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Why is it how it should be ? The fact that I know how to sell myself makes me better paid, better treated, and better recognized that others who have the same

by Wilya 14y ago

Why is it how it should be ? The fact that I know how to sell myself makes me better paid, better treated, and better recognized that others who have the same level of programming ability as me but are less good at shouting it to whoever wants to hear it. And yet, I don't provide anything better than them to anyone. Worse, it's overall detrimental, because I spend time making myself known instead of doing actual stuff.

dsirijus 14y ago
Working with/for someone isn't programming, it's business relations, and thinking otherwise hurts both parties. It is a nuanced difference, though.
- Wilya 14y ago
  Err, yeah. Except at the end of the day, the goal and outcome of the relationship is the programming (or, well, the technical side in general). The business relationship is supposed to be just a construction between us, in order to be able to agree on the tech work. If there is no need on the other party, they have no reason to do business with me. People don't just hire me because I'm a cool guy and I say funny jokes and blabber insightful-sounding things. They hire me because they believe I can, one way or another, provide them some value. Telling jokes, or writing link-bait-ish blog posts, (or doing mostly shiny and maybe useful software), or whatever you want to put under "developing your personal brand 101" is just a way to make them believe that in order to put myself in a position where they would allow me to provide value to them. It doesn't, in itself, provide value to anyone. Or, at least, it provides less value than the time I spend doing the real, and boring, and lonely, and hard to justify research groundwork that could (or not) lead me to developing something valuable. And I mean research in the broad sense, be it evaluating new or old software, trying to talk to people and to discern if they have problems that I could solve, or just chasing after a sneaky bug in an obscure backend thing that I happen to maintain.

by Wilya 14y ago

dsirijus 14y ago

Working with/for someone isn't programming, it's business relations, and thinking otherwise hurts both parties. It is a nuanced difference, though.

Wilya 14y ago
Err, yeah. Except at the end of the day, the goal and outcome of the relationship is the programming (or, well, the technical side in general). The business relationship is supposed to be just a construction between us, in order to be able to agree on the tech work. If there is no need on the other party, they have no reason to do business with me. People don't just hire me because I'm a cool guy and I say funny jokes and blabber insightful-sounding things. They hire me because they believe I can, one way or another, provide them some value. Telling jokes, or writing link-bait-ish blog posts, (or doing mostly shiny and maybe useful software), or whatever you want to put under "developing your personal brand 101" is just a way to make them believe that in order to put myself in a position where they would allow me to provide value to them. It doesn't, in itself, provide value to anyone. Or, at least, it provides less value than the time I spend doing the real, and boring, and lonely, and hard to justify research groundwork that could (or not) lead me to developing something valuable. And I mean research in the broad sense, be it evaluating new or old software, trying to talk to people and to discern if they have problems that I could solve, or just chasing after a sneaky bug in an obscure backend thing that I happen to maintain.