mattsmith321

Lots of good conversation on this challenging topic. I would like to throw out a nugget of information for anyone finding themselves having to go down this path: There are many different levels of care when it comes to 'old folks homes'.

We had to go down this path last year with my mom to get her out of living alone in a house. I thought the options were to move in with one of us or put her in an old folks home. Turns out there are many different levels and options: Independent Living, Assisted Living, Memory Care, Skilled Nursing, Private Duty Nursing, Hospice, Continuing Care Retirement Communities, etc.

We found an independent living situation that gives my mom the independence she needs but also the social, dining, and transportation needs that enable her to live a good life without us having to worry about her safety and well-being. Of course, she does like to say with a wink that we put her in an old folks home but she enjoys it.

For those of us in the US, you can see your complete earnings history as reported to the Social Security Administration at ssa.gov. Obviously you have to jump through some hoops to create an account. Coincidentally to this post, I just pulled my info last weekend and put it into a chart: https://i.imgur.com/LwyljAK.png I chopped off the actual amounts for this post but I was also mainly only interested in how things looked for the past few years in my current job.

Not sure if this is the same article, but this one has stuck in my mind for the past 10+ years: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-...

Obviously with little kids in an urban environment we kept them pretty close to home. Once they were in 7th and 8th grade then the ranges got longer. And honestly, it was a challenge dealing with my spouse and other families who insisted on hover-parenting or refusing to let their kids walk 3 blocks to our house. To a certain degree, that is to their detriment because it doesn't allow kids to learn and explore.

Of course, my argument, along with the article above, was "They sneak out at night and wander all over multiple neighborhoods, so why do you feel the need to keep them in your sight at all times?" But that leads to lots of other parenting stories that I'm not going into here.

That is what I was coming to post.

I'm in a similar situation as ep103 and it isn't always that easy to just quit. Lots of things keep a person where they are that are unique to their own world. Plus, at this point in my career, I'm getting to the point where I am that slightly out of touch dev manager who has to catch himself from saying things like "Back in my day..." Plus, where would I go? Certainly not to a great place like the author's location where everything is so good that they don't need tech leads like myself.

I came out of lurker mode just to reply to this article.

I get the author's premise that capable developers don't necessarily need a lead. However, based on my experience, that is overly optimistic.

I've worked in large organizations for quite a while now and have run in to two specific situations where this mentality just doesn't work: - Need for a tie-breaker. I've been in places where the Sr Devs on different projects/applications (myself as one of them) have all disagreed on the direction to take the roadmap. As a result, we ended up with four separate projects/applications going four separate ways. All because there wasn't one person to get everyone in line. - Need for a tech lead to set the right direction. It's been a while since I have worked with a lot of talented, like-minded people that were all capable of making good technical decisions. For the past ten years, I have seen a huge trend to just finding the lowest cost resources. Granted, it has more to do with my situation, but that just goes to show that the author's position may be valid for him, it definitely does not apply to everyone.

I also believe in the following: - The Mythical Man-Month where the best team structure is similar to an operating room where the surgeon has complete control of everything that happens. He has ultimate accountability and what he says goes. - Also Peopleware where really good people are worth the money. If you don't get really good people, no matter how willing they are, they aren't going to make a solution as clean. And unfortunately, I'm in a world where we have decent developers who are always willing to jump on tasks, but they don't always make the best decisions. A tech lead would fix that.

Anyway, context is everything. What works for some might not work for others.

I'm actually liking http://thislife.com which is an extended service of Shutterfly. It can pull photos from your local machines as well as online accounts. You can pay to also have video access.