9 ms·

Dear Interns

14 points by nileshtrivedi 13y ago

angdis 13y ago
... continuing, because what is a blog post list without a nice round number of items ... 8. You will need to endure a never ending succession of clueless/condescending/abusive project managers. 9. The company you work for, most probably, has MBA's who would gleefully flush your job and those of your co-workers and bosses down the the toilet for the sake of fleeting short-term profit. Adjust your loyalty accordingly. 10. You will need to understand that just because someone is a grizzled industry veteran, it doesn't mean they know shit on any given topic.
- theg2 13y ago
  11. It may feel like you're being respected by bring given an important project and maybe even being paid but, odds are your just cheap, possibly free labor. 12. The first few places you work at don't always do things right and odds are you can teach them a lot (wait we can rar files and not use WinZip any more?)
ArekDymalski 13y ago
Why is this addressed to the interns?
- scrabble 13y ago
  Because the author has likely overheard some interns complaining? These points seem valid for any developer who hasn't been in the industry long though.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Especially in regards to the "customers are dumb this is dumb why are we being dumb" programming tasks, I think that a good cure is dealing with the business side of things. When you have to do sales and think about how your product stacks up in the marketplace and how people want to use it, you suddenly gain a greater appreciation for the necessity (if not reward) of such inane feature requests.
ephemeralism 13y ago
"...(idiot, stupid, simpleton) customers" Sounds like a great way to view the people you build products for.
- nicklovescode 13y ago
  I think it was sarcastic, as in the intern would think that the customer was stupid while they are making the change.
- angersock 13y ago
  Can we get past the myth that somehow every customer is a fantastic human being whose sole aim is to have their life completed by the presence of our products? This same refrain--common whenever we bring up, say, gamers being bad customers--is getting as threadbare as the "privleged" stuff. At the end of the day, our products serve to redress some shortcoming in our customer's toolbox. They don't want that shortcoming, or whatever problem that it represents, and our products are at their best subtle reminders of some lapse in happiness our customers have. We don't have to assume anything about our customers beyond what is needed to deliver product. We might assume that they're nice, that they always give to charity, that they deeply and truly care about the lines of code we write to fix their inconvenience, and any number of other things. Fact is, most customers do not a shit give. Most customers want the cheapest thing that makes their problem go away and does so as unobtrusively as possible. Most customers don't understand or care to understand the causes underlying their current pain point, and most customers even with that knowledge wouldn't change because reasons. And you know what? That's fine. Hell, that's human. It's our job as craftspeople to make the best products we can, because that's what makers do. We don't need these outlandish assumptions about our target audience in order to kick ass and ship code. ~ Now, as far as the article is concerned, the tone of that is very much directed towards a young engineer who views (rightly or wrongly) customer complaints as absurd or moronic. And honestly? Most UI/UX things are clumsy wrappers over something that a line of commands would very easily solve, were we to provide our users with a CLI. Our drive is more and more to "don't make me think" about our interfaces, and honestly that is very much in support of customer-as-simpleton. Part of the process of learning business is to realize that, while it is true that customers are lazy (don't want to spend effort solving their problem) and simpletons (don't want to think about what little effort they do expend), that is something that can be made a design constraint and used to make something that people will buy. To a young engineer, yeah, people are simpletons when faced with their problem domain, but they need to learn to ship code for those folks anyway.
hawkharris 13y ago
Another important tip for interns: Never work for free. If a company respects you and your work, it will pay for your time.
Tichy 13y ago
Also, watch the movie Office Space and read lots of Dilbert cartoons to mentally prepare for your mind numbing career in IT.
mathattack 13y ago
A simpler list: 1. Show up early. 2. 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 mouth - use proportionally. 3. Work hard and Learn hard. 4. Be nice to everyone. 5. Stay late. I've found very few people who follow 1-5 that have disliked their internship. It's also the best way to an offer.
- khafra 13y ago
  I doubt the causation runs the way you think it does; and an offer you can only get by constantly imposing long hours on yourself may not be an offer you want.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    If it's a learning internship (as opposed to a "Get me coffee" internship) all you can trade for the teaching and money is enthusiasm. Many people treat interns like a burden from HR, and the way to win them over is enthusiasm. After you get the offer you can look around at how people work, and decide if it's worth staying long term.

14 points by nileshtrivedi 13y ago

... continuing, because what is a blog post list without a nice round number of items ... 8. You will need to endure a never ending succession of clueless/condescending/abusive project managers. 9. The company you work for, most probably, has MBA's who would gleefully flush your job and those of your co-workers and bosses down the the toilet for the sake of fleeting short-term profit. Adjust your loyalty accordingly. 10. You will need to understand that just because someone is a grizzled industry veteran, it doesn't mean they know shit on any given topic.

theg2 13y ago
11. It may feel like you're being respected by bring given an important project and maybe even being paid but, odds are your just cheap, possibly free labor. 12. The first few places you work at don't always do things right and odds are you can teach them a lot (wait we can rar files and not use WinZip any more?)

ArekDymalski 13y ago

Why is this addressed to the interns?

scrabble 13y ago
Because the author has likely overheard some interns complaining? These points seem valid for any developer who hasn't been in the industry long though.
- angersock 13y ago
  Especially in regards to the "customers are dumb this is dumb why are we being dumb" programming tasks, I think that a good cure is dealing with the business side of things. When you have to do sales and think about how your product stacks up in the marketplace and how people want to use it, you suddenly gain a greater appreciation for the necessity (if not reward) of such inane feature requests.

ephemeralism 13y ago

"...(idiot, stupid, simpleton) customers" Sounds like a great way to view the people you build products for.

nicklovescode 13y ago
I think it was sarcastic, as in the intern would think that the customer was stupid while they are making the change.
angersock 13y ago
Can we get past the myth that somehow every customer is a fantastic human being whose sole aim is to have their life completed by the presence of our products? This same refrain--common whenever we bring up, say, gamers being bad customers--is getting as threadbare as the "privleged" stuff. At the end of the day, our products serve to redress some shortcoming in our customer's toolbox. They don't want that shortcoming, or whatever problem that it represents, and our products are at their best subtle reminders of some lapse in happiness our customers have. We don't have to assume anything about our customers beyond what is needed to deliver product. We might assume that they're nice, that they always give to charity, that they deeply and truly care about the lines of code we write to fix their inconvenience, and any number of other things. Fact is, most customers do not a shit give. Most customers want the cheapest thing that makes their problem go away and does so as unobtrusively as possible. Most customers don't understand or care to understand the causes underlying their current pain point, and most customers even with that knowledge wouldn't change because reasons. And you know what? That's fine. Hell, that's human. It's our job as craftspeople to make the best products we can, because that's what makers do. We don't need these outlandish assumptions about our target audience in order to kick ass and ship code. ~ Now, as far as the article is concerned, the tone of that is very much directed towards a young engineer who views (rightly or wrongly) customer complaints as absurd or moronic. And honestly? Most UI/UX things are clumsy wrappers over something that a line of commands would very easily solve, were we to provide our users with a CLI. Our drive is more and more to "don't make me think" about our interfaces, and honestly that is very much in support of customer-as-simpleton. Part of the process of learning business is to realize that, while it is true that customers are lazy (don't want to spend effort solving their problem) and simpletons (don't want to think about what little effort they do expend), that is something that can be made a design constraint and used to make something that people will buy. To a young engineer, yeah, people are simpletons when faced with their problem domain, but they need to learn to ship code for those folks anyway.

hawkharris 13y ago

Another important tip for interns: Never work for free. If a company respects you and your work, it will pay for your time.

Tichy 13y ago

Also, watch the movie Office Space and read lots of Dilbert cartoons to mentally prepare for your mind numbing career in IT.

mathattack 13y ago

A simpler list: 1. Show up early. 2. 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 mouth - use proportionally. 3. Work hard and Learn hard. 4. Be nice to everyone. 5. Stay late. I've found very few people who follow 1-5 that have disliked their internship. It's also the best way to an offer.

khafra 13y ago
I doubt the causation runs the way you think it does; and an offer you can only get by constantly imposing long hours on yourself may not be an offer you want.
- mathattack 13y ago
  If it's a learning internship (as opposed to a "Get me coffee" internship) all you can trade for the teaching and money is enthusiasm. Many people treat interns like a burden from HR, and the way to win them over is enthusiasm. After you get the offer you can look around at how people work, and decide if it's worth staying long term.