tales from the rock

G Thang and Tombo have an ongoing blog battle that is very funny to observe.  part of what kills the G, is that Tombolicious often misinterprets, or simply twists a statement, observation, or personal opinion of his into something else, then goes off about how terrible a person he is for thinking that.

I can sympathize with G, because every once in a while, I get pulled into it also!

For example, today, Tombo was writing about people making money in the market, and how now that we are on another bull run, everyone thinks it is easy.  what goes up, may very well come down, and many of these people are not prepared for a crash.  he then goes on to explain that you should find a true passion, and not focus on money.  in the middle of that, he includes some quotes from people about the market:

This year i have been hearing about market this and that day and night.. for example. 

and in his quote list, he has one from me:

10/29/2007 “they have so much money, it falls out of their pockets as they walk around…”

now, the problem with my quote appearing in that context, is that 1) I was talking about someone else, and 2) it was about how hard that couple works to earn their money, and not about how easy it is (their opinion or mine) to make it in the stock market.

now, he doesn’t credit me with the quote, so it’s not like he is directly calling me out, but he does include it with the ‘people talking about the market’, and then follows it up with how we should find a passion.  again - I wasn’t talking about the market, and I was just updating him (or his wife really), on the current situation of a classmate.  my life is full of passion (or ‘work’ as I like to call it), and devoid of money.

just goes to show you - all bloggers are liars.  clearly.

interesting article about being a good father.  nothing revolutionary in my mind here, and not a scientific review at all, but always nice to see someone else on the same page as you.

lot’s of discussion tombo and I have is around #s 4, 5 and 7.  not so much about us, but our observations of other parents in our families.

4. Staying involved:  this really boils down to being around.  you shouldn’t use the time your kid is doing something to do something else.

5. Scheduling family recreation: the work week is busy.  while it may not be any less hectic for you if your weekend revolves around entertaining your kid, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.  playtime is for everyone.

7. Creating family rituals: directly related to 4 and 5 (although not necessarily dedicated to playtime), this one also helps you to manage a full schedule.  however, if your ritual is bundling up your kid’s stuff so grandma can watch him while you go out and play, you missed the point.

http://ririanproject.com/2007/10/25/the-7-habits-of-highly-successful-fathers/

passion

we talk about it so much, but mostly in terms of hunting for it. I suppose in that light, I am lucky enough to have things I am passionate about: my family, my home, my career, etc. obviously, not everyone has these things. I also believe though, that we make our own luck. G-Money is trying to manufacture some with a major move. I think it was a good idea.

in any event, the article has some keys to manufacture some passion, much like you manufacture luck.

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/find-your-passion/

so I’m still struggling with hiring a developer to be my slave, and I gotta tell you, the more people I talk to, the more depressed I get.  it’s amazing how poor the candidate pool is here on the rock.

I think it’s fair to say that most college programs that are spitting out ‘developers’ do a pretty shitty job.  the reason is, no one is teaching them and real CS topics, so a solid foundation in problem solving, solution design, and contruction is missing.  this fascination with toolkits and frameworks is killing the american worker.

there certainly are schools that don’t fuck around.  an engineer from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Cal Tech, etc. will certainly be able to refactor a solution to a sort problem in 12 different ways.  the mediocre fools I get all have the same answer - ‘I can do that in 5 minutes with XXX’

that may be fine, but here is where the interview always falls apart.  no matter how simple the problem, I can amend it by saying, ‘what if you have 10 minutes?’ and these fuckers are stumped.  there is nothing worse than having nothing to say.  it’s just barely worse than spouting a bunch of BS about moving on in the methodology, but nothing is the absolute worst!  hell, you could even say, ‘use the 5 minutes to chug 2 beers,’ and you’re ahead of the game.

here’s an example of a problem I like to start with - gives me lots of directions to go in:  put together a web based lookup app, that reads from a single table in a database, and presents the results in a table that I can then filter, sort, or page.  depending on the candidate, I may hold off on the extras, just to see if they automatically think to include it, or to give them a chance to ask.

for the record, I’m doing a lot of .NET, and yes, in 5 minutes I could have this running without writing a single line of code.  but what happens if I have 10 minutes - or really - what happens if I have a 10 minute problem?

these people that rely on their toolkits, classlibs, plugins, or whatever else they are using can’t solve problems.  all they can do is match square pegs with corresponding holes.  this isn’t even about understanding the science/mechanics behind the requests.  fundamentally, if you don’t know what the technology is trying to do, then you can’t make it do your bidding.

I don’t care if up till now, you’ve never had a problem painting all your data on one page.  the fact is, there are times when you will have to sort through millions of rows - it’s not done daily here, but it’s done, and you can’t rely on a select statement that included every column using a string compare and a stack of %%s!

it is very clear to me though, that the local employers shoulder most of this blame.  their is no candidate pool, because no one is developing candidates - us included.  what I need to do, is stop trying to look for a great candidate to fill my one seat, and get a little more money (also known as ‘investment’) and fill 2 with people to develop.  eventually, one will move on, because I won’t treat them the same, and our contribution to the market will be a candidate with a couple more skills, and an empty seat to fill, without losing any total productivity I need for business continuity.

ultimately, good people aren’t out looking at job postings - they are out creating roles for themselves, or being recruited to do specific work.  we don’t have the sponsorship to overpay a great candidate, so we have to develop a couple that show potential, but NEVER settle for someone mediocre, that just managed to fail to suck at their interview.

bleh.