

The Rule of Awesome - RobSim
http://learntoduck.net/rule-of-awesome/

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coldtea
> _If we are hiring you because you are awesome, then you have 30 days to do
> something awesome. And awesome is simply defined as me (or your supervisor)
> thinking to him/herself, “man, that's awesome!” just once._

"You have 30 days to do something awesome"? Really?

Well, how about you stuffing your job offer you know where?

Professionals, including trained Computer Science and IT professionals, demand
professional respect. They are there to solve specific needs. In our case code
quality code, iterate, engineer and polish programs to completion, ensure a
solid architecture for your offering, and all that.

Programming is not a parlor trick, and employees are not trained dogs to do
back flips at will for your amusement.

The sense of self-entitlement of those BS managers always amuses me. As if
your shitty startup is the be all end all, and people should be grateful and
"amaze you" for having given them work. Like some decadent Roman emperor
towards his circus act: "amuse me or die".

Not to mention that amazing some exec with something "awesome", as everybody
has witnessed at some point, can be miles away from shipping solid code and
solving the company's real problems keeping it from sinking.

~~~
nthj
Not to mention that my ability to do something awesome in the first 30 days is
in no small part dependent upon how well designed your onboarding process is,
your systems' level of documentation, and how much BS I have to put up with
day to day, none of which are in my control. In other words, unless you're
GitHub, there's no way for me to know before accepting the offer whether I
would feasibly be able to ship something awesome in 3 days or 3 months.

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CurtMonash
It's a rare client with whom I spend more than 2 days a year. At my rates, if
they didn't think I did awesome stuff, they surely wouldn't (re)hire me.

If a sales guy can't set up a meeting with an awesome prospect his first week
on the job (set it up, not necessarily get around to having it), chances are
he's not a great sales guy.

If a process-oriented manager can't find some stupid process and short-circuit
it her first month on the job, what is she good for?

This standard isn't as crazy as it first sounds. What worries me more is the
pompous tone of the whole thing.

\------------------------------------

Also, I'd hope that any organization that abides by this rule goes all-in on
the Rule of Awesome, which in its original form is the a tabletop RPG
principle to the effect of "Anything sufficiently awesome is automatically
allowed." :)

(Compare Rule of Funny, Rule of Cool.)

~~~
MrQuincle
Perhaps you are not hired for awesome stuff, but just for your name, your
connections, your looks...

~~~
CurtMonash
If I ever was hired for my looks, that was a long time in the past.

My connections, however, are pretty awesome. :)

~~~
MrQuincle
Considering my connections I think I still have to rely on my looks. :-D

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alexpopescu
Yeah, I'm pretty sure _timely_ and _imposed_ awesomeness is exactly what is
needed.

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ageyfman
Is fixing bugs awesome? Because a guy who can fix bugs for 30 days straight is
the most valuable engineer in the building, but using this rubric, he'd be
fired, because I don't think anyone considers fixing bugs awesome. I wouldn't
want to work somewhere where everyone is rushing to impress the boss with
"awesome" features, when the rest of the product isn't getting love.

~~~
diwu1989
I fixed 100 bugs in a single milestone at my current job last year, it just
took a lot of time, nothing that demanded too much brain power. It was still
recognized as awesome because the average on the team was 30 or so.

~~~
ageyfman
That IS awesome. That's my point, if you don't get it, and awesome is really
just the "sizzle", then you're losing out on really solid people who are more
into quality than fashion.

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ISL
Awesome and relevance aren't always aligned.

Some days, we do something awesome in the office (laser cut a table from
aluminum sheet, or print hundreds of digits of \pi directly onto a storebought
pie [0] for example), and everyone around says "Whoa! That's awesome!".

At the end of the day, though, we're physicists, and we need to ship some
physics out the door.

[0] <http://guavaduck.com/laser/>

~~~
guylhem
I disagree.

Take a military analogy - if you're not doing something "shippable" (ex:
fighting), you are training to maintain or raise your potential for when you
will have to get in action - or at least to maintain discipline.

I'm not into physics, but if I had to place my bets between a team of
physicists who loves to redo the world with the help of beers during long
lunch hours, and a team of physicist who is into laser cutting a table from an
aluminum sheet, I'd place my bet on the latter.

You may not be "shipping" physics at the moment, but you are maintaining your
knowledge, training doing something that might seem pointless but will help
you keep your skills or even develop new ones (ain't there a place for physics
to decide how to best laser cut aluminum? Can you write an equation for the
precise minimal laser power required to cut, depending on the metal and its
depth?)

~~~
ISL
I agree.

Play is incredibly important. I only wanted to point out that 'awesome' alone
may be insufficient as a hiring criterion.

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jmorton
_"If we are hiring you because you are awesome, then you have 30 days to do
something awesome"_

I'm curious about how much autonomy and latitude people need to do something
that breaks the awesome threshold. It seems to me that the more guided or
directed someone is, the less likely the work they do will be considered
awesome.

I tend to prefer more quantifiable terms. For example, having a clear million
dollar improvement to the top or bottom line in one year. However, I very much
agree that everyone should add _something_ to the team.

[edit, format quote]

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nmcfarl
So much is this depends on your "awesome" level. Personally I'd be hard-
pressed to think of anything anyone on the planet has done this year that is
awesome. Or at least that I've heard. A couple of my friends done "pretty
excellent" things involving either cooking or overcoming fears in the last
year but not a single thing in this past year has filled me with awe.

Call me jaded...

~~~
eCa
You don't need to be filled with awe, you only need some awe..

~~~
nmcfarl
Nice. But I've got none at all :)

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diwu1989
I think this standard is probably a lot easier to beat than people expect.

From personal experience, my hypothesis is that in any organization, there are
a handful of high impact but low cost improvements to make. These low-hanging
fruits will not be blatantly obvious, and will not be discernible to someone
who isn't "awesome" for whatever reason, e.g. lack of curiosity, incompetence,
bad business sense, etc... In a startup with sufficient autonomy, it's
probably even doable to make a lasting difference in the first week.

This is probably also tied to the idea of a 10x engineer, because they can
figure out the right problems to solve and use 100% of their time to provide
1000% value.

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MrQuincle
Sure... one of my colleagues was doing something awesome according to my CEO,
another not so much. The former was demonstrating open-source software build
by others. The latter implemented lots of stuff adding intrinsic value to the
community.

Manager, if you require "awesome", you will get "awesome", but it will be
tailored to you and won't surpass your intellect or vision.

------
gggggggg
I might be wrong, but I would like to think everyone getting a new job has
something in them to do something awesome. Well anyone with a decent amount of
experience anyway.

A fresh set of eyes and no history is all it takes a lot of the time. I am not
sure this makes someone really awesome though.

~~~
krapp
I agree with the sentiment but I think it's more the "fulfill this arbitrary
metric in a month or you're fired" implied here:

 _If we are hiring you because you are awesome, then you have 30 days to do
something awesome. And awesome is simply defined as me (or your supervisor)
thinking to him/herself, “man, that's awesome!” just once._

that's putting people off.

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brand0n_
Ugh... Why does every portfolio website use this identical layout? (the left
nav, the random image header above it, etc). All people do is switch up the
colors and put their own obscure image at the top. Lame.

~~~
zachlatta
You might want to take a look at <https://svbtle.com/>

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auggierose
So, Marissa Mayer is past her 30 days. What has she done that is awesome?

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kanja
Last time I did something awesome I had 3 days left in my quota.

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angrydev
30 days to do something awesome, and then...?

~~~
krapp
29, then 28, then 27...

Until they're left with The Most Interesting Developer In The World.

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lifeisstillgood
Yeah, I am a bit worried by the 30 days thing too, but the idea I like - I
would want myself to be doing something awesome every quarter say.

Milestones matter

