Kagerjay

Im in this phase right now, I used gatsbyJS and netlify in my last projects and things became unmaintainable and difficult to upgrade after a few years, am in the process of just doing a complete rewrite where I have more granular control over everything regardless of framework / business corporatization

One thing you learn about the restaurant industry during expansion is maintaining talent and culture is not easy. Alot of these restaurant cultures succeed if there is either a top level culture passed down by two or more founders, or its instilled from a family culture

I tried doing IKEA restaurants as co-working but it just doesn't have the right energy or vibe though

I've only been programming for 6 years. I don't feel the same burning passion as I did when I first started coding. I'm a frontend developer, but I've made a lot of lateral switches into DevOps, backend, leadership, etc but I prefer just building what I'm good at though

But I'm basically semi-retired to a degree in my field. I'm doing the bare minimal to get by at this point. I ultimately would love to quit some day, and pivot into a different career, not entirely related to coding. I'm not at that point yet financially though, and am spending energy elsewhere

I would love to start a non-coding related business one day though.

I just slack myself notes of things I am trying to process that are more in depth. It helps me rebuild context, and those notes are usuallu short lived (usually a day or a week depending on difficulty of task)

Its really the fault of the process decided by upper management, a junior dev shouldnt have that much access. Least access privilege wasnt done correctly here

I have been to Chicago as well! I will say though Chicago is a bit of an outlier though - it is technically the midwest but its also not entirely culturally the midwest either

People are definitely community oriented there - theres alot of polish community events, open friendliness towards sports outings and open pickups (basketball volleyball etc)

I will say though I think in Chicago it tends to be a bit more like clique-y though - culturally and sportswise comparitvely to something like NYC.

Like in NYC theres alot more international / individualism though, in Chicago the city itself enforces a good number of rules on what you should and shouldnt be (example is the pride colors painted in boys town)

I am from Florida, where there is a lot of southern hosptiality and east coast “kind”. We tend to be a bit more aggressive in our language and openly expressive but it tends to come from one of empathy and support. We tend to understand and communicate well, small talk is easy and normalized. People also will greet you even if you are a stranger, its really nice

Going to the west coast - it is weird. People arent genuinely empathetic or rather, its a foreign concept to them. Empathy is always done through some indirect means, through hobbies for instance. I do feel people on the west coast and midwest arent really used to community collaboration either near as much as the east coast either. Also they are not used to openly expressing themselves, I suspect this has to do with fear of being negatively judged

I also just went to LA. It is such a foreign concept to me how black and white everything is. A lot of people will believe there are truly evil or good people - its such a weird thing for me to hear coming from the east coast - we just think of people as like people.

I think at least on the west coast, alot of this artificial niceness has to do with rising CoL, asian influence, and homeless problems

Mid west is more so like less exposure to international culture compared to east coast

Conformity is like rewarded a lot more in the midwest and west coast, people imo struggle to be individualistic and most resort to some sort of pseudonym to express themselves

I do feel people on the east coast are just in general, simpler people used to simpler things and overall just happier people

I have some friends that moved from seattle, they do tend to express themselves better in text then verbally

I've done this many times and can confirm it's been helpful

I find titles to be a social construct we use, the meaning of "senior" I feel has been diluted over the years much like the word "engineer" has been as well

I think the more important question is whether or not the person you are hiring can do the given job and task, regardless of years of experience

I normally write uncommitted comments of what I need to work on next, e.g. a to-do for the next day

This blog post covered SSR better than most blog posts I've seen

Anytime SSR or any of its derivatives comes into the conversation I always ask myself if things are becoming unnecessarily more complex. React server rendered components sounds like it's taking things too far - it goes against the natural developer experience DX order

If your complexity on the app is doubled and it slows and confuses all the developers with increased coding footguns for only a measly gain in performance, is it worth it?

Good old php sites and rails app with no SPAs have worked fine over the years

Benign dictatorships are almost always easier to pull off than board management models.

Board management models generally only work if it the restaurant was individually owned at one point and then that owner left

Starting a worker owned restaurant from the ground up is a terrible idea because the end customer doesn't really care and your artificially creating additional managerial barriers to entry when you have to move fast early on

If someone has the capability of leading a worker owned restaurant (there is always a leader even in these models - e.g. a board chair), they are also equally capable of running a simpler ran benign dictatorship with less red tape.

The other issue with board management runned operations is if you want to expand operations (e.g. opening up a second restaurant). It will get political very fast and not work because there will be disagreements on how money should be spent and allocated

A worker owned business is just a more complicated business. It can work but it needs very specific conditions and it's prone to political issues

I have seen though however a benign dictatorship take on funds from investors to expand operations, but that only works if there is a well established culture (e.g. usually the restaurant has built a few successful stores on their own). It's not very that far off from startups taking investor funding

There's a reason we call restaurant entrepreneur as restauranteurs

I run my own nonprofit currently (board management) and have done startup consulting for the restaurant space for over a decade. Restaurants and startups operates on similar principles

I worked at a company that sounds similarly to this company culture about 3 years ago. I got laid off, moved onto a better company. But just yesterday I ran into someone who works at my old company. We chatted for a little bit until I realized how drained I was getting just from talking to him

And I learned something about this type of culture, especially having read these comments in this thread:

Canonical sounds like a tech fraternity. Just imagine a traditional fraternity or sorority - the hazing (the boss eating food during your interview), the induction processes (hiring asking for high school background, the unnecsesary long essay prompts, unnecessary long interview process, the ghosting, etc)

They are filtering for a very specific person. Someone who is a "Yes" person to the point that they will demolish their morale values and respect on themselves. They sound like there looking for more younger & naiive, but brilliant engineers, that can be basically exploited to build great things. Asking for so much personal information about why they want to work there, there high school background, is basically from the HR perspective "Can I exploit this person if they work there, by leveraging their past against them?" It's a power play dynamic - it's easier to manipulate and gaslight someone you know more about

I have people on both sides of these spectrums.

On the applicant side, we sometimes call them 10x genius engineers that make everyone's life miserable because their code is way too complex for no particular reason. There also underpaid usually and promised promotions and payraises, but those are just empty promises to keep them on the leash. They say their coworkers code is dogshit but don't realize how many unnecessary abstractions that made in their own code. They also don't take advice from friends telling them they are being exploited either, and they usually have an addiction problem to compensate the exploitation (weed,drugs, alchohol generally speaking). They also do amazing work and build amazing things though on the other end, and usually invent very novel solutions that aren't easy for others to inherit or work on

On the business/HR/CEO side - these are the same people that never mature out of the applicant side, and continue the hazing process ritual. Usually the boss on the outside sounds very down to earth, respectable, but deep down inside he likes to have raging parties and feels like he/she missed out on the frat lifestyle growing up. It's externalized validation for them

Having a particularly confusing hiring process is actually a form of gatekeeping from keeping people that respect their boundaries from applying. It's the same level of logic as scammers who will intentionally misspell their emails to filter for people who aren't as grammatical or tech savvy - for instance, since it's easier to target more gullible or less-informed audiences

Not saying that Canonical is that case. But it definitely does sound like a tech fraternity. And the hiring process sounds like a hazing process at a fraternity. But, at the time I actually really wanted that tech fraternity life style and appreciated it for what it was. Most small / tech consulting agencies are more likely to have this cultural mindset, because working with new clientelle usually is an emotional rollercoaster. You do learn a lot in these environments - and it is stressful - and you do get treated like dogshit without you realizing it (someone outside the company has to tell you) - but you also learn to appreciate a more mature better work/life balance afterwards.

It's not terrible for a first job if your young single and have no kids, sometimes you have to learn things the hard way

I think the author here is prioritizing simplicity of deployments above all else, because he realizes time is money. The amount of time to build something VS paying to use an off the shelf item is an important decision to make, and I think the author made good decisions across the board

The author does come across more as a business/operations person first, developer second. Most developers would not consider tools like ahrefs or intercom or even realize that marketing is generally more difficult/important than the develpment work itself

Relatively speaking even at all these costs I would consider this to be frugal. If your a skilled developer you would easily be worth at least $100/hr

Taking off the shelf solutions with easy scalability of services for adding additional people operationally is important

time saved is time earned, time is money, and money saved is money earned

I wish people like this would architectural decision records so people inheriting it later wouldn't be left in the dark by the decisions made in the system

Because sometimes on the outside systems look confusingly written, but it could be a reflection of the scope of confusing business rules to begin with that they had to scope out

> Choosing to enjoy life today instead of waiting for tomorrow for that enjoyment isn't a failure, it's a choice. It comes with risk and tradeoffs.

100% this. It's not as black or white as people make it.

That being said, there is some level of diminishing returns for how much enjoyment you can get from something (e.g. eating), and how much of a tradeoff (e.g. gaining weight). You can maximize it (be selective in which foods you really like - and the people you want to be around) and minimize the tradeoffs (eating in a day 2 meals instead of 3). That's if you want to take a sabbatical and maximize the enjoyment out of life. If you want to grind, focus on yourself, etc and push yourself to the limits - you need to be outside that comfort zone. You spend more time putting yourself in uncomfortable situations at the cost of spending less time with friends and family.

Life is all about balance.

Sometimes you take high risks and push yourself further

Sometimes you take low risks and enjoy the benefits from the work you put in

With every high comes lows

All good things come to an end

But you won't get anywhere in life without taking risks

When I started using Airbnb it definitely was more affordable than hotels

Now a days I almost always book hotels instead - especially for 1-2 day visits - as it always tends to be cheaper, less complications, and offer more value imo

It's just a soft delete behind the scenes usually (a flag in a table as you say)

They usually store some history in a logging database that can be reverted at some point in time

Nothing is really truly hard deleted on the web most times

I have different note apps for different purposes

I'm a strong believer in "one app, one use case". It's easier to mentally remember what note app is used for what specific need I have

One app i use is designed to "forget" and revisit at a different point of time, mostly around personal challenges I've had in life. This is my private journal - i do not write anything technical here, i do not bookmark anything - and i only write it from my phone. Sometimes I want to go back and see how far I've come, to understand and remember what single life was, how I felt moving to a new city for the first time, etc. It's my private space to forget thoughts and move onto bigger things in life. I sometimes write in third person to basically give advice to myself here too. These notes are more emotionally driven. There can be many notes here

Another note app I use is designed for purely private technical note taking. These are bookmarks predominantly for work related wikis that only I look at. I keep a few notes for organized bookmarks - and keep chrome bookmarks as a bookmark wasteland. All notes here are purely factually driven - and I archive things i no longer work on. I limit the number of active notes made here

I use Google docs predominantly ad a form of collaboration with others/sharing or planning travel trips with friends etc. It's mostly just a one time use doc for quickly iterating planning

My blog posts are for public works of reflection, which I start the writing process in a different note app. These are memorialized accomplishments

I use a physical notebook to learn from courses or break down concepts on paper. If I constantly retrieve it - I'll create a blog post or a project based on those idea to reference later

My todo lists are just sticky notes on my paper and calendar reminders. I believe in keeping systems really simple so you don't get into productivity gardening

Camera photos are also designed for me to forget things, but sometimes I print pictures and memorabilia to remember things.

In my case, some note apps are where ideas go to die - to feel comfortable in forgetting - to do a brain dump. Other apps were just there for organizing thoughts on paper for a short duration, or planning things out Collaboratively etc

I do have trouble remembering things long term sometimes because i use so many tools for different reasons. It becomes a crutch. Kind of how for people who rely heavily on GPS systems for driving won't remember specific street names or how to navigate as easily without it

I only journal if I'm undergoing a lot of changes professionally (public blog) or personally (private journal), mostly by externalized factors as a form of reflection/processing.

Sometimes I reflect a lot other times I don't. Not really any consistency to it - it's a done by needs basis

Helps me look at myself from a third person perspective - as if a friend were commenting on things I'm going through

It has improved my life - and help me look at things more logically especially if I'm in the weeds of things

Massages too (massage envy)

The tipping there is kind of stupid since they tip at the base cost of the massage even if you get a discount for the membership.

Probably going to cancel it given how expensive it's getting

100% this

Some of these places will also auto add grauituity charges as well for larger parties, and auto select a tip so if you don't look at the bill you could be footing out as much as 40%. Super shady UI practices.

I don't want to be guilt tripped in tipping for a baked item for instance, or a chipotle style served food restaurant.

My last project had a lot of overly brilliant and smart engineers. There was a lot of code consistency on that project, but the app ended up becoming so complex in nature and overengineered that I didn't know where to begin. We added so much tooling in our testing pipeline that tests became a constant failure in our devops pipeline when things would timeout. Something that would take only a day to push and build, took way several days to complete in the future

I'm all for keeping things DRY - but sometimes it can go too far. Too many abstractions leads to abstraction-hell.

On my current team, everyone likes to keep things a bit simple, which is a nice change in pace. I don't have to go through a chain of 7-8 files to build a basic CRUD feature. I don't have to wonder what some weirdly written but compact code does. I don't have to think as hard and can focus on what matters