February 2012
14 posts
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57.) Resign yourself to the fact that, if you work in the technology sector, you will always be a beginner.
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Geek Rant
I don’t write on your Facebook wall so you can comment on what I’ve said. I write on your wall so you’ll reciprocate and make me seem more popular, damn it.
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56.) Technologies improves so fast that, that before you can master any new hardware, software, or system, it will be supplanted by the next generation of technology.
Rather than becoming an expert on any one technology, focus your efforts on training yourself to unlearn and re-learn new technologies.
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55.) Technical people are motivated by interesting work.
They will put up with abominable working conditions if they get to work on something that interests them. I’ve managed people who had to be sent home at night. But technical people without interesting work are very difficult to manage. Their active minds tend to get them into trouble. A happy team is a group that is busy and too...
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Geek Rant
The day I saw the inventor of the “Snuggie” on a talk show explaining that he had become an overnight millionaire by slapping a pair of sleeves onto a blanket, I very seriously contemplated suicide. Sometimes the “American dream” just seems like a cruel joke.
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54.) Technical people respect technical people.
If you can’t talk the talk, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to gain the respect you need to manage. How can you effectively represent your people in meetings if you don’t understand what they do? That doesn’t mean that you have to know everything they do. That would defy the point of hiring them in the first...
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Geek Rant
Do employers really need to ask if I know how to use Microsoft Word? Is there a high school graduate outside Amish country who doesn’t know how to use Word or - more to the point - stupid enough to admit such a ridiculous shortcoming during an interview? Every time I’m asked about my Word skills in interview, it’s all I can do to not just stare silently at the typed resume...
53.) Information workers aren’t productive for 8 hours straight The truth is that, for creative types, there is no work day, only a series of moment of productivity. Labor-intensive task, such as factory lines, depend on physical stamina. Creative jobs, however, rely on mental stamina, which doesn’t last for eight hour shifts.
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Geek Rant
Smartphones are the new cigarettes. They’re addictive. They’re expensive. They annoy the hell out of other people when you use them in public. Plus, I’m pretty sure that, one day, we’re going to discover that they cause cancer.
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52.) Your Boss Is Your Customer No matter how you make a living or who you think you work for, you only work for one person, yourself. The big question is: What are you selling, and to whom? Even when you have a full-time, salaried, ‘Corporate America’ position, you are still running your own business. You are selling one unit of your existence - an hour of your life - at a set price -...
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Geek Rant
Social media is a lot like teen sex. Everyone is in a rush to try it. No one is sure what they’re doing going in. Once they’ve tried it, people are always surprised it wasn’t better. Worse, it frequently leads to embarrassment when your friends or family unintentionally discover what you’ve been up to with an ill-composed Google search.
Still, it makes for some...
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51.) Ultimately, marriage is not about getting something — it’s about giving it.
“Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession — a free-agent penis — and for us, it’s the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland. The bottom line is that...
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Geek Rant
Arguments between die-hard “conservatives” and die-hard “liberals” remind me of arguments between Star Wars geeks and Star Trek geeks, in that both involve people whole-heartedly invested in the merits of a universe not based in reality that bores the hell out of the mainstream.
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49.) Ditch Starbucks and work at the library.