In a recent post, I talked about how demoralizing it can be to sit around with nothing to do while waiting for someone else to finish a task that you need, fix something that you need, assign you something, etc. I think this is fairly universally known as “being blocked”. It seems nice to have…
Cargo Cults and Angry Monkeys If you have never heard the term “Cargo Cult Programming“, it’s an it’s an excellent way to describe blindly following processes without understanding the theory behind them. The term originates from a story about aboriginal islanders during World War II. During the war, cargo planes regularly (and from their perspective,…
Getting Philosophical Given that I’ve just changed jobs, it isn’t entirely surprising that I’ve had a lot of conversations recently about why I decided to do so. Generally when someone leaves a job, coworkers, managers, HR personnel, friends, and family are all interested in knowing why. Personally, I tend to give unsatisfying answers to this…
An Announcement I’ve enlisted the help of freelance editor Amanda Muledy to copy edit this blog. The content will not be altered in terms of substance; rather, she’ll be correcting grammar and spelling mistakes and the like. She’ll even know whether or not the semi-colon I just used was some kind of faux pas. She…
