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I'm retired as well, dislike what we have for the internet these days. In reflecting on my career I can say I got into it for the right reasons. That is, I lik
by JKCalhoun 2y ago
I'm retired as well, dislike what we have for the internet these days.
In reflecting on my career I can say I got into it for the right reasons. That is, I liked programming — but also found out fairly quickly that not everyone could do it and so it could be a career path that would prove lucrative. And this in particular for someone who had no other likelihood, for example, of ever owning a home. I was probably not going to be able to afford graduate school (had barely paid for state college by working minimum wage jobs throughout college and over the summers) and regardless I was not the most studious person. (My degree was Education — I had expected a modest income as a career high school teacher).
But as I say, I enjoyed programming at first. And when it arrived, the web was just a giant BBS as far as I was concerned and so of course I liked it. But it is possible to find a thing that you really like can go to shit over the ensuing decades. (And for that matter, my duties as an engineer got shittier as well as the career "evolved". I had not originally signed up for code reviews, unit tests, scrum, etc. Oh well.)
Money as a pursuit made sense to me after I was in the field and saw that others around me were doing quite well — able as I say, to afford to buy a home — something I had assumed would always be out of reach for me (my single mother had always rented, I assumed I would as well — oh, I still had a modest college loan to pay off too). So I learned about 30-year home loans, learned about the real estate market in the Bay Area, learned also about RSUs, capital gains tax, 401Ks, index finds, etc.
But as is becoming a theme in this thread (?) at some point I was satisfied that I had done enough to secure a home, tools for my hobbies, and had raised three girls — paid for their college. I began to see the now burdensome career I was in as an albatross around my soul. The technology that I had once enjoyed, made my career on the back of, had gone sour.
- FollowingTheDao 2y agoIt went sour for the same reason that you were "satisfied that I had done enough to secure a home, tools for my hobbies, and had raised three girls — paid for their college"; Money and selfishness. You were looking out for you and your little group. You got yours. Now what?
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIf you're trying to convince me that I was somehow part of the problem, it's not reaching me. I was as low(ly) as you can get in the "tech industry stack". While I still had some measure of agency as an engineer I added a crayon color picker to MacOS, added most of the PDF features people like in MacOS Preview. That was as much "driving the ship" as I was allowed — until I wasn't even allowed that. I could have skipped sooner maybe? Once I had kids though I found I had a higher tolerance for a job getting shittier, a lower tolerance for restarting in a new career. So I put up with a worsening job for them. I quit the moment my last daughter left for college.
- chipsrafferty 2y agoI don't think they're blaming you per se, they're saying the reason you didnt enjoy it is because you did it for money.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoHmmm... Is it because I came to tolerate it for the paycheck that it sucked or is it possible it began to suck first? I get it that money coming into the industry made the whole industry suck. Honestly, Apple was a much more fun to place to work at when there was no money to be made there (no more than a paycheck anyway). Others may disagree, but I found its success made it increasingly a shittier place to work. (Others though, as I say, may have enjoyed the wider reach the platform enjoyed with its success.)
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago> added most of the PDF features people like in MacOS Preview. I'm not religious, but for this alone you deserve a life of blessings and happiness. The fact that I never ever have to fuck around with Adobe PDF apps to juggle PDFs is one of the load-bearing things keeping me sane in an insane world.
- wulfstan 2y agoYes. I used these features in Preview several times today. You have made my life easier on many occasions. For that, sir, I salute you. May you enjoy your retirement tinkering in your software garden.