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lampshades

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lifelong computer wizard. natural born citizen of the internet.

05_typists.niftier@icloud.com

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UUID Collision 3 years ago

I clicked this thinking and hoping someone saw a collision. Disappointing that wasn't the case.

Designed a bridge that injures no-one and collapses a few hours later? 5 year suspension.

Programmed a faulty flight control system that kills hundreds of people and ground all planes that use it for nearly two years? Probably a promotion, if I had to guess.

Can someone remind me why software engineers can't be held to higher standards?

I've never had a professor understand me like this. I picked up Lisp during my Freshman year when I bought SICP. If you look at my transcripts you can easily infer my mental state at the time. Some semesters all A's, others all F's (or W's), with no rhyme or reason. I graduated with a 1.7 GPA, showed up high to class (if I showed up at all), and barely made it through. It took me 9 years to graduate between all the stopping and starting, working at Pizza shops most of the way through.

But I never had problems with the programming assignments or the labs, I enjoyed those. And when I finally got my degree, I found out that all it takes to make hundreds of thousands of dollars is to solve a couple of algorithms for someone. I guess it all worked out in the end, although I do hate the corporate world (and have trouble staying anywhere long) with a passion and would very much like to find a way out.

Note: I was put on bipolar medication because of the wild swings in my grades during college, but I don't believe I am actually bipolar so I no longer take it.

I'm currently going through interviews and I think "collaboration" and communication is a real thing WFH is missing. You say that people can collaborate real-time from any corner of the planet but that hasn't been my experience. I have had two companies in the last few weeks (out of like 5) where my recruiter had no idea what stage of the process I was in because at some other point some recruiter had picked me up. I had no idea what was going on and neither did they. And when they find out that there is a dual-recruiting process happening, they call me to ask what's happening instead of asking their teammate. So stupid, man.

It doesn't stop there. When I'm actually at work, I'm constantly waiting for hours for responses unless I pull in a manager to move things along. While it's true that with today's tech we can collaborate anywhere, that's not what I see happening in practice. I constantly see miscommunication and misunderstandings that normally would take 10 minutes at someone's cube to resolve that end up taking DAYS to resolve.