How Much Do You Love Your Job?

So it's been a while since I've written anything but whatever. I had an "interesting" thought today that I wanted to share so here we go:

If you found out you only had, say, a year or two to live, would you quit your job?*

Morbid, I know. And weird. Who gives a shit about your job if you're going to die soon? I'll tell you who, people who love what they do. When I thought about this the first thing that came to mind was that I would immediately quit my job and use my savings to spend as much time with Rebecca and as much time woodworking as I possibly could.

But of course that's me and I realized after a moment that there actually are people out there who love what they're doing so much that they wouldn't stop working. In the same way that all I'd want to do was spend time puttering around in my garage building furniture, they'd be at their desk working on their business or their web app or whatever it is they're doing right now.

And if that's you, damn but I envy you. Not because I'd rather keep working a job if I got the bad news, but because that means that right now you're doing exactly what you should be doing. You've got a job that you love as much as I love my hobby. And that is incredibly awesome.

Those of you that know me in real life and/or from Twitter know that I've hated my job for a while now. The reasons I'm still doing it are simple: the money, laziness and fear; but I came to realize that even though I love the field I'm in and even though I love programming, I'd rather be spending my time in the garage playing with power tools and occasionally seriously injuring myself.

So think to yourself, if you didn't have a lot of time left on this earth would you still be doing what your doing? Because if so, you're one lucky sonofabitch.

* For the purposes of this thought experiment I'm assuming that your family comes first and all that. But you'll eventually need some time to yourself and what are you going to want to do then?

FutureRuby Reflections

The power of the unconference compels me to write this post.

It's been a week and I don't think anyone will argue that FutureRuby was all sorts of win. The talks, the organizers, the people (comrades) and the parties kicked ass. A lot will probably be written about the various speakers and complete run-downs will no doubt exist soon (for a great start, check out Andrew Louis' or Ron Evans') and what you'll no doubt find is people saying that more conferences need parties like FutureRuby's. And while that is undoubtedly true, the question is: Why?

"Free booze r0x0rz!" I can hear you screaming and yes I agree, free booze does, indeed, "r0x0rz" as you say but there's something more to it. And that's this:

All the people who conferenced together, partied together.

Pete Forde and Meghann Milliard did an outstanding job with the entire conference but where they really got it right was in keeping the conference small enough to have everyone in the same venue for both the talks and the major events. This allowed people to constantly run into each other without any real effort.

I went to the first party at Unspace having met literally no one there in person before and walked out with almost a dozen new friends (for realz). And while at Pravda the next night, not only did that number grow but what I'll call "the cross-pollination of friend-sets" occurred, allowing those disparate people I had met previously to be introduced to one another, splinter off, interact and then be introduced to their new acquaintances.

And the only good reason I can come up with for this was our proximity to each other. Simply being "trapped" (for lack of a better term) in the same venue together allowed everyone to eventually run into everyone else. And having everyone in the same sessions helps reinforce this proximity during the day as well.

Now it's entirely possible that some of us could have acted as individual social attractors, inadvertently bringing separate groups together but I really find that hard to believe. It seems that simply allowing everyone to congregate in a specific location for a specific amount of time really broke down barriers.

So while I don't want to detract from the awesomeness that was the conference proper, I hope that anyone planning a smallish conference realizes what can make or break an experience for people. It's not necessarily free food (it helps) or free booze (also really helps) but it is definitely giving your attendees a place to interact, outside of the conference venue, where at the very least the majority of people will be. From some of the conversations that I overheard and was a part of it's clear that good things will happen when you do this. Friendships will be forged, business plan hammered out, philosophies created, revolutions begun.

Given the right circumstance geeks can be social. Give them the opportunity to be, and cool shit will happen.

John C. Welch Nails Social Media (in a good way)

I'm a big fan of John's blog and the Angry Mac Bastards podcast so, while I may be something of a Bynkii fanboy, I really think his latest post does a great job of explaining how and when to use social media:

1. Social Media is just people talking to people


2. Don't do anything with Social Media unless you know what and why you're doing it


3. If you're going to say something, have something real to say


4. Using Social Media is not magic, it's still real work


5. You cannot prevent people from hating you, stop trying to prevent it as a thing

Looks simple? It is. Don't overthink this shit, don't give it too much precedence, and don't be afraid to be the last guy on the bus. Do things in a way that works for you, not because someone said you should.

[From: Web 2.0/Social Media: Really guys, it's pretty simple by John C. Welch]

I don't think it gets any easier than that. It's a long post but go, read it. You'll be glad you did. Unless you don't like swearing, in which case, why the fuck are you reading my blog?

I Am Not Management Material

I realized today that I should never be allowed to hire employees because if I ever had to choose between two perfect candidates and one was named Timmy I would choose him just so I could constantly reference South Park.

Firefox Sending Multiple Page Requests

Here's something that only took me 6 fucking hours to debug.

Apparently Firefox 3.0 has this great little "feature" where if you've got an <img> tag with src="" it'll just re-request the page for each tag. The fun part is that it won't re-request the page with the same parameters so you get some really weird shit happening.

Like let's say you've got a page displaying a form with a blank image tag:


<form action="create_user.php">
<input name="user_name" type="text"/>
<img src="" alt="User pic"/>
<input name="user_path_to_image" type="text">
<input type="submit" name="form_commit" value="Apply"/>
<input type="submit" name="form_commit" value="Create"/>
</form>


Ok so let's say you decide to set the user's name to "Jay" and hit apply. As you can see, clicking both buttons submit to the same script. The script checks to see if "Apply" was clicked and if it was, updates the user data and redisplay the form. If howerver you click the "Create" button it'll create the user and redirect elsewhere.

Here's the fun part. When you click "Apply" and the page is redisplayed, Firefox sees the blank src in the tag, re-requests the page but this time without saying what button was clicked (because none was) which will create a new user with no name set. Of course you don't see that because it was done behind the scenes. All you see is your updated user data and then there's this magical blank user sitting in your database. Awesome.

This appears to be fixed in 3.5 Beta 4 and doesn't happen in either IE 7 or Safari.

The only reason I figured out what it was thanks to this site:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=427184

What a pain in the ass.

Quick Update on Being Productive When Using Twitter

Now when I say "being productive with Twitter" I don't mean using Twitter to run your business or increase your market share or any other such bullshit. What I mean is how to be productive while working and still keeping track of what's going on in Twitterdom.

Obviously the best way to be productive is don't use Twitter. But that's not an option because I love it too much.

So here's what I've found that works during my workday. I'm using TweetDeck as my client so if you're using something else, you may not be able to a couple of these.

The first thing I did, quite a while ago actually, was change how often TweetDeck checks for new updates. I think by default it checks every minute and that was way, way too much for me. So I set it to check every 5 minutes because I figured that would be enough for me.


This worked well until I started to follow more people. Then every 5 minutes it seemed like I had 15 new updates too read. So I turned off "Include All Friend Notifications". What this will do is only notify you when some DMs or @s you. Which, for me, is all I'm really concerned about in terms of immediate reactions to Twitter.


I thought this was working really well until I realized that by leaving my program window open I could still see tweets coming in peripherally and that was just enough to distract me. So all I did was minimize the window and it's worked like a charm.

These 3 small steps allow me to focus on my work and, when I need a break, quickly run through what I've missed in the last little while. Sometimes I might miss out on an opportunity to immediately send an incredibly witty reply to someone (as I am known to do) but people are getting used to there being something of a lag to responses, especially when different timezones are involved.

So even though these might seems obvious things to do, you'd be surprised how effective they have been. Now if only I could I figure out a way to stop checking Google Reader every time I'm distracted.

To recap:

1. Increase the time interval your Twitter client uses to check for updates. I've found 5 minutes works well.
2. If your client will let you, only be notified by tweets that address you specifically.
3. Minimize the damn window so you can't see it. It's amazing how well this works.

(BTW I absolutely love Skitch)

When you walk away, walk away

Okay this was supposed to be a quick post but it seems to have rambled on - I guess I had more to say on this than I thought.

Anyway, this is yet another post that has come out of Alex Hillman's ever-excellent unstick.me live weekly session. During a discussion on distractions the notion of taking a break from your work came up. Of course we weren't focusing on the work, but on the break. A lot of us who work in front of a computer all day are beset by myriad distractions, some inflicted by others but most self-inflicted. We're checking Twitter, checking our RSS feeds, checking our personal email (at work of course), etc., etc.

For me this worsens when I'm doing work I can't get into or that involves more focus then I'm willing to give. However when I'm really rolling on something my focus is almost unflappable. Emails go unread, "Good mornings" get ignored, lunch goes uneaten and Twitter notices go, well, unnoticed. But what happens when I inevitably get stuck or get interrupted? Well, I better check those emails, see what my friend's are tweeting, eat. And once I get into that, I have a really hard time getting back into whatever it was I was doing. Why? Because it's really easy to just keep checking and checking and checking. There's always new articles coming in, always new posts.

One of the best pieces of advice I read a long time ago is that when you're programming and you're stuck, get up and do something else. Just get out and take a walk. (This is why dotcom developers argued for foosball tables). And I used to do this - walk that is, not play foosball. And you know what, it worked. It gave me a chance to clear my head, get my blood pumping and let thoughts just percolate. But now I don't do that because it's easier to just shift focus to Google Reader. And I know it's not just me because of all the great people who joined in unstick.me live tonight and confessed their sins.

This is a problem that more and more people are going to have as the world gets more connected. People have already started calling it "information overload" but that's really a misnomer because that makes it sound passive. But it's not passive because I'm actively choosing to overload myself. A lot of us referred to these distractions as an addiction tonight and to some degree it is. It's also the human instinct of not wanting to be left out of the loop or not wanting to miss something important. However, when it comes to what happens during work time I think we all need to be honest and just admit that it most often falls to procrastination. I know I'm guilty of it and I think I'm getting worse.

So what's the answer? Well here's what I said in the session:

"Sometimes you need to walk away for a while. The problem is we tend not to *walk* away but navigate away. And it's not the same." (Thanks to Alex for tweeting this for posterity)

Taking a break from work is fine. Getting stuck is natural. But when you automatically reach for your timesink, you've already failed. It's no different than the down-on-his-luck alcoholic reaching for the bottle or the just-one-more-hand gambler spending his kid's savings. Sure you're cheating you're employer out of some time (even if that employer is you) but really you're feeding a bad habit.

So my advice is, when you need to take a break and clear your head, you really need to walk away. And when you do, make sure you really walk away. Get up, leave your desk/office and go somewhere else. You will not only have a better chance of coming back refreshed and ready to get back to work but you'll also be helping yourself break the cycle of work-check-work-check-check-wo...-CHECK.

Now I'll be honest here. I have no idea if this will work. I certainly don't do this now and the thought of taking a walk in sub-zero temperatures this time of year does not necessarily appeal to me. However, I'm going to give it a try. I know that last week just a little exercise in the morning helped me be more alert at work and I'm hoping that getting out of the habit of hitting the web every break will help me be more engaged. The only downside I can see is that it looks way better to be zoned out but sitting at your desk then completely absent from the office when co-workers or your boss are looking for you. I work in an environment where this shouldn't be a problem but I'd be interested to know if anyone runs into any problems, or successes for that matter, if they attempt this approach. I'll be sure to post how it's working for me.