4 ms·

This reminds me of the story of the young intern that went around a few years ago. They sheepishly admitted to their boss at the end of their summer internship

This reminds me of the story of the young intern that went around a few years ago. They sheepishly admitted to their boss at the end of their summer internship that they had just googled all the Excel things that were required, that they hadn't actually known any of it. "But your generation KNOWS to look for help, and knows where to find it! That's where you were doing it right," was the boss's response. And that's heartening.

commandlinefan 7y ago
Yeah, exactly: that's the job! The boss doesn't have time to read the docs, so you read the docs and get the task done.
beckingz 7y ago
Heard of a guy who was interviewing for a position and had an in person section where he had to use software he had never even heard of. Guy googled enough to muddle through and got hired. Management explicitly said that he was the only person to look up information about the software, and that was why they hired him.
shantly 7y ago
One of the biggest differences between school and business is that in business no one really gives a shit how you got something done, within reason. You just knew it? Cool. You had to do the whole thing with the manual open on the desk next to you? Is it done? Fine, don't care, that's great, not even really sure why you told me that. You enlisted someone else to help? Is it done? Good, want to be a team lead? Of course there are constraints imposed all over, but fundamentally how you work is way less important and much more open-ended than all of school.
dillondoyle 7y ago
This is such a valuable skill. For our work we've found this ability to google or find answers without incredibly specific step by step instructions to be lacking from many younger workers. I've wondered if others have found this for many smart people under 30 as well?
- hinkley 7y ago
  I really believe there are too many important things to know at this point, and so I instead concentrate on memorizing the bounds of the Realm of the Possible. I know what my tools can do, I know where the pitfalls are, but I don't always recall the exact details of those boundaries. I often have to look up why, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Where that doesn't work well is in interviews, and in places where people think it's perfectly reasonable to have technical discussion meetings where laptops are banned. We're really going to make architectural decisions without looking at any code? Who thought that was a good idea?
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I'm old enough to be covered by age discrimination laws and think I'm better than a lot of people at finding things, and I believe a key reason is that Google deliberately, and perhaps many other types of search accidentally, tries to turn every search into a few results from a single cluster. The only way you can find a different cluster a lot of times is by already knowing it exists, or knowing that the garbage cluster you get is garbage and then you can modify your search terms, or read additional pages of results. What experience provides is not knowing everything about everything, but the meta-knowledge whether there is an answer out there, and whether you've found it yet. Inexperience results in stopping too soon in your search, either giving up or settling for something flawed. Really, who can expect people to solve the halting problem fresh out of college?

commandlinefan 7y ago

Yeah, exactly: that's the job! The boss doesn't have time to read the docs, so you read the docs and get the task done.

beckingz 7y ago

Heard of a guy who was interviewing for a position and had an in person section where he had to use software he had never even heard of. Guy googled enough to muddle through and got hired. Management explicitly said that he was the only person to look up information about the software, and that was why they hired him.

shantly 7y ago

One of the biggest differences between school and business is that in business no one really gives a shit how you got something done, within reason. You just knew it? Cool. You had to do the whole thing with the manual open on the desk next to you? Is it done? Fine, don't care, that's great, not even really sure why you told me that. You enlisted someone else to help? Is it done? Good, want to be a team lead? Of course there are constraints imposed all over, but fundamentally how you work is way less important and much more open-ended than all of school.

dillondoyle 7y ago

This is such a valuable skill. For our work we've found this ability to google or find answers without incredibly specific step by step instructions to be lacking from many younger workers. I've wondered if others have found this for many smart people under 30 as well?

hinkley 7y ago
I really believe there are too many important things to know at this point, and so I instead concentrate on memorizing the bounds of the Realm of the Possible. I know what my tools can do, I know where the pitfalls are, but I don't always recall the exact details of those boundaries. I often have to look up why, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Where that doesn't work well is in interviews, and in places where people think it's perfectly reasonable to have technical discussion meetings where laptops are banned. We're really going to make architectural decisions without looking at any code? Who thought that was a good idea?
perl4ever 7y ago
I'm old enough to be covered by age discrimination laws and think I'm better than a lot of people at finding things, and I believe a key reason is that Google deliberately, and perhaps many other types of search accidentally, tries to turn every search into a few results from a single cluster. The only way you can find a different cluster a lot of times is by already knowing it exists, or knowing that the garbage cluster you get is garbage and then you can modify your search terms, or read additional pages of results. What experience provides is not knowing everything about everything, but the meta-knowledge whether there is an answer out there, and whether you've found it yet. Inexperience results in stopping too soon in your search, either giving up or settling for something flawed. Really, who can expect people to solve the halting problem fresh out of college?