Coffee in hand, I sit down in the Cave. Any Tuesday during the work week, a sip, and I parse the calendar. 1:1 — he’s fine. Status meeting — listen. Staff meeting — read the notes from last week. Exec review — figure out the biggest fire, have a defensible opinion. Wait — Mark Team… more
Manager at the first start-up. Solid guy. Significant experience. I know that I can learn from him. No doubt. All the correct operational 1:1 hygiene is there. We meet every week like clockwork; we fill the time, and I often leave with a healthy sense of productivity. But sometimes… he talks. And wanders. He’s a… more
My expectation early in my career was that promotions just showed up. You worked hard, and you figured out how to get along with your teammates. Every year or so, my boss would have a one-off conversation with me and alert me that I had a new role along with increased compensation. This hands-off cycle… more
My problem with the phrase “Managing Up” involves a hard-earned historical observation regarding its weaponization. The helpful version of this practice is a clear understanding between you and your manager that there are uncommon, intriguing, or worrying developments that you — without hesitation — share with your manager. Isn’t that their responsibility, as well? It… more
Second year of UCSC. Decades ago. A predilection for Domino’s Pizza and a fundamental misunderstanding of how credit cards worked left me in a financial hole. I needed a job, any job, and the School of Social Sciences offered a job aligned with my computer science degree, lab technician. A solid interview with a prompt… more
It’s hard to pick a single best work by Joel Spolsky, but if I was forced to, I’d pick The Joel Test. It’s his own, highly irresponsible, sloppy test to rate the quality of software, and when anyone asks me what is wrong with their team I usually start by pointing the questioner at the… more
Jesse walked. Monday is the day we set aside for new hires. All the new hires spend the morning learning about the company, figuring out how to create accounts, and becoming indoctrinated in company culture. When lunch time arrives, managers pick up their new employees and take them to lunch. Their morning starts at 9am,… more
At the end of each fiscal year, companies take stock of their performance. How’d we do? Better or worse? This is a natural time to reflect upon individual performance — this is when your boss writes your review. In my ideal management world, a review is simply a documentation of well-known facts, your performance over… more
Larry was pissing me off. We were a year into a two-year development process. Far enough along to have confidence that we could do it, but not far enough to be sure when we would get there. Features were claimed to be done, but each build of the product was a study in broken and… more
The $150,000 mistake, your shipping schedule being off by a year, and The Really Bad Hire (aka: we’re being sued). These are not screw-ups, these are fuck-ups. When you discover them, the air leaves your lungs, the back of your head tingles, and there’s an odd metallic taste in your mouth. Your mind goes blank… more
