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Most replies are having their Green Eggs and Ham moment.

I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am.

Meanwhile, people who have actually used it, find it great. It's a wonderful framework.


I find that both tastes are awful. The problems Wathan points out in that blog post are real, but the solution he came up with is a different kind of awful.


Yep. Most of the advice here is about how to be a better employee and navigate a system that doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

Instead, work to free yourself from needing that system at all. Then you don’t need a life of playing politics and keeping CYA emails from your manager.


Long term: Don't become a peasant, live life on your own terms.

https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

If you like hacking, you can arrange your life to do that.


The long-form format is a huge part. The regular media is not incentivized to air a 3-hour interview with a thoughtful interviewer. No, you'll get a 2-minute clip on CNN designed to extract click-bait soundbites from the guest.


“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)


Thank you so much for sharing this. A lot of people will knee-jerk react with "push, push, you're worthless, push" and I have deep appreciation for this wiser attitude.


Easy, after first imagining the pink elephant you aren't supposed to.


Check the incentives. For corporate managers, your salary is generally proportional to the number of people you manage. Who cares if your 1000-person org doesn't accomplish anything, you're a big shot now.

On a sports team, coaches are rewarded for championships. There is no room for waste, and underperforming people get cut.


>> no room for waste

Most sports teams rosters are restricted by league rules. However coaching staffs are not, and they have grown tremendously in recent years, as have college athletic department staffs. When someone actually does take a hard look, these staffs seem exceptionally bloated and wasteful.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2006-10-31-06103101...

When Vince Lombardi began coaching the Green Bay Packers in 1959, he had four assistants. This year, Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan has 21.

http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story/_/page/easterbrook%2F10...

Ohio State lists 458 people in its athletic department. There are 192 faculty members in Ohio State's English department, with a support staff of about 50.

https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/acc/article16325...

One assistant coach is called the recruiting coordinator, but he’s backed by a Director of Player Personnel, an Assistant Director of Player Personnel, a Coordinator of On-Campus Recruiting and a Recruiting Assistant. There are three video coordinators.


Slightly off topic, I noticed the first article you linked is from 2006 and I was curious if that number had grown in the last 14 years.

2019 Denver Broncos had 23 assistants, 24 total coaching staff including the head coach.

https://www.denverbroncos.com/team/coaches-roster/


Bullshit Jobs is a good book about this exact topic. Managers hire people so they feel like they have someone to manage.


Read the original article, it makes good points. I bought the book going on that and found it to be unreadable waffle.


I found the book to go more in depth to the article. What didn't you like about the book?


Not always. The best code is no code. Sometimes you can clarify requirements (and realize the request is redundant with existing capabilities), adapt workflows, combine existing features, etc.

If someone has a request, the first instinct shouldn't be to write more code, it's to clarify what they are trying to accomplish.

"How do I get the last 3 letters of a file? I need a feature for that."

"Are you trying to get the file extension? We have that in the metadata."


"A classic is something everybody wants to have read, but no one wants to read." -Mark Twain

Many want to have had done a startup.


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