re_todd

It always amazes me when I hear about people asking this question. Don't these hiring managers consider for a second how intrusive and rude it is? Aren't they concerned they may come across as douchebags for asking it? And yet I've been asked this several times by people that act like it's no big deal, like asking how was the traffic on the way in. Are they under pressure from the top? Or are hiring managers in general lacking in scruples?

I remember taking a programming course many years ago at a community college. I finished an assignment, which wasn't too hard, and decided to go on to an advanced, unassigned topic. The instructor came into the lab, and so I asked her to clarify something. She was visibly irritated with me and told me to stick to the assignment, then stormed out. I felt like a horrible person and kept asking myself "what is wrong with you?". Months or years later I realized I need to stop feeling guilty. I had not harmed anyone, and I think she did know the answer to the question I had asked.

Same with me. I'm disgusted that they did not do much about had trauma. I'm also disgusted that it is so difficult for me to watch games I want without paying a lot of money, even when they are in the past. A third think I'm disgusted with is that some of my favorite players will have a few bad games and then get cut from the team.

Where I work, we definitely get too many customer recommendations that are treated as show-stopping by someone in our business side. Often the customer will only vaguely remember making the recommendation a few months later, and it turned out to not be that important. Gee, thanks business people, for wasting 3 weeks of software engineer's time and lots of the owner's money!

I had a similar background, but in the U.S. I even lived close to a few big biotech companies, and I could not even get an interview, even when applying for entry-level jobs. Then I would hear from my friends and relatives that so-and-so with just a high school diploma got a job at one of those places. I got very angry and bitter. I had given up TV and video games for an entire decade to focus on my learning and education. I was never suicidal, but was finding it more and more difficult to get out of bed by 10 a.m. I think what helped me most of all were the stories of people that were much worse off than me, and experienced more tragedies, and yet were so kind and positive. I started thinking about these people more than my seemingly unfair situation, and life became much easier to cope with. So try focusing on inspiring stories. They will make life easier to handle and will give you an attitude that is much more attractive to employers.

It always amazes me that the people I know who are financially well-off almost always choose to live in an ugly McMansion. Voluntarily. I've determined that if I ever become well-off I'll buy an old Craftsman or Spanish style home. They may be smaller, but I can always buy sheds or storage space.

Head First Design Patterns is awesome. I read a couple other Design Pattern books, but didn't really get it. I didn't want to buy a "Head First" book because it looked kind of silly, but this book has finally opened my eyes to what Design Patterns are about.

Or a hillbilly!

   San Luis Obispo is awesome as others have said, but it is about 10 miles from the beach.
   Ventura County is also good, but has been getting very expensive that last 10 years.
   Carpinteria would have been great 15 years ago, but prices have gone through the roof.

   This would be my short list:
   - Between Carlsbad and La Jolla
   - Cayucos/Morro Bay/Los Osos (all pretty close to each other; I prefer Los Osos because not many people know about it and thus not a lot of traffic on holidays and weekends)
   - Some of the lesser known towns between Monterrey and Santa Cruz
   - Fort Bragg/Mendocino area

   If you're ok with living 5/10/15 miles from the beach, housing gets much cheaper.

Agreed. For a second I thought it was an ad for a job.

historio.us is my favourite at the moment, but all that red can be annoying at times.

What part(s) of Montana?

I went to a little store in a poor neighbourhood a few weeks ago and was surprised to see a tiny container of Tide for 7.99, and there were no other sizes or brands of detergent.

I know someone where people in their department come into the office 3 days a week and they work from home 2 days a week. That seemed like a good balance.

Taking such a long time to get my degrees. When I finally had the educational background I wanted, I found it's difficult to get those entry-level positions when you're over 35. And if you can't get those entry-level positions, it's extremely difficult to have a career in the field you want.

It reminds me of a PC World magazine that I had. It took me over a year and a half to get around to reading it. It had an article about the 50 best websites or something like that. By the time I got around to reading it, at least 1/3 of the sites were discontinued.

S Tacoma, wow, she must be a saint :)

I haven't ordered from newegg in a couple years, but this will motivate me to start buying from them again.

Satoshi's grammar is always perfect. His sentences are tight.

That makes me think it's more than one person, e.g. Wright, Kleiman, Szabo and possibly more. The more people that edit a work, the less errors there will be.

Agreed. Saying "sorry" brings out the worst in some people. If you pay attention, you'll sense a shift in the power dynamic, and some jerks out there will become more hostile, belittling, and demanding. It's better to just focus on what can be done to move things forward.

There are a few things that have helped me deal with social anxiety: 1. Talking more with people that work in stores when I'm paying for something - Cashiers are great people to practice talking to. You don't have to do it for very long, and if you say something stupid, you rarely see them anyway, so no harm done. 2. Noticing what socially adept people talk about - I think about the subject matter that social people bring up after I've seen them engage in conversation. I've realized that most of the time it's pretty trivial stuff, and that most people don't hold that against them. 3. Avoiding people that hold you back - people that often say that I'm shy, or coming out of my "shell", just make me more self-conscious and awkward. I'll end the conversation quickly with such people and will not pursue interaction beyond the bare-minimum pleasantries. Even if they are well-meaning, they have a negative effect on me, so I'll avoid them unless they are closely related.

Agreed. I took a networking course at University, and at community college, but didn't really understand networking until I started fooling around with Wireshark.

Here are things that worked for me ...

- reduce caffeine intake; I've changed from 5 to 2 cups of coffee a day, and try not to have one after 3pm; I feel I can relax when I go home now

- exercise; I only walk 3 times a week for half an hour each time, but it has helped tremendously

- do some non-coding activities when you get home; whether a hobby or watching TV, getting away from IT and programming for awhile makes me feel refreshed the next day

- switch from Java to C# (assuming those are your only 2 options); bigger and more stressful companies tend to use Java, while the cool medium-sized companies that are pleasant to work at tend to use C#; of course there are lots of exceptions

There is a good foreign film about a doppelganger called "The Double Life of Véronique" by the great European director Krzysztof Kieślowski. It's one of the few times I've watched a foreign movie more than once.

I wish there were a Presidential candidate that would make come out strongly against these things. Left or right, I'd vote for him/her. Unfortunately, most Americans probably are not affected and thus do not care.

As Clark Howard says, it can take a lot of stress out of the equation by negotiating via email. Then they can't make you wait 30 minutes or an hour as they pretend to be talking to their boss, and you can communicate at your convenience.

Other students were off to Hawaii for vacation. Me, I had to bum a place to stay over breaks when the dorms were closed.

So true. Having attended a few colleges in California, I got tired of everyone else going to their parent's cabin over break in Tahoe, Mammoth, or Big Bear. And the dorms would close for a week or two, so I couldn't concentrate fully on my finals while I worried about where I'd stay and not have to sleep a few nights in a park.

never used any tutors or talked to a professor I had a hard time talking to my professor, and I noticed others from blue-color backgrounds have difficulty as well. Upper middle-class kids never seemed to have a problem talking to their professors, which seemed to give them a significant advantage.

I worked at a place that did a stand-up once a week, and that worked pretty well. The communication between everyone was pretty good, so maybe other places that don't communicate well could not get away with that.

Yes, Moby integrates his recordings very well with modern music.

I'm tempted to move to a cheaper city inland, but I've heard horror stories of people trying to get to work when it snows. Is it extremely difficult to get to work in the winter?