> The guy who was practically doing 80% of everything there, all the time, got fired a year and half after me
Every team I've been on has had one rockstar. I've seen the rockstar get fired 3 different times. Maybe they were making too much, or rising too fast, I'm not sure. But I do know that being the "most productive" doesn't guarantee employment
Yes, sadly. And before somebody quickly interjects: he not just was not an a-hole, he was extremely kind, calm and always supportive. You almost never hear him say: "I am too busy right now, can we do this later?".
Seriously. Almost never.
Yep. Still got fired.
And he was not rising or anything. Was a small hardcore team, zero politics were involved, they were tight-knit, loved them. But there was only so much the CTO could do; it was a startup that was under the boot of a bigger org he was actually working in. He fought for good paychecks for everyone, and generous severance too. But had no say if the higher echelons said that somebody had to be let go.
There's no moral of the story except "don't sweat your job, they'll replace you the next day". Treat it as a transaction, not as a second family.
The only real answer is to unionize. But every time that gets mentioned here, ~90% of people are against it. I notice SWE try to cultivate that "rockstar" persona, the last thing people want to do is admit they need each other / take collective action.
We honestly should have unionized 20 years ago when the outsourcing started
Watches are a horrible example. The rich buy them because they're a status symbol. Rich people aren't going to start retaining teams of software experts just for status.
"Mechanical watches" also aren't exploding at all. When people cite this, they're citing the overall watch market growing, because the market for million dollar watches is being driven by a very small group of collectors. Its also not sustainable, and will die down in ~10-20 years when these old guys finish dying. The average not rich person could not give less of a damn about mechanical watches. There's no great comeback on the horizon
NYC should have been the model to follow. Instead of flock cameras, cities should have bounty systems: record a video of a speed violation with a plate, and get 10% of the ticket revenue. Enforcement would explode.
We could of had a system where we used the technology we already had in our hands to democratize speed enforcement, instead of corporatizing it
NYC already tried Snitching as a Service during COVID, and it went terribly. I grew up with a neighbor who would constantly record people and call the cops over every little perceived infraction. Everyone in the neighborhood hated her, including the cops. I do not want to live in a society that encourages those people.
First off, let me see ALL the restaurants in my city, not just the 10 recommended ones.
Second, stop moving the map when I search for things. Why does google maps on both mobile and desktop, change your search area. I put the map in one place because I want to search there.
Third, stop scrubbing bad reviews. When every restaurant is 5 stars, theres no point
Cost isn't only money. In the case of linux it is time to learn to use it (which is a sunk cost on windows: already paid it). Then you need to download and install it - again windows comes by default so a sunk cost.
If somebody else admins your system. However if not there is a lot to learn. At least every distribution I've used needs manual updates from time to time. (though admittedly most people would replace the computer before I've seen anything hard happen)
Windows user here. It goes vastly further than that. I've been using Windows since version 3.0. I'm used to it to the point where it's second nature. Linux is foreign and difficult to comprehend, not least because it explicitly avoids being anything like Windows or accommodating habits people acquired from Windows. I don't like the direction Windows is going any more than anyone, and I'm avoiding Windows 11 for the time being, but as long as Linux people continue to believe that the only reason Windows users don't switch is because they don't know Linux exists, Linux will not be able to attract Windows users even as Windows goes full capitalist enshittification.
Every team I've been on has had one rockstar. I've seen the rockstar get fired 3 different times. Maybe they were making too much, or rising too fast, I'm not sure. But I do know that being the "most productive" doesn't guarantee employment
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