Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Giving a Shit as a Service (2022) (allenpike.com)
494 points by damir on Oct 29, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 261 comments



I always carry a two dollar bill and fifty-cent piece, for when (e.g.) an entry-level store-clerk does something which most-other-clerks wouldn't resolve, I can say to them "Thank you for giving. a . shit."

As a blue-collar electrician (although retired), I want to hire anybody that seems to give even the tiniest shit. While working, it took me a decade to realize that "if you're the only person that 'gives a shit,' YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME."


> "if you're the only person that 'gives a shit,' YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME."

Not only that (which is 100% true) but also you're raising the bar in required work quality for everyone else to get on par with you, therefore expect to make a few friends and many enemies, especially among colleagues.


>expect to make a few friends and many enemies

The older I get, the less I'm willing to help disaster scenarios.

"A lack of planning on your behalf, does not constitute an emergency upon mine."


> "A lack of planning on your behalf, does not constitute an emergency upon mine."

Agreed. Imo, having "on call" rotations is a clear red flag and bad software practice that has somehow made it in the mainstream.

I understand the idea of "mission critical" when you're running software on the Moon or something, but if your Earthbound software has so many potential bugs that you need to have dedicated people being on call every weekend to fix bugs or restart servers, you just built it poorly.


Most of the time, this is a useful frame.

With that said, there are some types of software that exist to deal with complexity external to itself. External systems (integrations, screen scraping systems, etc.) can break without fault internally, but need to be fixed ASAP.

One might say, "You built it poorly by deciding to build this at all." And sometimes that's true. But I've been in plenty of situations where the options were 1) don't solve the customer problem, don't pass go, don't collect $200. Or, 2) build finicky software that works but needs to be babied... and hire engineers that don't mind doing this type of work.

That last bit is critical. Some engineers like the heroics and drama of it. Some people can't help but run headfirst into the fire... and there's jobs for them there :-)


I didn't mind staying late some days to see whether or not my migration would blow up production or not. But oncall suuuuuçks. Cleaning up my own mess is one thing, cleaning up some one else's nonsense is another.


Oncall done right will involve a feedback mechanism to the originators of the root cause.


At my last job, there was an incident (thankfully discovered in working hours) caused by a supplier accidentally deleting the country of Austria from some crucial database. You can't anticipate everything like that, but the show must go on ...


Things happen all the time.

So lending a hand with emergencies that even could have been avoided is ok to help someone new to it.

Caring via software or infrastructure for users is often about effort as you have described.


> Imo, having "on call" rotations is a clear red flag and bad software practice that has somehow made it in the mainstream.

I thought so too until I gigged for a SaaS company that absolutely needed it. No, it was not moon-shot rocket control software, but it was a money printer with literally thousands of clients around the globe paying six figures for the service. The on-call SWE duty was not onerous: about 2 hour shifts every 2 months, and your job was to attempt to handle it and then escalate it to staff if you couldn't. There were so many CI tests on the way to production that nothing ever happened, until it did, and then you needed to make sure that money printer go brrr.


If you work at a company on a team with a user-facing surface, you need to have an on-call rotation. Consumer expectations of uptime are extremely high and there's no way to build software that ensures 100% reliability without any human intervention.


Fundamentally disagree with this. In fact, most of human technology has worked without on-call rotations. From the complicated movements of mechanical watches, to the still-ticking heartbeats of the Voyager probes.

Most software engineers just happen to be bad engineers. On-call rotations are a band-aid for poor planning and development (to be fair, often imposed by tech-delinquent middle managers or executives).


Fundamentally disagree with this but I can see how someone who thinks at the level of "Most software engineers just happen to be bad engineers" would see it that way.

I have worked at firms of various sizes and there is always a point where things usually become complex at some point. Software is as much or more so about managing the humans than it is the software. This becomes especially true as the firm grows in size. Like all fields there are certainly some individuals that perform better/worse than others but even for the best engineers out there, mistakes happen, edge cases pop up especially as the potential complexity grows. Of course these mistakes can pop up more frequently depending on the imposed deadlines. Deadlines to me are a healthy balancing act between the different parts of the business. Sometimes they are arbitrary but I think in a healthy relationship it helps to have that pushback/friction to figure out how much effort is required.

That was a long way of saying I think its a pretty naive and dismissive view to just hand wave and say this is both due to bad engineers and tech-delinquent middle managers. You are not asking for it either but I think this also comes down to social ability/skills. If your worldview is that most software engineers I can only imagine this shows up in the workplace.


So how did IBM manage to produce mainframes, with software/firmware included, that achieves six 9s uptime?


Obviously the truth is somewhere in between, there is no engineer so talented that they can produce a 100% reliable and available system, and the percentage goes down the more complex the system gets. The decision of whether to have a on-call rotation should be based on the consequences of downtime, not on some kind of moral stance on human fallibility.


Couldn’t disagree more.

Nobody engineers software like spacecraft companies- that doesn’t mean that no one else gives a shit, it just means that cost constraints are real things.

Also, the demands on spacecraft software are trivial (“move the camera once a month”, “do a correction burn after a planetary encounter”, “watch this sensor and do this if it changes”) compared to a modern web application at a Fortune 500 company.


I don't really understand the analogy. Mechanical watches have created an industry of skilled practitioners trained to fix them because they often need diagnosis and repair. NASA has a room full of oncall personnel available for many hours any time they launch anything, and they launch things much less frequently than your average tech company.

Oncall rotations are part of defense-in-depth against bugs and unforeseen circumstances: Most of the companies that survive without a formal one only do so by outsourcing this for the most common cases; to Cloudflare, to Amazon, etc. -- if there's an opportunity cost to being down someone needs to be able to pick up the phone when there's an outage or critical issue.


Let’s get rid of on call firemen while we’re at it they shouldn’t really be required.

Let’s all plan our emergencies to 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. And don’t forget the scheduled lunch break at 1pm!


Being on call is firemen job, and they do have shifts. In most of the companies you have something akin to construction workers that work from 9 to 5 and then also are expected to be available to do casual firefighting from 5 to 9 because it's "easier".


At a certain scale mature software companies do in fact have dedicated incident managers, and dedicated SREs who work primarily on stability from a more systematic perspective. However they still need support from the application developers due to the nature of software.

In the old days operations tended to be very isolated in much the way you are proposing. The problem with this is that stability depends very much on the software, so over time operations folks would be extremely defensive and impose all kinds of constraints on what software could do, and the software engineers would be frustrated that they couldn't do things efficiently. Imagine how firefighters would feel if construction workers had a tendency to randomly leave explosives and gas cans hidden throughout new construction and then waltzed off to the next job while the firefighters had to deal with the consequences.

At the end of the day, devs need to have some skin in the game or it's a recipe for disaster.


The "skin in the game" argument is, IMO, not compelling. It is clearly possible to have stable software services delivered by separate Dev and Ops teams that communicate using a will defined software interface -- look at any app that uses Heroku or a similar PaaS.

But, as we know, useful software interfaces are difficult to define well and, once they exist, they tend to be the most inflexible part of a fast-changing system. It is always better (though of course more expensive) to control both sides of an interface for this reason.

The "skin in the game" argument elides this fundamental reason and substitutes one that implies all of this is the fault of lazy devs, which isn't (generally) true IME.


This argument doesn't hold water. Both Heroku and teams that run apps on Heroku have their own on-call teams. Yes, you can build stable interfaces and separation of responsibilities between infra and business services, but someone still has to be responsible for the business services stability.


Right but I meant my point to be that the people on call don't have to be literally the same people developing the application code. In fact, they never have to communicate at all, because they can coordinate at arms-length with a well-defined software interface.

Edit: I missed the part where you say the Heroku customer has their own on-call team. IME this is not true. The whole reason to use a PaaS like this is to avoid having an Ops team. Sometimes orgs outgrow their PaaS and keep using it anyway, but this isn't necessary, only a historical artifact. These orgs would likely save more money and get a better result by going with normal IaaS or racking their own servers and, in fact, are probably actively switching to that model.


The juxtaposition of "this is how it's done because otherwise those that fight fires impose restrictions that those that build don't like" and "construction workers Vs firefighters" seems to be undermining your point...

In mature industries, there absolutely are plenty of regulations in place to make sure that builders don't make responders' life harder. That doesn't mean that the responders aren't needed, but the fact that the software industry as a whole decided to go all "response is the only thing we need for most things" is evidence that it is not mature.


Sure, any point can be undermined by overgeneralization and bad analogies.

The nature of software and physical construction is different.


They can be scheduled on shifts instead of being on call.

It just requires spending more money hiring more people.


John Deere sells tractors because of their oncall process

When you're in the middle of harvesting and your tractor breaks down, you want it fixed now, not at somebody else's convenience.

Mechanics and tow trucks also form an oncall for broken down cars.

There's oncalls all over the place for tech of all kinds. I think the biggest difference with software is intellectual property - we've made it so nobody else is allowed to fix whatever's broken, so of course, we need oncalls to fix the problems instead of letting customers go to their preferred mechanic


You can't compare a mechanical watch to a modern web app. If you told the people building the modern web app were allowed to make one release per decade and not allowed to "maintain it" you would see the feature list drop off, the release date shoot out.

If you have different constraints, you get a different result.


In a vacuum, technology does not need people on-call. The problem is when you're iterating on technology (E.g. SaaS).

Shipping things has the highest risk of breaking something. I worked with an SRE team responsible for managing incidents for a few months, they told me that ~80% of incidents are caused by bad code being shipped, and I saw that happen as well.

Modern software applications are complex and interconnected. It's pretty easy to unintentionally break something in a different part of the application, or ship subtly bad code because you aren't intimately familiar with that part of the codebase.


Not a great comparison. I presume you are trolling.

Mechanical watches have been around for roughly 500 years (about 4x-5x tbe time since the first program, depending on how you count), which is a substantial amount of time to iterate on core functionality. Even then, watches until the 1970s (when quartz was introduced) were often imprecise enough to lose 15 minutes/day.

The Voyager probes have both lost several instruments, were built with substantial amounts of redundancy, all to the adjusted for inflation cost of about $3.94B US dollars. Maintenance per year is estimated to be about $5M, including the occasional software update.


This seems incredibly naive considering companies where engineers are pushing literally thousands of commits a day. Things will break, period.


I only had one experience with this early in my career, but I remember it wasn't good. Basically, we had a 5-6 person team that had to support like 10 important legacy services. One person essentially ended up being on call for a week, having to wake up early to debug issues with a thing you didn't build in the first place and only vaguely understood.

Do you think this company had good CI/CD and automated tests? They did not. There was fortunately a lot of monitoring so at least you knew when the service was in a bad state, but absolutely nothing else other than a ticket and an angry customer.

I would much rather have extensive test coverage, very good CI/CD, make sure not to do releases on weekends and holidays, and have a few people whose job is to do the monitoring and escalate to the right people rather than just putting a target on a random engineer's back and hope they can fix things quickly.


On call rotation is one thing.

Everyone being motivated to develop in a way that isn’t resulting in brittle software and breaking and maybe even use boring tech for stability so even if an on call is a real thing, it’s relatively benign. It’s not a bad thing to rely on the genius of smart people who have been at it for decades and are decades ahead in some realizations.

Having software that self reports and logs multiple occurrences of the same errors and escalating errors that start in the app are one great way to stay ahead of issues.

By the time someone reaches out it’s easy to find the error, session, user, and say ok we see it and are on it. Acknowledgement at this depth upfront quite often let’s the customers to say it’s ok take a look on Monday. It’s reassuring. Also easy to forward such an issue to a distributed team.


You think that, but when Github is down, or AWS-East is down, everyone just kind of endures it, waiting until it's back up. And life goes on.


Right, and the reason "everyone" has confidence in just waiting a bit for it to go back up without panicking and having to try to find an alternative is precisely because GitHub and AWS have on-call engineers that are alerted and immediately work on fixing it.


Of course, when a hospital’s IT systems go down, people do indeed have to endure it, but life does not always in fact go on [0]. Horses for courses, I guess.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/27/22696097/hospital-ransomw...


Hospital IT systems failures are are mostly going to cause problems with scheduling, record-keeping, and billing.

By far, the most likely thing to kill you in a hospital is not the IT system but errors by the doctors and nurses. Or that you're too sick to save no matter what they do.


I used to run IT operations for a telecom, hundreds of physical servers, facilities, 24x7 operators. Hey, shit happens. Problems with hardware, facilities, software jobs, COTS software, homegrown software. There’s a lot of benefit to having someone on call in each domain of concern rather than letting problems fester or go unresolved all night, particularly if the issues are customer-facing. It’s easy to say “just build your crap to anticipate every failure mode”, but that’s not realistic for large operations, especially if you aren’t sitting on an Apple-size pile of cash and talent.


The expected number of alerts for my team in a normal week on-call (which is out-of-hours only, a different team member covers working hours) is zero. If one of us is paged, there's a good chance it's because of something my team has control over, and we'll try to make sure it doesn't happen a second time.

My experience is that a dedicated team running a follow-the-sun rotation (so the team doesn't need much if any "out of hours" because it's always in hours for at least one of them) actually leads to flakier services and more alerts. Without the visibility of the impact of the flaky services, fixes are lower priority and also more difficult to validate.

In this manner, on-call is not a lack of planning, nor an emergency, but deliberately ensuring we have a plan in place to triage out-of-hours incidents, mitigate those that need mitigating, and leaving anything else to be fixed in-hours.

On the other hand, unpaid on-call is unacceptable.


If your on-call responsibilities are always “fixing bugs or restarting servers”, then indeed you built it poorly. But on-call shifts can also be used for responding to novel situations that couldn’t be planned for in advance.

The best on-call rotations are the ones where you’re rarely paged, but when those pages happen they’re for important urgent work where your involvement is vital (even if your role only needs to be channeling the work to the right person). Ideally you’re also compensated for being available, even when nothing happens (my current team gets a day off [in addition to normal PTO] for every week of on-call time).


> Imo, having "on call" rotations is a clear red flag and bad software practice that has somehow made it in the mainstream.

"Just throw more humans at it!"


This is not a software quality problem, this is a business efficiency problem. We could write commercial software with no bugs, but it would be very expensive (slow process, complicated tooling, etc). It's far cheaper to accept some rate of bugs and pay some schmucks weekends/nights to be OnCall)


> "A lack of planning on your behalf, does not constitute an emergency upon mine."

Depends on your relationship with the person who planned poorly: if you truly don't care, then you run the risk of becoming known as the jerk engineer who isn't a team player. The reality is that employees are generally expected to cover for each other to provide the (paying) customer with consistent support.

If the party who planned poorly was the customer, you have to decide whether they're paying you enough to scramble for them, and whether you want their accolades or their ire. My M.O. is to support my customers through thick and thin (within reason, of course), which tends to get me repeat business and referrals.

Yes, going out of your way for your customers is good for business. Give a shit.


One of my favourite quotes.

It can be made more or less direct to great resonance.

“If you want my help, plan for it and understand I’m not able to help last minute when there’s no planning”


Tip: Never get within 200 feet of a Systems Admin position.


The “don’t work too hard” crowd when you might be working harder than them and “must be nice” when you are relaxing more than them can both be avoided.

People who don’t like anyone working more than them or enjoying life more than them are usually haters who are busy not doing much themselves.

Raising the bar doesn’t mean having to make it more work for everyone.

Those doubt worshipping and self-sabotaging enemies aren’t worth having in your life but it is nice to give a bit of shit about them too.

Move at your pace to wearers what you want and you will find like minded people.


Personally, a large part of my job is telling folks _why_ they should give a shit; providing data on how not giving a shit will affect them or their company's bottom line. If they don't listen and it hits the fan anyways, they may have learned something and give a little more of a shit going forward. If they don't, I move on. Those that don't learn from their mistakes will continually supply the fan with further shit to spray.

In general, people largely filter out the "caring" of what won't directly affect them personally or their tribe in the short term, blind to the longer term repercussions until they are pointed out with concrete details AND actionable options. Someone doing the "right things" for the current situation, either has foresight or prior knowledge. Those that aren't, either have neither, can't learn, or the options' positive net ffects do not outweigh the momentum of "doing nothing."


>a large part of my job is telling folks _why_ they should give a shit

Some sort of "change management consulting" or something?

----

I'm looking for some sort of intellectual career which will allow me to capitalize on my inherent "glass half empty" perspectives. I used to do residential home inspections [as primary income, post IBEW], but during recent no-inspections home-buying... my services were required less-and-less.

I have enough runway to last about a decade unemcumbered... but got tired of feeling like the only guy on jobsites that cared about not delivering _turds_ to well-paying customers.


Not OP, but if you love working on things that are important, hard, and an up-hill battle... try working in InfoSec!


Part of my role is "security certifier", which means working closely pen testers and Op/DevSec folks to review various systems and applications across subdivisions in a larger org.


> While working, it took me a decade to realize that "if you're the only person that 'gives a shit,' YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME."

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. When I was a teenager trying to decide what to do with my life, I dropped professional programming because every developer I knew at the time just didn't give a shit. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. Recently someone posted an article here about disenchantment in the software industry, after reading it and the comments the feelings of doubt quickly went away.


Do you remember which article? Would like to read it.



1000%, Ive left teams and jobs over people "not giving a shit". One of the quickest path to burn out.


Likewise, and have been burned enough times that I can _usually_ recognize the patterns within my first few weeks at an org (assuming they were clever enough to "hide" the institutional level problems during the interview process.)

A sample of my "Giving a shit" checklist includes: Do they not utilize metrics or care when they tank? Do the rank and file engineers have a general malase and use terms like "not my problem" with impunity? Does management continually deprioritize critical "keep the lights on" work eg security patches WHEN they are fully aware of the repercussions (this knowing is key.) List of red flags goes on.

No org is perfect, but why endure the pain when it can be avoided. Especially so when it can easily be recognized early enough in many cases.


My company uses metrics and I hate it. The best way to improve metrics? Decrease vertical height so you can fit more shit on the page. Is this actually good for anyone? Probably not.


Either you're not measuring anything useful with your current metrics or you fall into not giving a shit category


Actually giving a shit means you care about whether or not you're pursuing the right metrics


During my IBEW apprenticeship, I worked at two several-MW datacenters. One was a public agency, the other a private enterprise.

Recently the private data center was sold to some international holding company, and it brought a smile to my face recollecting a conversation I had once with [now-former] CEO:

"The data center is just a trick pony show we use to sell our real product."

Glad they did well on the sale to new foreign owners. Definitional evil.


Zix/Appriver?


Duuude, I bailed on a startup a year ago that gas lit the shit out of me during interviews (I had red flags but stupidly ignored them) and left in the first 2 weeks when all of the red confirmed true. 8 months later, lay offs.


> Does management continually deprioritize critical "keep the lights on" work eg security patches WHEN they are fully aware of the repercussions (this knowing is key.)

One variant is when Management punishes you for bringing something up by making it your task to then fix it. I think they don't do this on purpose, they often just don't think about it. And it leads to a culture of "don't tell the boss". I've seen some really dire problems swept under the carpet because of this.


Ditto. Kinda. Most ppl do give a shit. The disconnect comes from what they give a shit about. For example:

Head of agency only gives a shit about billable hours, not sustainable revenue.

CTO gives a shit about shiny new tech objects, not how appropriate they are for the news of the client.

Manager gives a shit about over-committing and shipping gawd-awful soltions, and not the integrity and esteem of the team.

Team members give a shit about not making waves, and bad processes and lack of growth (i.e., learning new things) persist.

Designer gives a shit about the aesthetics of the design, not about how it's going to compromise the UX.

And so on.

I've left more than one job because I'm not wired to be complicit (in someone else self-destructive shit giving), and because I give a shit about clients and users, as well as being able to look at myself in the mirror.


This is so wise. I'm gonna ask my teammates next week about what it is in their job that they give a shit about.


>as well as being able to look at myself in the mirror.

This is so tantamount to "living a good life."

I have two attorney brothers, and the things they fight for... jfc.

Hired bullies. Hound dogs. At the mercy of [well-]funding.


I thought you were talking about Jony Ive for a second.


Maybe the implication wooshed right over me, but what was the role of the note and the coin?


In the US, $2 bills and 50 cent coins are uncommon so it feels more special when you get them.


Yep. I carry a few of them in my glove compartment and use them whenever I see lemonade stands in the summer. The kids go crazy when they see them


From an autistic POV: it allows me to more-greatly acknowledge goodness, per dollar spent [because of perceived rarity — I get bills free from bank].


The fact that you have to go to the bank to get them (vs say from the ATM), also shows that you put thought and effort into the gift. So you way of saying "thank you for giving a shit" in itself rings more true, you gave a shit about thanking someone rather than an empty "hey thanks".


What's your bank? Mine always charges me $2 for mine


Regional credit union. Whether I've been broke (or not), they've never charged for denominational straps. I do often have to "order" twos (returning a week later).


Ahhh. That makes sense :(


But why $2.50. Seems like an cheap tip.

A $5 would be 2x better


Tipping with $2 bills was a "cool" thing oldsters would do, because the bills are a novelty but not actually that hard to get. They'd also give them for birthday money and such (I have a bunch in an envelope somewhere for that reason).

You're right that at this point you'd need to be giving out a lot of them each time for it to count for much. Dollars are worth so little that we're beyond "let's get rid of pennies" and approaching "WTF is the point of coins smaller than the quarter?"

[EDIT] That first bit comes off as harsher than I meant. I just mean that this was a more common thing years back, lots of folks of a certain generation (or couple of generations) did it, and at this point I can definitely see how giving out $2 bills, which was once novel (though when the eighth older person did it in a year, not so novel...) and also a decent amount of money, is getting into "yeah, thanks for the two whole quarters, grandpa, I'll be sure to buy a candy bar with them when I get several more" territory, thanks to inflation.

[EDIT EDIT] I'm struggling with internalizing new prices, too, incidentally. I've finally learned that when my kids get $10 it is not worth getting them excited about going to get a toy with it. They'll need, bare minimum, double that amount, and even then there won't be a lot of options after tax. There's almost nothing they can get with $10 but candy or shitty collectible (ahem, kiddy gambling) card crap.


At the risk of going too far OT, here's a story of how I did something different that wasn't expensive but was still seen fondly by all concerned.

So ~15 years ago our son had been invited to his best friend's birthday party. Unsurprisingly, the birthday boy had a list of electronic toys on his gift list, as had become tradition.

While my wife and I were out shopping for said gift, she located one of the electronic items. Probably a game cart for whatever was popular at the time.

Meanwhile, I had come across something that had stirred up fond memories of my own: a sleeping bag + flashlight (+ some other related item) combo. Woo :)

We decided to get both the game and the sleeping bag combo, just in case the latter wasn't well-received.

At the birthday party, I think literally every other gift was for his gaming system. Once he opened the sleeping bag gift, he, his mom, and at least a few of the other kids had a "wait - okay that's different and kinda cool" reaction.

Even if he never went camping with them, I hope he got many hours of use out of that sleeping bag and flashlight. I know I did with mine.


It’s the recognition, not solely the value, which it is being conveyed. $2.50 is still worth more than $0.00.

Does that distinction matters to the person who the $2.00 and $0.50 is handed to? That’s an exercise left up to the reader to try.

Addendum: I interpreted the OPs comment to be regarding appreciation of people who work in roles not typically tipped in the course of their service.


The math checks out.


I believe it’s a way to reward the person for going above and beyond of what is expected of them, and for caring enough to do a good job.


Indeed, additionally - these are not "common" currency pieces. It isn't the monetary value, but the novelty in acquiring such pieces to give out.

"I gave a shit enough to go out of my way to get these, and carry them. Now I am giving one to you because you gave a shit enough to go out of YOUR way. Thank you."


Amen, my virtual brother.

May a real $2.50 some-time-soon cross your path.


It's a strange and oddly specific amount. Being transferred any value less than about $10 feels like more of an insult than anything, to me. Might as well be handing out gold star stickers and a lollipops.


If you are making $7.25 an hour serving several dozen people in that hour, $2.50 is a small but meaningful recognition of gratitude. It will not set one up for financial independence but should generate a moment of goodwill between two human beings.

(As well, I'm a Canadian but I believe those are unusual currency denominations so another little plus).

I think for a lot of people, even some on the ever bubbly hacker news, amounts less than $10 are still not considered insulting (context depending).


It has nothing to do with the amount. It’s an uncommon item with real value. Gold stars and lollipops are not US currency.

Also, I hope most people don’t believe a gift of less than $10 usd is an insult. It’s not nothing.


I would honestly be delighted to receive a free lollipop


I think I would even enjoy someone handing me a gold star sticker.


Once we get settled at our new house, I plan to send out some postcards with a quick note on them. It's been a pretty big move.

I figure that's enough of a lost art that someone might actually think "oh cool" and either pin it to the cork board or add to a shoebox of keepsakes.


Two dollar bills are really cool. I haven't even seen a 50c coin myself, need to track one of those down.

Looks like you can get $100 worth of half dollar coins for $147 from the US Mint https://catalog.usmint.gov/kennedy-2023-half-dollar-200-coin...


Pro tip: Go to your bank and you can order $100 worth of half dollars for $100.00.

Pro-er tip: You can also do this with two dollar bills.


If you order $200 worth of two dollar bills, you'll likey get uncirculated bills, in a strap so you can feel gangsta/baller/whateverthe cool kids are saying these days.


yea - U.S. Mint is a ripoff


Thank you for the wonderful tip. I am going to order these coins to handover to kids for Halloween. I am sure that they will love this unusual gift.


I am offering each visitor two candies, and the option to instead receive a half-dollar for each rejected tooth-decayer.

Yes, I'm the "full-sized candy guy" because I don't want the neighborhood kids vandalizing / stealing from my vehicles. Yes, I'm that old. Yes, my neighborhood is that sketchy.

A price I'm willing to offer. So far, no burglaries (and I leave the doors unlocked).


it's a novelty, they're not super common, and it has nothing to do with the monetary amount. Gold stars don't have any value either, yet they can represent something really special to both the giver and receiver.

You should try and look past the literal aspects of things.


Ah, the uncommonness aspect is completely lost on non-US audiences (such as myself)


To give another example: there was a small restaurant in my hometown that gave change in two dollar bills. It's sort of an easy way to be pleasantly quirky.


Ok agree. It makes no sense and is annoying for anyone to be given $2.50 as a tip.

I did the same with silver dollars for a long time,. Gave them as tips eating out but it sucks if your not autistic because everyone is confused/overly excited.

It's worth about $15 but people would think they won the lottery when I gave them a coin. That's why I stopped.


Junk silver is selling at my local coin store for 21x nominal value.

This makes leaving a Franklin half dollar all-the-more rewarding [to an observant recipient]. For reference, a Franklin half dollar is 90% silver. It is also, IMHO, the most-beautifully-surfaced US coin ever produced. It "tings."

----

It is in my fantasies that I had reason to celebrate a grand-enough "night on the town" as to leave just a single golden buffalo coin as payment [about $2000USD].


> it took me a decade to realize that "if you're the only person that 'gives a shit,' YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME."

Oh my goodness. That perfectly describes my last 5 years in academia. The last person on the deck of a sinking ship, directing panicking souls, after everyone smart and agile already jumped in the lifeboats.

But I don't regret it. I helped a lot of kids into lifeboats, and even found a nice lump of driftwood for myself as the university system gave one final creaking groan then plunged into the darkness.


My favorite former client [we're both retire now] is approaching 90 years old. Wow. She is a distinguished portrait artist from The Silent Generation, and she recently told me [upon her own best friend's recent death]:

"Nobody wants to be the last one left at the party. You have to help clean up, then..."

We ended our professional relationship over petty words when I felt like the only person giving a shit about maintaining her assets [as her maintenance guy]. Our personal relationship has outlasted any pettiness; but it still hurts seeing her squander her massive inheritance without maintenance.


Had to look up "The Silent Generation" and discovered the stereotype of my mum. Enlightening and funny, so thanks for that journey.

"Last one out please turn off the lights..." seems a motif not just of the post-war generation, but the whole post-war culture and institutions.


Fun factoid:

20% of men in this cohort lost their virginity via SWer, typically abroad during/before wartime.

Just out there leaving messes everywhere, like they're paid to do it (or something).


Depending on which state this is in, this tip is equivalent to between 10-20mins of their paid work.

Maybe this is reductive of me, and certainly any $ amount is better than zero $, but I sort of feel like by putting a financial value on your compliment you are devaluing it.

A super heartfelt "Thank you for giving a shit. You truly made my day and inspired me to have faith in humanity. I know your job is hard and noone expects you to go the extra mile, and I genuinely appreciate that you did" in your own words would be meaningful.

A financial tip of significance (e.g. 20$ - several HOURS of worth) would also be meaningful.

That 2-dollar bills and fifty-cent pieces are rare is going to interesting to some, but I think to most the only thing they'll perceive is that you valued their extra mile at $2.50. I don't think that's what you're intending, so I thought I'd offer that alternative perspective.


You've inspired me to start doing this. (Don't think I'll carry around that exact denomination, but the point is, giving a $%^& is a really good thing to financially incentivize.)


Ordering "a thousand dollars in two dollar bills, please" is a baller move that, at my local credit union, only costs $1000.00USD.

And then you get to walk out [usually a few days later] with five straps of Jeffersons, feeling like a baller...

This lasts me about one year of "appreciation" for others' "giving a shit"s.


> Unix (/ˈjuːnɪks/, YOO-niks; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix

Yes. This is why people stop giving a shit.

I think new people, fresh out of school, mostly give a shit, but slowly figure out that their lives are a lot easier if they don't.


I am from a small country in Europe. When I first read the article I was confused. A clarification for people who do not have English as a first language: "give a shit" about something, it means they care deeply or are genuinely interested in that particular thing.

So, in essence, "giving a shit" in this context means being highly dedicated, passionate, and attentive to the details, which often leads to a better outcome and a more satisfying experience for the customer


A finn doing a standup comedy skit about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo


It's absolutely perfect.

Thanks for posting this. I'd seen it before and was looking for it recently, so it's now safely bookmarked.


I had never heard of him until a friend invited me to see him live in Antwerp last week. He of course performed this sketch. Fun seeing it pop up again.


This is highly re-watchable.


Some good shit. He missed 'turning to shit' and (recently) how that relates to 'enshittification'.


Also, holy shit, and the fact that shit gets worse both when it's expanding and reducing in size, ie being a little shit or a huge shit.

English is such a weird language...


Love that.

Reminds me of Rob Schneider's "Dude" bit (He's not usually my fave, but this was fairly good): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfI4cjGiJGE


I didn't even need to open the link - Ismo is the shit :)

I can also highly recommend the one about eating and children in Africa - my favorite :)


Great! I feel identified with his problems with the language. Where is he from?


Finland


Fantastic - it's like he's channeling George Carlin!


It's one of those interesting phrases that, I believe, came about from its opposite. "I could not give a shit about that," literally, "I wouldn't even pay one shit to buy that," or similar (no doubt with some mixing up with non-english words), has gradually added people who would give a shit — which only makes sense if they are giving a "shit-ton" of money for it. Showing your enthusiasm for something by handing over a turd is a strange way to show your gratitude. :)


One that amuses me is how the popular "I couldn't care less" (I really really don't care) got converted by people who couldn't care less about syntax and meaning into "I could care less"

That and "literally" being so frequently abused it now has a dictionary entry to explain that it can also be used to emphatically refer to non literal stuff.

If you think showing enthusiasm for stuff by handing over a turd is weird, you'd also love the (nineties) British habit of complimenting something by saying it's "the dogs bollocks", as if canine testes were renowned for their desirability...


I have always interpreted “I could care less” as something like “Well, it is technically possible for me to care less.” Like, if you ask someone “how was your food” and they said “it was edible” or how their trip went and they responded “we made it back in one piece,” they don’t seem to be saying something good.

Describing a very low lower-bound doesn’t technically say anything negative, but it sure implies it.


The important thing about those other phrases is that they originated in the UK where we use understatement as a form of humour, but it's important to understand the relationship between the speaker and listener and hidden shared context.

E.g. your example "how was your food" ... "it was edible".

If you've just been to a fairly average restaurant, that would be understood to mean it wasn't terrible but you didn't really enjoy it.

If you're at a close friend's house for dinner and they served something amazing, and you replied "it was edible", it would be understood to mean that it was really good and far better than anything you could have made yourself. If you said the same thing to a mutual friend who didn't know about their cooking skills, it would be interpreted negatively.

Another example would be replying to "How are you?" with "I'm not dead yet!" could mean anything without context, but most likely would be said to someone who knew your situation and that there'd been bad stuff going on, and would probably mean you were actually doing better than might be expected.

As for "I could care less", I think it was probably just misheard as the negative is very weak "I could'(n) care less". Coupled with the end of "could" and start of "care" being the about the same position in the mouth, and the (n) requires the tongue to quickly block and release the air in the mouth whilst also nasalising the sound that lasts a fraction of a second, it would be easy for a lazy speaker to not make it clear and/or omit it, and then if the listener never bothered to think about the meaning, they could repeat it wrongly. The deliberately inverted meaning only really makes sense if it was followed by "but" that later got omitted. To me "I could care less, but ..." (and then just stopping) would have about the same effect as "I couldn't care less".


I think you are probably right that it is just the result of people mishearing the expression. In particular if my understanding was correct it would be delivered in a tone similar to how you’d expect to hear something like, “well, I could care less,” if that makes sense.

But, I prefer to be wrong in a way that makes me believe people are being clever.


There's a phrase for this too; damning with faint praise.


The dog certainly seems to spend a lot of time licking them!

(I believe this is the origin of the saying)


Here's an interesting discussion on Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/2rgl7i/how_did_i...

Further down is the suggestion that "give" in the phrase, means "care". Which it does, in part, but as the way language goes, so many words and phrases have double meanings that merge to make one subtle meaning.

"I couldn't give a toss," is a common variant. As is, "I couldn't give a flying fuck." But neither has the positive version in the same way — you don't normally give a toss about something specific, and a flying fuck is never positive. But, interestingly, you can give a toss in general.

English, as you have realised, has layers of weirdness and subtle traps.


> "I couldn't give a toss," is a common variant.

Not in the US - this is very British.


Yes. I should have said that.


Worth noting that (in BE) one of the uses of "toss" is masturbate, hence tosser, toss off, toss-pot; the register a bit more polite than "wank", but not much.


I've always assumed that's the version of toss being used here


As an American, I've always wished "tosser" would catch on in American English.


This one isn't exactly the opposite though, in the same way that "could care less" is literally the opposite of what is meant. Bring the only one who would give a shot implies nobody else there meets even that incredibly low bar.


My last W2/work performance review indicated that "ProllyInfamous swears too much in normal interactions." Upon the customary raise and pleasantries, the obvious-acusor sat with arms-folded (upset). Finally she brought up her written words, in public.

I responded with one of my favorite [passive aggressive] formal responses: "From now on I won't 'give a shit,' anymore. Instead, I'll start 'giving a hoot'."

----

English is weird. The language of exceptions [similar to chemistry].


Thank you for giving me an alternative! I've been searching for one.

I hate it when the best version of a phrase has a swear word; I don't blame you for using it.


I have found that increasing wordiness while using profanity lessons the stun-factor. For example:

"Thank you for at least SEEMING to give a shit about your job."

or,

"Thank you for giving the impression that you might actually give a shit about this place."

Hoot hoot.


Lol. Good idea.

Unfortunately, I'm one of few people nowadays that just don't swear at all.

Yes, I'm peculiar. Oh well.


What even defines "swearing" and what benefits do you gain from adhering to an arbitrary limit on your word bank?


Well, it's a "I know it when I see it" thing.

However, I'm also trying to remove the use of non-vulgar words where others would use swear words, such as just saying, "I hate that thing," instead of "I hate that bloomin' thing."

Benefits? Having a cleaner mouth gives me a perception advantage. Also, it forces me to be more creative with how I express myself, which increases my communication skills and wordsmithing in writing.


> Well, it's a "I know it when I see it" thing.

Not really helpful as a rubric honestly. If you can decide one day a word isn't a swear word but the next maybe you feel like it, seems like you're more interested in crafting and following arbitrary rules than any benefit gained from such rules.

> However, I'm also trying to remove the use of non-vulgar words where others would use swear words, such as just saying, "I hate that thing," instead of "I hate that bloomin' thing."

Is the constant self policing not a mental burden?

> Benefits? Having a cleaner mouth gives me a perception advantage. Also, it forces me to be more creative with how I express myself, which increases my communication skills and wordsmithing in writing.

You can still be expressive and have a deep appreciation and use of diction, with out arbitrary limits to your vocabulary.

If your saying you are attempting to alter your own perspective by adjusting your language to better match your perspective, I agree with the practice, just unclear how a loosely and arbitrary group of words are harming you in material way.


The word is "care". Act like you care about the product/client.


I mean, yes, and I use that, but sometimes, a phrase is more punchy.


Interesting. In the UK (or at least where I grew up), we wouldn't "not give a hoot", we would "not care a hoot".


I would guess that "Give a hoot" in the USA might have been popularized by an anti-littering campaign in the 1970s where an owl would say "Give a hoot! Don't pollute!" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodsy_Owl


This is where I know it from.

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle [from same era marketing].


Douglas Adams had a nice turn on giving "a rancid dingo's kidney". Similar variations I've heard include a "monkey's left testicle" and so on. But they're negative imagery, whereas you can't beat "giving a shit" for expressing positive enthusiasm.


It is not even being highly desirable or passionated - just caring. I work daily with people who sling code just for a paycheck, they do not give a shit, just as long as they get paid the end product can be whatever and that really pisses me off


> It was because they gave a shit.

I did stop reading there. I was 100% convinced that this meant that they couldn't care less about what they were doing, yet their homepage seemed to indicate that they'd give a lot of dedication to detail.

In German "drauf scheißen" (to shit on something) means to not care at all about a given thing.


You are misreading how this phrase is used! It means they do care.

If they didn't give a shit that would mean they didn't care and this is the opposite.


It's not surprising. English has a load of this weirdness. We can, especially in American English, shit on something (normally an idea or plan for some reason) with the same meaning. "I don't mean to shit on your idea out of hand, but…" No doubt it's a direct import from the German.


We say this in the UK too. Also "to shit all over", e.g. "I didn't go see that movie because I read some reviews that shat all over it."


I'm from the UK. Maybe I'm older, but I know these phrases as American imports.


The phrase exists in English too, "to shit on something". It means to talk bad about something, to criticize, to make it (or someone) look bad.

I think "shit" in English is one of the most linguistically flexible words, used in various ways, from very positive ("It's the shit!") to negative ("It's shit") meanings.

As another commenter said, the positive meaning of "shit" often seems to be the result of reversing a common phrase. "I don't give a shit" means I don't care at all, not even a shit; and later the opposite phrase started to be used, "I give a shit" to mean I do care about it.

It's one of many confusing and illogical things about English.


Another one I found funny is we Americans usually say "He thinks he's hot shit" while the Brits say "He thinks he's shit hot."

I feel the Brits had it the right way and the Americans oddly reversed it.


I think “shit” here is synonymous for “a little” or “something”. At least I give you anythin.

But honestly shit and fuck can fill any English sentence.


I'm most certainly not a prude, but I worked for a company that had literal "Gives a shit" as a core value, and DID live it, but I always found it a little vulgar to say in unknown company, and you've also reinforced it doesn't translate globally. I swear a lot in private circles but would never say "shit" in a public forum; I guess I'm not "edgy"


It does feel a little like a kid who still thinks it's cool and novel to swear.


It doesn’t mean highly dedicated. It means “caring the smallest amount possible which is more than 0”.

Most business interactions are with people who literally do not care at all. Will not consider alternatives, will not give advice, will not tell you you are being silly.

In that context, anything better than that is a big deal. You sometimes encounter people who care a lot, but you don’t usually get to compare them with someone who cares only a little. You still get to compare them with the rest who “give zero shits”.


I like reading posts like this, because I’m always hopeful I might learn about other $#!t phrases, such as, “You ain’t shit.” What TF does that even mean? /rant


"You're actually quite good."


That is the literal translation/interpretation, "you ain't shit" = "you are not shit". It could mean that, "i expected you to be shit, but you are unexpectedly good", depending on tone/context.

But the much more common interpretation "you ain't shit" = "you are less than shit" = "you are worthless/nothing". See also "it don't mean shit".


That would be “You’re the shit”.

If you hear “You ain’t shit“, the speaker does not hold you in high regard.


Related, example of "the shit" versus "shit":

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/07/02/garbage-is-too...


Maybe in the US. I've never heard "You ain't shit" used that way myself. Could also be generational, I guess.

And for the other one, I've heard "It's the shit" for good (although to me, that's definitely an Americanism that became popular in the UK in the 90s), but never "You're the shit" on its own. But just to show how random this is, "You're the shit who did this!" definitely isn't positive!


> I've never heard "You ain't shit" used that way myself.

Cool, here's a good example: https://youtu.be/HCm_jfLmBEE

> But just to show how random this is, "You're the shit who did this!" definitely isn't positive!

For sure. In my experience, in the U.S. that use is almost always preceded by "little": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx_giDzTkeg

Another variant you may not have heard is "shitass", used a lot in Reservation Dogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYMG0Guy5WI


I've not even heard of any of these shows before, but certainly in that first clip in British English it'd be more normal to say "You ain't worth shit".

> For sure. In my experience, in the U.S. that use is almost always preceded by "little":

Yeah, we often say "little shit" in the UK if we want to emphasis how unimportant we thing they are.

That said, I've since thought of some almost counter examples to my original comment. I know "shizzle" derives from "shit", and I have heard "It's the shizzle" before (but again originally from US sources, it became a popular phrase in the UK around the late 90s, but largely disappeared now). Thinking back, I've also heard "It's the m**f**g shit man!" but it was always done in an over-the-top way, also rarely, and usually as a parody.

Maybe it's just the intensifier in that. I think "It's good shit" and "It's bad shit" mean the same as without "shit". And I still don't think I've ever just heard "It's the shit" on its own, other than that source you cited and that's from the US not the UK.

Even "That's the shit" to me would just mean "this is the stuff" with an implication that there's something wrong with it, maybe illegal, maybe broken, whatever.

In the UK, "the shits" also refers to diarrhea, so maybe that's why we don't use "the shit" in a positive sense here. Of course, maybe the younger generation do, and I've just never noticed it.


Opposite. You aint shit means you do not even amount to a pile of shit. You are even less than feces.


Haha german here. I was confused for a second too. I just woke up and wasn’t that awake.


This is why I try to avoid idioms, figures of speech and uncommon words when I'm writing something aimed at software engineers, such tutorials or technical documentation. Most coders aren't native English speakers, and I want my writing as clear as possible.

Because I give a shit.


Giving a shit means you care. Taking a shit....


The autor deliberately used it to gain more attention with because of the title. It annoys me, not because of the bad language (I do the same), but because of the clickbaitiness.


I know a lot of people here are writing about how this can be done for small consulting companies, but I also saw it in Big Tech.

Amazon until 2022 really genuinely exemplified this. I saw it for more than a decade leading up to this. Just an unbelievable collection of people that truly Gave A Shit. Publicly we called it "Customer Obsession" and through that lens you could move mountains around here in the pursuit of Doing The Right Thing.

The first sign of trouble was 2021. Salaries skyrocketed in the industry. Amazon didn't keep up. A lot of great people left because they got obscene offers, and you know, who could blame them? Our core of "intermediate" engineers (L5 here) got decimated - why bust your ass for a promotion when you can just get a Senior offer from one of 100 over-funded Unicorns for more money than you would've made here. Sensible.

Then in 2022 the stock price dropped in half and a bunch of folks who seems like were only putting up with the bullshit as long as the stock grew indefinitely left too.

Then 2023 brought layoffs.

There's still a lot of us around that Give A Shit, but I feel like we are outnumbered more and more by those that just want to punch in and out and no longer Make History. I get it. I can't blame anyone individually. But I miss it.


Trust me. We as the customers can tell. It's really sad.

Everything that gets released today seems cobbled together and half baked. The "this is something we bought and slapped an API and product umbrella on top of" is glaringly obvious.

Back in 2018 we used to get strong "give a shit" vibes from all the product teams we talked to. Now it's more "this is what we're going to build, isn't it going to be great?".

I skip all the product meetings we get invited to now.


> Amazon until 2022 really genuinely exemplified this.

I remember Amazon from 2002 — that felt like they really gave a shit. There are occasionally times where it feels that way now, as a customer. But most of the time the customer service experience is slow, impersonal, and painful.

I understand they're a big company, and I don't expect it to be as good as when they started out. But I wouldn't say that Amazon "genuinely exemplified" giving a shit up until last year. Apple might fit that bill, but even they have fallen off recently (apparently you now have to make appointments to buy products in-store?!).


> If you email 4 software studios for a quote and 3 say “Sure, here’s a quote” but the 4th says “Hm, we certainly could build it but we can’t be sure about cost without knowing X and Y, and here are some other concerns we’d have” then the 4th is going to seem like they give a shit.

I usually end up responding like that, having started to think about the problem and approach. But I just know what the takehome message will be for some.

Now it'll be someone's CRM startup feature: responds to RFQs with an LLM prompted to give the appearance of thoughtful consideration of the problem. Because, one time, a blogger said you should ask questions like that, to make a better impression, was the takehome message they got.

Or it'll become a mnemonic for remembering the mix of kinds of questions on an RFQ you should ask, for the sake of appearances, and you'll fail an interview for not hitting each letter of the mnemonic exactly once, and in order. ("Sorry, bro, I was really hoping you'd pass, but you forgot the R in SCROT. You're not Amazoogle caliber yet, but take some more interview prep classes, and you can try again in a year.")


Yes, there’s a constant arms race between the authentic and the impersonators. Happens in every field. Look at how much the “artisanal” and “rustic” aesthetic became completely colonized over the 2010s to the point of being “the new bland” today. That’s also why I liked this article. It doesn’t propose an excessively precise definition of “giving a shit”. It requires paying attention and being vigilant – the impersonators are always around the corner, watching and learning.


This is the same as the old metrics-as-targets failure mode. Or the stock market - as soon as something is public knowledge it’s already priced in.


Yes, absolutely.

I'm starting a business, and this is my real product.

Most everybody will see my FOSS code as my product, but that's my loss leader.

My real product, the stuff people will actually pay for, is doing stuff such as responding to bug reports like [1].

In other words, my product is caring about your needs and meeting them.

On the flip side, I want customers who care too. I think one reason those furniture people did so well is because they had a customer who cared, and it was refreshing.

When you do something day in and day out, you either become careless, or obsessed.

As a customer, you want to seek out the latter, but as a vendor, when you are the latter, getting a customer who cares is not just refreshing, it's enormously fun!

[1]: https://github.com/gavinhoward/bc/issues/66


>My real product, the stuff people will actually pay for, is doing stuff such as responding to bug reports like [1].

But that's not something anyone has paid you for, so it's actually a counterexample.

Boasting about your clever business strategy when you have no paying customers is like boasting about your excellent fishing technique when you've never visited a body of water.


I mean, I could have qualified it with "the stuff I hope people pay me for," but eh.

And you're kinda wrong; I've been paid for bc, kind of.

I've been paid by people adopting it, an obscure alternative to an obscure command-line tool that nobody uses.

And yet, my bc is in FreeBSD and Mac OSX.

Perhaps the reason I'm confident is because this little thing of mine managed to replace entrenched competitors in a few places. Why can't I do it again?


>Perhaps the reason I'm confident is because this little thing of mine managed to replace entrenched competitors in a few places. Why can't I do it again?

It's much harder to get people to pay you for a product than it is to convince them to use your product for free.

As a fellow founder, I wish you success, but I think you're assuming success based on things that don't really correlate with success from my experience running indie businesses for the last five years.

I've fallen into the exact same trap myself, so maybe I can save you some time.[0, 1] Before you have money safely in your bank account from real, paying customers, all the indicators you see are highly noisy.

Non-paying users can be a good sign, but they can also lead you astray. You could have 1,000 non-paying open-source users actively engaged with your product, and that does nothing for your business if none of them are willing to pay. You're better off finding 10 users willing to pay $40/month and letting their feedback guide your work.

I recommend testing customer's willingness to pay ASAP. If nobody's willing to pay for what you're offering, it's a sign that your product hypothesis was wrong and you need to gather more feedback about what customers want and pivot.

[0] https://mtlynch.io/shipping-too-late/

[1] https://mtlynch.io/keep-growing-never-profit/


Fair enough.


“People don’t buy a product, they buy a story.”

For most companies most of the time, this is true.


To be clear, do you have paying bc customers? I guess not, but I wanted to absolutely sure! :-)


No, absolutely not!

bc is my gift to the world. It will remain that way.

I'm writing other software, upon which my business will be based.

You could say bc is how I advertise my services. :)


Then he wouldn’t be giving a shit, he’d be selling some shit.


You are a wonderful person, Gavin!


Thank you for the compliment and encouragement! I've been feeling down lately, and it's helped.


The Forks episode of The Bear is one of my favorite stories on giving a shit: a fork polisher at a fancy restaurant learns you don’t work in food service because you love polishing forks. You do it because you want to bring people joy and polishing the forks is one of many steps to that end. You can find purpose in fork polishing through both excellence and empathy for your customers. There’s a lot of days the code I write is about as exciting as fork polishing, but you do it for your teammates and users.


I used to puzzle over why potential clients who reached out to me always seemed to get more interested in hiring us if I tried to dissuade them by asking challenging questions. I think the biggest reason is that pushing back demonstrated that I care.

This seems bizarre. I work in sales, and I avoid making things too challenging for potential clients. Pushing back on the scope is one thing, but I think the way to show that you care about a potential client is to listen, identify their issue, and provide them with a solution that meets their budget. So many sales people try to push the envelope, to maximize the sale, for better or for worse, but I've never done that.


Surely challenging means that you show that you are listening to the client and shows you understand.

How does a client tell the difference between what you do and a salesman overpromises both of these salesmen listened and said that they could do it. Many people have experience of the bad salesperson and so will assume that they are all like that.


Asking challenging questions isn’t the same as making things challenging. I had the same experience as the author. It’s not about asking questions that take up their time or are hard for the hell of it. It’s about asking questions that show you’re not only planning on making the sale, but on doing the work. If you’re selling a product, it’s the questions that show you want to make sure the product is successful for them. They’re challenging in the sense there’s a slight tone of “are you sure you really need this?” in them, and they often don’t have top-of-mind answers.


> I work in sales

What are you selling? I imagine that would make a difference


Networking equipment, but also a network monitoring service.


Exactly - you’re selling commoditized products, not bespoke pieces.


Still seems bizarre.


theres a line between giving a shit and not giving a shit eh


It comes down to incentives. If you're the owner of a small business that relies on a good reputation and repeat customers, you're going to care about quality of service because it directly impacts your bottom line.

As companies grow, they might choose to hire employees and managers who are paid flat wages regardless of whether the company does a lot of business or a little. If the employees work hard and the business flourishes, but they see no reward of any kind, this fosters resentment and they stop caring about quality of service.

Intelligent business owners recognize this reality and offer incentives that reward employees if business is good - e.g. commissions on sales in the retail world, stock options in the startup world, wage increases in the manufacturing sector, etc. Greedy shortsighted owners ignore this dynamic, so their employees are incentivized to do the least amount of work possible, just enough to avoid being fired.

Where things get really bad is when monopolization grows and markets end up controlled by very few players, so customers have nowhere else to turn to (Comcast etc.).


There is probably a lot of bias with these two companies - one is a bespoke software company , and the other a bespoke woodcraft company. At a glance, the software company produces native apps for iOS and Android, rather than React Native, which to me seems indicative of attention to detail.

People with that mindset tend to want it in others, and will believe it to be the cause of successful relationships. I say this as someone with precisely the same belief. I’ve no idea if it’s causal, correlated, or simply a coincidence that my brain sees as a pattern, but for the moment I’m convinced it’s at the very least correlated.


> People with that mindset tend to want it in others

Totally agree, but folks like that will run into the "it won't scale" types and get frustrated with their corner cutting ways for the sake of future scaling opportunities.


Or worse, they run into people who have neither belief and are just yeeting shit into prod because it works well enough.

Then all three sides fight and nothing gets done.


Aren't native Java apps on Android effectively deprecated? I feel last I looked Google just pushed Flutter/Dart. I was thinking to try to get a Clojure application ported to Android (it uses a lot of Java libs under the hood) and .. I got the impression nobody uses Java anymore!

Though, to start with, it was bit unclear if Clojure still doesn't run on ART/Dalvik/whateveritscallednow


Nah, It's ART still underneath so anything that compiles to JVM will compile to ART, so Java is never dying.

On the Flutter side, it's just another cross platform toolkit like React Native, but a la Google, and won't/can't replace the years and years of Java development.

But the current and foreseeable future Kotlin will be the Java successor because of its JVM/Java compatibility, ecosystem and ease of use. For a while some of the new committed code in Android has been Kotlin.


So the Java API is deprecated and replaced by a Kotlin one? I guess both are on the JVM so there is a migration path...

Well except Google's Java is like version 1.5 or 8 - while Oracle Java has kept moving forward and has many more features at this point as far as I understand. I think this was the crux of the issue for running Clojure. I don't know the Java lib compatibility story tbh. I imagine many libraries won't run on Android


Java and Kotlin are still the vast majority of apps, and what's being pushed the hardest in the industry.

Kotlin especially with Jetpack Compose for UI.


This has been the model for my largely solo IT consultancy for the last several years. I offer ultimate accountability, I take ownership of every project, and I demonstrate fierce loyalty to my clients and their interests. It’s not the easiest way to make money, but I am proud of everything I do, I hardly ever lose a client, and when I do it’s generally without any bad blood or acrimony.


I'm currently looking for a good IT consultant after going through a few bad ones that for lack of better words didn't give a shit. Want to chat?


I didn't realize how rare (and precious) a commodity giving a shit is. I expected it to be the default state, but it's not. I remember calling a customer to apologize for a bug and having them console me with something like, "all my apps have bugs and irritations, but you're the only one who seems to care enough to call me and fix it promptly."


I wonder if it can be "a commodity "at all. Do you think it's possible to give a shit in volume?


The corollary here is that giving a shit doesn't scale.

The furniture makers that inspired this article can afford to give a shit because 1) they're expert at what they do and 2) they charge a lot of money.

These are constraints on both ends: on the supply of labour and on the demand for it. This is also why most people can't afford to give a shit -- they're not good enough to charge enough for that rare commodity.


why is everybody so obsessed with scale? the good things in live don't scale, like relationships. the dream of scaling everything to a 1 billion business is just greed talking. caring about a craft and building relationships will be more fulfilling than a billion in the bank


Not everyone is obsessed with scale, but news.ycombinator.com biases that way.


Exactly. Once you have met your needs why the fuck are you trying to get more money? You’ve maxed out on money, you fool! Work on another dimension of life!


Like the story of the businessman meeting the fisherman - "once you've built a business you can retire and do a little fishing" - "but I already do that"


I’ve read this sentiment in the thread multiple times, but it just feels backwards to me.

At scale you can afford to not give a shit. I don’t think you get to scale by not giving a shit, do you?

But once you’re there? Well the money is just rolling in and well you can’t care about everything, can you? So you let some stuff slip and before you realize it you’re halfway down a slippery slope, claiming giving a shit doesn’t scale and forgetting in your panicked slide that it was your choice to stop giving a shit in the first place.


I don’t think that is necessarily true.

Sure it may be “easier” to give a shit when you’re an artisan charging a premium for your craft.

However you can still give a shit if you’re a designer for IKEA. You can take joy knowing the more you minimize price while maximizing durability you not only bring joy to the majority of people who can’t afford hand crafted tables, but your efficiency can have major waste and ecological ramifications that an artisan shop can’t hope to copy.

What you give a shit might change, but giving a shit absolutely scales.


Previously discussed here as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071349

Also maybe add 2022 to the title.


Thanks! Macroexpanded:

Giving a shit as a service - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071349 - July 2022 (152 comments)


It’s the same on every level. Past some entry bar, the difference between employees, spouses, etc that are happy and succeed vs miserable and fail is that attitude.


Jason Lemkin's advice for startup SaaS businesses is to heavily invest in customer success: you need to give a shit. Otherwise your customer churn numbers are going to be high, and it makes failure increasingly likely.

When I was being courted by a startup for an IC position, the best question I asked was "What does your churn look like?". It was really low, and despite some other reservations I ended up taking the job, and we had an awesome exit. Because our customers really loved us, and we worked hard to make them successful.


I guess it's good for small businesses trying to distinguish themselves. But it seems like giving a shit doesn't really scale.

It seems like at some point in growth all companies attract a critical number who don't really care. Maybe it's just hard for people to care when the numbers are big. Maybe that caring is hard to maintain as things get more institutionalized


I’ve noticed companies tend to sacrifice giving a shit for an increase in perceived growth that often is not sustainable over the long term.

There’s honestly probably a lengthy blog post in this.

Especially in the sector of managed/professional services or SaaS - companies try to scale up fast to have more customer acquisition (focus on net new), and tend to sacrifice the level of bespoke service that retains customers, leading to increased churn over time.

This approach usually means that ARR will increase over the short term (3-5y), which is totally fine, but unless your service is really sticky or you gain market dominance, the growth curve will eventually plateau and enter a decline.

You also see this outside of tech - in the service industry in general. Company expands rapidly, service deteriorates over time, eventually enters a decline phase.

Maintaining quality of service is hard over the long term to balance with growth, you really gotta put the work in.


Maybe you are right. I certainly haven't seen anything to contradict you.

So this is the exact reason that my software business will only grow to the point that it provides enough for my wife and me.

Why are people so obsessed with growth? They're like the businessman/tourist in [1], and I just want to be the fisherman.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arb...


If you are careful, then GAS can certainly scale.

Examples:

- Microsoft commitment for Windows to be backward compatible or their care about Excel (including using their own compiler, 1-2-3 compatibility in early years etc). Doesn’t means that there aren’t also examples of the clearly not-GAS.

- Hospitality industry which trains their staff and makes extensive use of checklists and SOPs. Disney comes to mind or high-end hotels.

- Most services in Japan, where it scales culturally


> companies attract a critical number who don't really care

I think most people have the capacity in them to care. Working at a place you don't care about is utterly miserable and draining in the long run, its not something someone does by choice. People usually end up doing it when they are isolated from the effect of their work. Either not hearing at all whether anyone used or cared about your work, or worse hearing that work was arbritrary/pointless.

For example manager stressing about deadlines, you all work hard to meet them, then all of a sudden it turns out your work isnt being used and is just sitting around. What was the deadline for? why did this happen? does anyone apologise, or even feel the need to explain?

In general being isolated from the effect of your work also had a strong negative correlation with happiness in my experience. Hard to be happy when you feel like a cog in a machine that wouldn't care if you dissapeared.

I guess this sort of situation is inherently more likely as team sizes grow and the number of steps in communication channels rises.

Many times i've observed a team full of people who give a shit breed people that don't, as the company grew and many of them ended up as managers who failed to delegate effectively, and by overworking themselves on the important and meaningful tasks (because they gave a shit) they neglected their reports with menial and meaningless/arbritrary tasks and no feedback (who became morose and could not give a shit if they tried)


> It seems like at some point in growth all companies attract a critical number who don't really care.

Yes. Once a company is a clear contender in a space the ghouls start to show up. They’re there for the easy win. With growth comes the need for more hands and the People who Give a Shit always end up covering for those that don’t.


"Hard for ppl to care when the numbers are too big"...... this sounds like a good defense for SBF. He needs one.


I remember this article from here, a while back.

I enjoy it, but am keenly aware that "giving a shit" often gets severely punished, these days.


Watch "Gary Vaynerchuk: Rails Conference Keynote | 2010" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/ZIaLTuaK1-k?si=rkic-7X67KrZvwmf

Saw it some years ago. IIRC, somewhere in the video, he yells, almost groans, "give a fuck" (about things you do), meaning the same as "giving a shit", the title of this HN thread. The overall talk is a bit funny to watch, including him strutting around the stage.


At least for me, 'giving a shit' (GaS) is not a static feature. I have great respect for people who GaS and they inspire me to want to GaS too. Most days I take pride in my work and so try very hard to GaS. However there are days when my workload has exceeded my capacity and the priority is simply to get things 'out the door', in which case the degree to which I can GaS begins to vary.


Indeed as a Hospitality pro with 25+ yrs of expertise, seeing someone be present in a heart for excellence is rare. Excellent service is an art.


> Was it because they charged a lot of money? No.

I'm sure that plays into it, yes.

In most cases, the more money you give the more they will "give a shit."


GaSaaS would be a great product for a large majority of Fortune 500. Oh wait that already exists, it’s called “consulting firms”. And they are useless most of the time.

Unfortunately for this to work, ALL parties need to “give a shit”. Sure this might work for a small “boutique” firm working with another small “boutique”. But at the end of the day, big firms are probably farming the work down to a low level employee or contractor (think VP -> Executive VP of Acquisitions -> Managing Director -> Director -> Manager -> Lead Project Manager -> Project Manager -> some person working with project manager) with a set of requirements.

Initially it was to be completed in 4 weeks. But in order to impress their boss, one or more of these people kept reducing the deadline and suddenly it’s a project that’s wanted to be completed over the weekend.

Low level person doesn’t give a shit. As long as it meets min spec, it’s Gucci. The further questions asked by the 5th vendor will probably get ignored.

Upon completion, everyone is “happy” it’s delivered before their anticipated deadline.

Except upon delivery the product is “half assed”. Nobody is really happy but they keep their mouth shut and accept it anyways so they can pump their numbers.


Consulting firms aren’t useless, they’re just not useful in the straightforward way one would presume their value would manifest.

They’re great catalysts for change, they’re fantastic scapegoats, etc.


"See, I met a man who told me once, 'Sincerity's the key. And once you learn to fake it son, you're gonna be home free!'"

-Dennis DeYoung, Styx, "Fallen Angel" (Anecdotally, may have been referring to a quote by comedian George Burns)


I glanced over the title and for a moment I thought this was going to be an article about the SaaS-ification of sites like https://www.shitexpress.com/


In my experience caring too much is often perceived as a negative, especially if the other party does not care that much but just wants to get the job done. Asking questions and god forbid, pushing back just makes you a difficult person.


I wonder how someone could create a jig to plot such a table for arbitrary exponents.


The furniture people probably also had the same question and were excited to figure it out.


How do you motivate your employees to give a shit. Even with good salary.


Stepping beyond the obvious, pay them a good wage.

Filter at the door, look for people who give a shit, have a passion for the work, etc. Hire them, look to avoid people who got into it simply because it’s a fat paycheck. I wouldn’t confuse this with “I spend all day everyday in my off time coding,” but seek out people who have a reasonable articulable love for a tool, a language, or something and or can articulate why they don’t like a thing. I have opinions on, say, Java over NodeJS and can speak at length with passion about why I feel the way I do.

Understand and manage them as human beings. I’ve been hired on to companies that experienced radical change within the first days, weeks, and months of accepting the job. I’ve walked into jobs such that what I interviewed for literally did not exist when I started on Day 1. I’ve worked at companies that have had serious pivots around product-market-fit such that the job I accepted radically changed, i.e. from Full-Stack SE to AWS DevOps. Those companies just offered no honest conversation or explanation around circumstances, just managers magically started assigning random tickets one day. Coincidentally, I hated those jobs and couldn’t have given less of a shit if they succeeded or failed. I’m not a cog, a fungible unit, or a human-resource. I’m a human, full-stop. The firms I’ve worked with that suffered turmoil but offered me the basic human decency of a conversation, however, earned loyalty out of me and enabled me to continue giving a shit.


When people understand the wider context their work falls under they naturally give a shit. People want to give a shit, it feels good to have meaningful work and do it well. They only stop giving a shit when given a reason to do so (usually because they are heaped with meaningless work and have no connection to whether the work is good or bad). That doesn't (just) mean "incentives", it literally means them simply being told "great job, no problems reported from the client" or even more preferably the client themselves telling them that. The more steps between them and the effect of their work, and the less feedback, the less possible it is to give a shit even if they try. Trying to game or make this process as low effort or box-check-y as possible is noticable and counterproductive, it needs to come from a genuine involvement.

People involved in meetings tend to care more. Not "involved" as in invited to, involved as in people want to hear their opinion and care what they think. The trope of people hating/not listening in meetings comes from it literally not mattering whether they are in the room or not. I get that you might not initially care what <newhire> has to say, they're hardly bringing insights, but the best onboardings ive seen are those where seniors want to hear their experience, what they struggled with, and work with them to make it easier for them and future newhires. It's noticable how much harder people work shortly after seeing their feedback/work being put to use.

Another thing ive observed a lot is its common for people who give a shit to get promoted to lead others, but by taking on a lot of the meaningful work themselves, overworking, and failing to delegate, they breed people under them that dont give a shit, due to leaving only meaningless tasks and having no time for feedback or informing their reports what is even going on.

Finally, once someone has fallen into the habit of not giving a shit at a specific company, unfortunately it requires a mighty effort to bring them back again. It's usually possible with time, but much harder than just keeping them happy in the first place.

I guess give a shit about people and you may well find they give a shit themselves


2022, discussed then (120+ comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071349


“it depends on X and Y” and “here are things you should care about” is the most annoying thing ever IF you actually need to make a decision and IF the service provider doesn’t give you a path forward. It’s fine if you’re just gathering information, but not when there is a business impact to delaying.

This goes for people in a consulting capacity in internal roles, too. There are way too many “SMEs” who will show up to your meetings, tell you it’s “complicated”, and then leave, thinking they’ve made a contribution. If you raise issues but don’t help your customer navigate this complexity, you are adding negative value.


Came here to say this. I think if as a customer you have some understanding of what you're trying to do, sure working with the folks who "give a shit" will be great. If you just want to get it done and don't have a clue about the details it feels like friction.


Previous discussion (152 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32071349


> Was it because the furniture makers were experts? No.

Weren't they?

Weird line.


They were indeed experts but that wasn't a sufficient reason for it to be such a smooth experience


I mean... if the point he's making is that expertise doesn't affect the quality of the product or experience then he's very wrong.


For table making it might have been?


Welcome to Japan.


Really love this, yes I always pay top dollar for people who give a shit


Girlfriend As A Service pays better


Love the superelliptical table.


Not negating the sentiment that giving a shit helps, but table making is an old business and most of the challenges have been encountered over the centuries. So result and cost comes down to having an experienced craftsman. And I assume that someone making a living from it for let's say the 10,000 hours can make a table any way you want and be pretty accurate in estimating effort and material expense.

Giving a shit makes for a more happy customer, but cutting a board oval shaped is what they do in a workshop for breakfast.


You would think so, but I work in construction and I can confirm that finding a skilled builder is just as hard as finding a skilled coder. Probably more so because coders seem more intent on lifelong learning whereas construction types tend to act like they already know everything.

Just look at the top comment, works in construction, electricity is over 100 years old, still had trouble finding people who care.

Part of the challenge is that practicing construction is expensive so not everyone gets a chance to do so. Practicing code is easy and inexpensive. There's an accessibility to it that isn't there for building. I code stuff that doesn't work all the time and I don't care, I just start over because I didn't lose much. It's very different when dealing with expensive construction materials.


> Giving a shit makes for a more happy customer, but cutting a board oval shaped is what they do in a workshop for breakfast.

Maybe. It could also be that the majority of their customers only want boring non-oval shit most of the time. So the chance to flex a bit on a "non-standard" order and getting to actually demonstrate those skills leads to a much better outcome for everyone including the craftspeople.


i would call this "paying attention".


“Giving a shit” I love the American language because of things like this.

“Fucking shit” Sex with poop.

Bukowski and the Cohen brothers made those words art


People praise professionals who give a shit but nobody seems to value them. When you care, it is soul destroying to watch people who don't give the slightest shit make metric fucking tons more money than you. It's sociopathic and it's extremely common.

When I was a teenager I actually quit professional programming as a career because I felt that I would be miserable in this field. I felt that way because every single developer I met at the time simply did not give a shit about stuff, they just wanted their paycheck at the end of the month. Well I wanted to give a shit and so I turned it into my hobby.

It's not without its problems, of course. Giving too much of a shit turns you into an obsessive perfectionist which can be paralyzing. Can spend days thinking about the best way to do something instead of just doing it. Thankfully I have no deadlines.


Absolutely.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: