
Programmers: What To Do If You Get Fired - petercooper
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2010/03/programmers-what-to-do-if-you-get-fired.html
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thesethings
This was great. I'm not commenting on the message (though I liked that too, he
wrote enough caveats in there to make it responsible.)

I mean the writing was great. I laughed at least 3 times, and grinned most of
the rest of it.

It's a really long sales letter. True.

But it also has at least three stories in there that are so entertaining that
even if you're a bored millionaire taking a break from counting the vintage
restored cars in your airport hangar, and need no career advice at all, you
should still probably read the post.

(no affiliation w/Giles or his enterprises)

~~~
jamiequint
I've studied direct mail a little bit, and one of the more counterintuitive
things is that generally long sales letters perform a lot better than short
ones. I believe the recommended length for letters by mail - at least in the
past - was 5-6 pages.

~~~
Semiapies
Perhaps it's people falling prey to a time-spent version of the sunk cost
fallacy?

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ambiate
I kept seeing the title... I knew it was coming... I kept reading and reading.
Bam, "give me money." It was very clickbank-esque in a way. An almost useless
story because the part that you really want is being sold. We (programmers)
wanted to know what to do if we get fired, not read a story about getting
fired. I mean the message is there: "improve your job searching skills," but a
12 year old could advise that as a smart career move.

Furthermore, if a person must be advised to make a top-notch resume, or that
having your name in google and not being associated with child pornography
sites is a good idea; maybe they shouldn't be a programmer. Labeled: common
sense... no amount of money can purchase that. Sure they get over one boundary
and make it to the next obstacle, but where will their advisor be when its
time to work as a team or develop a project? There's a certain amount of
mathematics, logic, and the ability to find information on your own required
in programming.

Then again programming these days is not the glorious lines of c and inline-
assembly I imagined taking over the world while reading through the quakeworld
source as a teenager.

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sandofsky
It should also be noted that Giles works in Los Angeles. Having spent 5 years
in LA as a developer, I can tell you companies there are absolutely desperate
for talent.

Contrast this with a tech heavy area like Boston, where competition is
greater. A number of my peers graduated with CS degrees and had to deliver
packages for UPS to make ends meet.

~~~
jbellis
Nobody in America is more mobile than recent college grads. And yet "a number"
took jobs with UPS but none apparently thought to move to LA?

Seriously?

~~~
sandofsky
Some people don't know about the opportunities.

Some people value being near family.

Some people are just afraid of change.

The entire discussion is making me want to finish an essay I started five
months ago, when I left LA. But in short, there are up sides and down sides of
relocating to an area with high demand; there's usually a reason for the
demand.

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Semiapies
What a long-winded ad.

~~~
pmichaud
Ok, yeah... but, as someone who actually writes long form sales pages, I'm
impressed. He nailed the shit out of it. I bet he'll make a mint on this page.

~~~
ambiate
I saw the headline bolded(old trick) two+ times and knew this guy wanted
money. I almost closed the page then, but read on for the sake of
procrastinating learning objective-c and getting to post this comment.

He's perfected the art of clickbank. I was waiting for the 2d photo of the
woman to pop up in the corner and audio to start blaring over my speakers on
why his advice would be pure ROI once I reached the first buy button.

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pook
Wow. I don't think even Zed Shaw has ever gotten fired in such a spectacular
manner.

Abrasive personalities can sometimes be a good thing, but "I've got getting
new jobs so well figured-out that not even behavior which was borderline
insane ever stopped me from getting a new job." is probably a huge warning
sign.

~~~
ratsbane
Giles Bowkett is funny, outrageous, and entertaining. His brand of humor
probably isn't for everyone but to me it's a sign of someone who's imaginative
enough and not afraid to think things through without being constrained by
convention. I think I'd like working with him.

Also, he DID state clearly that the cream-soda-throwing incident was
unacceptable. Admitting to and learning from your mistakes is almost better
than not making them.

~~~
pook
He does sound interesting, and like a fun coworker.

However, you must admit that if working with him, you must update your prior
probability of "work being interrupted by a SWAT team and an not-coincidental
family of rabid ferrets."

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dylanz
The most important thing I gleaned was that next time I'm arrested in New
Mexico, I'll try to be very, very, clear, that I'm a non-smoker.

I only read 1/4 of it, but definitely enjoyed the read :)

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pauljonas
Have worked with a few fellows just like described in this post. Temper
tantrums, throwing chairs, yelling and verbally hostile, etc.…

Would never hire somebody with that type of track record.

Smarts and programming chops is good and all, but one needs to "play well with
others".

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jdietrich
I don't know about hiring him as a programmer, but I would _definitely_ hire
him to write sales copy.

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owinebarger
The paragraph that hooked me has not been addressed in other comments. That
is:

    
    
      Most programmers I know seem to respond to job searches
      by learning new programming languages. The logic there is
      pretty weak. "I can't get a job with a language I know, so
      why don't I see instead if I can get a job with a language
      I don't know." Learning new languages is a good thing, but
      there's a time and a place for everything. It's never a
      matter of your skills being stale; there are still COBOL
      jobs out there. If you're good at programming, and you
      can't get a job, the skill to improve is not your
      programming skill but your job-getting skill. If you've got
      a task that requires two skills, and you have one of those
      skills down solid, but you suck at the other skill, the
      thing to do is not spend even more time perfecting the
      skill you already have down solid.
    

As someone looking into programming jobs after a long period of not doing too
much programming, I'm interested in what people think about this sentiment.

~~~
rbrcurtis
That paragraph kind of struck me too. I know I have thought that I need to
learn new programming languages in order to get a job. Its hard not to think
that when the majority of programming jobs have very very specific
requirements on languages and technologies that you MUST KNOW in order to
apply, despite the reality of the skills of the person hired.

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blasdel
Giles is commenting in this thread, but his most recent account got hellbanned
2 days ago — and that's at least his 4th hellbanning. He didn't even do
anything this time.

You'll have to turn on [showdead] in your profile to see them.

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jpwagner
Why in the world would someone want to be coached by a jerk who refuses to
work and assaults people who disagree with him!

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KirinDave
This reminds me of how we talk about identifying talent and how it is
difficult in the software industry.

Here is a hint: You might want to ask people, “Have you been fired for any of
the reasons Giles Bowkett has been fired?” If the answer is yes, you're
probably better off not hiring.

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raintrees
Ah, the long-winded ad marketing approach in action... Being highly
entertaining also meant I read it even though I have no intention of
obtaining, nor need of, the product at this time. Thanks, Giles.

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alain94040
There actually is something worth reading in that long post (starting around
paragraph 10).

That being said, the author's "personality" is very transparent through the
whole post. Need I say more?

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algorias
The video linked from the post (<http://vimeo.com/9945353>) was very
disappointing. It promises 'PageRank in 5 lines of Ruby', but delivers nothing
more than the mathematical definition of PageRank rewritten in pseudo-code.
Not helpful at all.

I'm calling it pseudo-code because it can't possibly work as written, as it
would just recurse infinitely. Your time is better spent reading the actual
paper:

infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

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ecaradec
It looks very similar to Timothy Ferris brainquicken product presentation :
<http://brainquicken.com/main/Brain-Quick.html>

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andrewcooke
good god i'm not reading all that - anyone have a summary?

~~~
thesethings
Data points:

* As pointed out by others, the people hiring programmers may not be so hot at it

* As pointed out by others, the exact same skills can get you a really cool job, or a really bad job.

* _Getting a job_ it a totally different skill than _Doing a job_

* Regardless of your programming skills (which i'm not here to talk about), i may be able to help you with your _job getting skills_ .

* New Mexico: Wack

Personal anecdotes:

* i got fired for a bad reason that wasn't my fault

* i got fired for a good reason that was my fault

* i got fired once because of a combination of my own issues and the innate lameness of an environment

* One time some crazy circumstances beyond my control, combined with a mild legal infraction on my part, led to hijinx

The message:

* Being appealing isn't magic.

* Being found isn't magic

* I'm not awesome, just skilled

* I can help you get the same skills with one of three services you can pay for

* don't just believe me, here are some examples

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donaq
Hmm, this is not a tongue-in-cheek poke at internet marketers?

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Omnipresent
I want my time back

~~~
Semiapies
Sorry - take it up with the submitter.

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zackattack
My question is this: how do you figure out _which_ assets to create?

~~~
akgerber
I have picked it works like so: 1\. Is there something that annoys you, or a
crazy idea that comes into your head? 2\. Actually do something about it,
unlike all the people out there who don't.

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mscantland
This is why the Ruby (esp. Rails) community only works for startups that pay
in "equity."

Down-mod if you want, but I've been running a 20 employee company for more
than six years and have recently moved contract work from PHP to Python due to
the unprofessionalism in the Ruby community (I would have preferred Ruby if it
had a better scene).

Our internal products are also mostly PHP or Python. Same reason.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
It's the facial hair. If Matz and his followers had more facial hair, the Ruby
scene would rock. I know he may be doing the best he can, but the fact
remains: programming languages are awesome in proportion to the beardiness of
their creators and cheerleaders. K&R? Check. Guido? Check. John McCarthy?
Check. Wall? Moustache but no beard, so half-sucky but tolerable. Stroustrup?
Trimmed down a lot, so good but not truly awesome. The Lua guy? Worse than
Matz. Java, PHP, and JavaScript? You can see the faces! The skin!!!11! And
let's not forget COBOL, the only language to develop actual estrogen
poisoning.

What's the beard coverage fraction at your company?

~~~
ratsbane
In defense of Larry Wall's moustache, it's awesome in a way that either Sonny
Bono or Thomas Magnum could be proud of.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
His moustache needs no defending. It is indeed awesome. It's just not a beard.

