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An old, cynical engineer I once worked with left me with two indelible quotes: - If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. - If you can't write it down y

An old, cynical engineer I once worked with left me with two indelible quotes: - If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. - If you can't write it down you can't do it. You can argue about the accuracy of those ideas, but more or less I've found them to be true.

ReactiveJelly 5y ago
> If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. I've told people that at my work and had it said back to me later. "If it was fun, it wouldn't be work." Also, I leave after 40 hours each week because there will never be a day when the work ends early. If we run out of work, it's because the company is sinking.
sneakymichael 5y ago
"If you can't write it down you can't do it." - elaborate?
- itronitron 5y ago
  I think this might have two, maybe more meanings. The first is that if the person asking you to do something won't put it in writing, then it's probably not legal and therefore you can't do it. The second is that if you haven't thought through something well enough to write it down (the problem and the solution) then you haven't thought about it long enough to have found a solution.
- ByThyGrace 5y ago
  Maybe it means that the ability to spell out the entirety of the work process is an indication of the ability to fulfill the task.
openknot 5y ago
>- If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. I'm not sure if 'fun' is the right descriptor, but certain fields of work with relatively high prestige and supply of applicants but relatively low credential requirements (in comparison to credentialed professions like law or medicine) pay little or almost charge money. Examples include journalism (very low paying, limited jobs in North America), museum curation (requiring many years of low-paid, unpaid internship; most people can't afford it), and many creative fields (e.g. graphic designers are, in my view, paid very low comparative to the skill and creativity they bring; creative writers often have to pay to submit to a literary journal; and video game developers are notoriously overworked/underpaid, compared to other types of software developers).

ReactiveJelly 5y ago

> If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. I've told people that at my work and had it said back to me later. "If it was fun, it wouldn't be work." Also, I leave after 40 hours each week because there will never be a day when the work ends early. If we run out of work, it's because the company is sinking.

sneakymichael 5y ago

"If you can't write it down you can't do it." - elaborate?

itronitron 5y ago
I think this might have two, maybe more meanings. The first is that if the person asking you to do something won't put it in writing, then it's probably not legal and therefore you can't do it. The second is that if you haven't thought through something well enough to write it down (the problem and the solution) then you haven't thought about it long enough to have found a solution.
ByThyGrace 5y ago
Maybe it means that the ability to spell out the entirety of the work process is an indication of the ability to fulfill the task.

openknot 5y ago

>- If it was fun they'd charge money at the door. I'm not sure if 'fun' is the right descriptor, but certain fields of work with relatively high prestige and supply of applicants but relatively low credential requirements (in comparison to credentialed professions like law or medicine) pay little or almost charge money. Examples include journalism (very low paying, limited jobs in North America), museum curation (requiring many years of low-paid, unpaid internship; most people can't afford it), and many creative fields (e.g. graphic designers are, in my view, paid very low comparative to the skill and creativity they bring; creative writers often have to pay to submit to a literary journal; and video game developers are notoriously overworked/underpaid, compared to other types of software developers).