25
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Rubellavator posted:About two years ago we discovered that practically nobody actually uses our fancy front-end for data entry, instead opting to create all their data in excel and import it in csv. Hell, one of the data standards we support is an 80-column card system from the 70s, and there are people out there building their data in notepad. It looks really nice during the sales demo though, which in the end is the most important thing.
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Jul 18, 2019 01:08
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Rubellavator posted:About two years ago we discovered that practically nobody actually uses our fancy front-end for data entry, instead opting to create all their data in excel and import it in csv. Hell, one of the data standards we support is an 80-column card system from the 70s, and there are people out there building their data in notepad. Maybe the ~tab and enter~ data entry in excel is a better user experience then that fancy frontend 
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Jul 18, 2019 01:38
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Rubellavator posted:About two years ago we discovered that practically nobody actually uses our fancy front-end for data entry, instead opting to create all their data in excel and import it in csv. Hell, one of the data standards we support is an 80-column card system from the 70s, and there are people out there building their data in notepad. I'm pretty sure many business products would be best served just using Excel as their FE. gently caress it, actually just sell Excel as an entire OS. Stick a web browser on tab 2.
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Jul 18, 2019 02:24
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Protocol7 posted:At my old company our application was built to be super customizable and all that it really meant in the end was that customers would pay us more money to just set it up how they want it. Any time I hear a product owner on my release train suggest that we make our app ultra-customizable I want to stuff cotton balls in their mouth. We've gone that route before and the customization ends up ignored by 90% of the userbase and the last 10% creates a million corner cases that are extremely difficult to test/support thoroughly. Convention over customization every time unless your userbase is ginormous and full of cash.
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Jul 18, 2019 02:40
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The only reason they got away with it is that the contract funded like 2/3 of the company’s payroll (and it was like 150 people) so if we didn’t give them the full continental breakfast service and the contract ended the company would tank. Not sure if that’s worth sacrificing the long-term mental health of your developers and IT guys though. Y’all know how it is when everything is a top severity maximally urgent issue. Macichne Leainig fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jul 18, 2019 |
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Jul 18, 2019 05:11
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The entirety of enterprise horror is that the people buying the software are not the ones actually using it. It's starting to change a bit as so many of these purchases have been utter failures because user adoption was tiny, but the majority of large, awful places to work are going to have the person with the least knowledge of how people actually get work done try to imagine their use cases and listen to a salesperson more than their own direct reports. I fully expect a lot of features that people busted their asses working for aren't actually important in a POC or trial situation and literally only exists because some vendor got the committee to put some of their feature as a line item criteria. This is why the requirements matrix is so loving insane private or public sector as organizations grow - it's lobbyist-driven AKA sales-driven. Xguard86 posted:I'm pretty sure many business products would be best served just using Excel as their FE.
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Jul 18, 2019 05:47
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Excel isn't great especially with how people use VBA but I've seen enough failed BI projects with flashy frontends that I tend to roll my eyes at devs that complain about how they'd make things so much better if they could get an org to migrate away from Excel.
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Jul 18, 2019 06:10
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necrobobsledder posted:The entirety of enterprise horror is that the people buying the software are not the ones actually using it. It's starting to change a bit as so many of these purchases have been utter failures because user adoption was tiny, but the majority of large, awful places to work are going to have the person with the least knowledge of how people actually get work done try to imagine their use cases and listen to a salesperson more than their own direct reports. *cough* any BMC product *cough* My company has been all-in on BMC in the past. Pretty much every web-based product we bought of theirs ended up needing an internally-written wrapper SPA on top of it to make it remotely usable. But won't someone think of the feature list!
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Jul 18, 2019 13:01
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necrobobsledder posted:The entirety of enterprise horror is that the people buying the software are not the ones actually using it. It's starting to change a bit as so many of these purchases have been utter failures because user adoption was tiny, but the majority of large, awful places to work are going to have the person with the least knowledge of how people actually get work done try to imagine their use cases and listen to a salesperson more than their own direct reports.
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Jul 19, 2019 19:08
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Xguard86 posted:I'm pretty sure many business products would be best served just using Excel as their FE. We dont really care, our product is free, funded, and still better than the commercial alternatives. Shipping without the data entry part of our front end would be disastrous because people do often make terrible mistakes when creating their data in excel, and we provide them an easy way to fix their mistakes in our client.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:41
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