On a some related note, I struggle to understand how those with no-slack full-time technical jobs have technical hobbies. I'll give it a go every so often but get burned out quickly. I have a nice collection of in-progess but dormant pieces of software.
At big tech companies when times are good, many people are sitting around waiting for paint to dry. (Ie some nutty process) Remember they are a profit center and get slacktime and fancy stuff.
Ditto outside of engineering. I knew one SE with a pretty big territory who travelled with his wife. They were swingers. The dude would just setup random meetings so the company would spring for their hotel. We’d get our steak dinner, they would get their freak on. At the end, he’s pulling in 3% of whatever crap we were buying.
> I have a nice collection of in-progess but dormant pieces of software.
That's already more than I have; I get my job satisfaction from my job, I like to spend my free time with family and hobbies that don't involve more work.
But, different strokes for different people; I like playing video games, others like writing code for fun.
I used to. Then I got married, a wife and kids are far more fulfilling. When I get any free time (rare) I want to be out in my shop doing something not technical. Or at least not technically in the way of my job, sometimes the things I work on are mechanically complex.
It's not time spent on programming that fatigues me, it's decisions made and how complex they are. I find estimating time so difficult because it's hard to tell how many complex decisions will come up.
An ego of a person on the cusp of knowing it all, what a perfect description. I spent a lot of time living like this. I'm going to borrow your page on beginners mindset, living that way brings so much new life to each day.
Agree, it's a slog for the fist couple dozen episodes as Mike gets into his groove but it's really great and I look forward to listening again once he wraps up Revolutions.
