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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • This is what voter suppression looks like.

    I grew up in Missouri before moving to Washington state. When I reached voting age, it was (and still is) ridiculously common to see polling places in rural and suburban areas with no waiting to vote. Meanwhile, in the cities (which happen to vote more democratic), you’ll see loooong lines extending outside. When voting facilities and staff are not proportionally distributed to accommodate voter density, you get shit like this; voters in different districts receiving different treatment. And people who live there never know any better to ask for something different.

    This all blew my mind after living first in a suburban area, then an urban one, and now living in a state that has done voting my mail for decades. I love voting by mail. It’s unconcionable to me at this point for people to stand for in-person voting anymore.









  • Men: Stop fixating on the need to “get a woman”. Procreation is not how to win at life. No one virtuous is keeping score like that. All that “alpha/omega” stuff is trash. Stop everything you’re doing, trying and striving for. Spend some time genuinely at rest, not fixating on sex or work or entertainment or fitness, and think about yourself.

    Really examine the person that you are. Think about the good that you’ve done. Think about the harm that you’ve caused. Think of how you can nudge yourself towards being a better person; someone who is considerate to others feelings, someone who can help without expecting reciprocation. Start doing that stuff. Your reward for this work is inner peace, not babes and money and success.

    Self-reflection leaning towards kindness, forgiveness and genuine curiosity about yourself is the key to being the best you that you can be.

    It will take a long time. When you get frustrated, ask yourself what kind of reward you’re expecting. If that reward is anything besides “being a happier, more satisfied me”, work on refocusing yourself.

    Living like this will catch people’s attention. A word of warning: some will be emotional vampires who want to take advantage of you, and you’ll unfortunately have to live through a few relationships with those before you recognize them. But other people, more well-adjusted folks, will notice as well. Those are the kinds of people who can become life-long friends. And, in my experience, that’s where loving relationships start.

    Who knows? You might uncover some really important things about yourself along the way that you never realized were there before.








  • 12 year SDE + 12 year TPM vet here.

    Do everything you can to help your software engineers (or whoever is doing the work) have as much focus time as they need. Buffer your meetings and questions to one chunk of time per day. Encourage them to block-out and protect their focus time. And encourage the team to keep office hours so they can still make themselves available to others, but in a controlled way.

    Be transparent with the business’s goals and frustrations you are facing. There’s an attitude (often among inexperienced devs) that PMs are good for nothing; just an interface to the rest of the business, and a source of where tasks come from. And some certainly are that, but a good PM is worth their weight in gold.

    Find a good mentor, and start thinking about your next career step now.