This is amazing. I am (regretfully) the introverted one in the community that watches as my wife and kids make the most of it. This is something I would love to stumble on. Great read!
I'll add that it was never common in my experience to get "real" details during the interview process from team members regardless of using a recruiter. Maybe it's only with my background, but I find out an actual impression the first week (processes, cross team interaction, gossip).
Besides all the "hacker games" I would play in obscure parts of the web, leisure suit Larry is one of those games I stumbled upon as a youth looking for anything that went against the grain. I was a kid that thought nudity was amazing. Still, the mechanics built into searching for clues in an environment that attempted "open world" concepts honestly consumed more time then the rewards earned.
Also Sony launched Matrix MMO that died out but I loved how they at least tried to continue character stories that added depth.
My parents owned a mom/pop video store during my childhood. It's still crazy to look back at how in-demand VHS tapes were. We lived in a super small town so there was zero competition. Cable was not common in every home yet.
"Be kind, rewind" cost a buck if forgotten. Rewinding to the beginning of VHS tapes was honestly so long that nobody really forgot.
The store was eventually acquired by some regional chain, and almost like magic the future started taking its form.
So cool to see this.
So, you needed to rewind the tape to the beginning if you wanted to return it after having partially watched it i.e. at 40%? Now I wonder, did the store owners check each tape on return for this? I hope it was a quick process..
> Rewinding to the beginning of VHS tapes was honestly so long that nobody really forgot.
Hmm, if it took so long, wouldn't it have caused the reverse effect? That people would ignore it out of laziness? Maybe I'm too spoiled! :D
Further wrinkle: it only took a long time in your VCR, which (we all believed) was also bad for your VCR (I mean, maybe? But avoiding stressing the VCR's mechanism was why it took a long time). So, gadget catalogs sold standalone high-speed VCR rewinders, which just about anyone who watched a lot of movies owned. They took less than a minute to rewind a cassette.
It took about 3 seconds to check. Pop open the case the tapes came in and look at the plastic window and you can easily see both reels. If the tape was all on the left reel, it was rewound. Just about all rental places did this when you returned the tape. Audio cassette tapes were the same way. The VHS cassette was basically just a larger version of an audio cassette with wider and longer tape.
Interestingly, in the very first iteration of home video cassette rentals, the tapes could not be rewound at home:
> These rental cassettes were red, approximately 7 inches (180 mm) high by 6.5 inches (170 mm) wide by 1.5 inches (38 mm) deep (however used the same videotape used today) and could not be rewound by a home Cartrivision recorder. Rather, they were rewound by a special machine upon their return to the retailer.
What I remember is that it was a cultural part of movie watching to rewind when the credits hit. You'd use that time to discuss what you saw with whoever you were viewing with. That's how I did it.
I recall them having a transparent window so you could see where the tape was. I think the process would have been: slide the VHS out of the sleeve and glance at where the tape was positioned. Should take just a second.
You can tell by looking at a VHS tape if it's been rewound or not; there are two little windows that let you see the tape reels, and all of the black stuff should be in the left window.
Lucky that your parent's shop got acquired. It was amazing to see - Blockbuster shops popping up here and there, all the while it seemed that virtually everyone could see the tsunami coming (except Blockbuster).
Working on teams large and small, it's an effort. Larger companies block chunks of time to discuss this subject. Start-ups prioritize customers. One suggestion is to take ownership over tackling tech-dent or documentation. Express to your immediate team what you want to accomplish and provide some generic process to implement. It's never easy but make the effort to at least attempt solving this. Good luck!
This site was amazing when I started front end development. I remember checking in from time to time and finally seeing the blunder with DO. DO was another starting point for me in my career when I was learning servers. Sad to see this outcome.
