Another trick management plays is they will ask you for super rough estimates. And tell you that whatever estimate you give doesn't mean anything.
So you play safe and give them a super rough estimates and a lot of buffer.
And now all of sudden you are invited to meeting to explain your super rough estimates. You remind them that it is just a super rough estimate. They ignore that.
Now if you are weak, they will get you to cut your estimate. If you are strong they will ignore your rough estimate.
So they create a deadline based on your estimate. You remind them that it is just a rough estimate and deadline seems unfair. They tell you just do your best, deadline is not a super strict deadline.
Of course, project scope is bigger and there is scope creep. You are unlikely to make deadline.
All of sudden you are being asked why is project going to miss deadline. They tell you you did estimation, you need to meet this deadline. Work extra hours.
You try to remind them that you were asked for a super rough estimate but you are ignored.
Also your teammates hate you because they think you promised the deadline and now they have to work over weekend to cleanup your mess.
I understand your point but we should not assume criminal intent without some solid evidence.
Back in days I paid for CDs with only open source software because internet was too slow. CDs were definitely priced for decent profit. The beauty of opensource is that we can do this legally.
I had a coworker who for whatever reason asked legal department if he could write a novel. They, of course, said he can but most likely the company will own it.
Having friends who are business lawyers, I asked them how is this fair. They said 90% of the time people who ask these questions are time wasters, and legal departments are so used to it that they send generic canned response initially. If someone is serious they will continue conversation, hopefully, also get their own attorney. Or they will just do it like most of the founders we read about.
Deadline driven development is leading cause of 90% of my professional stress. I would understand if deadline was due to some external factors like customer demands or security vulnerability. But I hate when I ask why such a tight deadline and the answer is well higher ups fault.
This is the most correct answer. In my company software engineers easily make more than project managers. People manager make a bit more than engineers but not that much. 10-20k more.
I wish we have this rule in the US. So many times I start getting spam from random companies that after closer look it turns out they are owner of some servicev I signed up years ago.
I think, in Tech, it doesn't matter because we tend to be more privacy concise. Some of co-workers have never created any social media and accounts and nothing shows up for them when you search for them.
But in other fields it might be different story. My wife is a recruiter for a large hospital. She has told me that while this is not official but usually if an applicant doesn't have social media profile, they usually move to bottom of the list. Most of the recruiters are young there, and they find it weird/suspicious that someone is not easily searchable.
My wife's recommendation is to at least, have a profile with picture and hide everything else.
However, for senior positions, they don't usually care so much for profiles as most of applicants applying for those positions don't really have any social media profiles.
I think you are using it right. I used it completely wrong by cutting out more intense exercise and focusing on competing with co-workers instead of myself.
Thanks for your concern. But I am not sure where you got the idea that I said I was unhealthy. I just assumed that I can skip gym and get all the health benefits of it by taking 10K steps.
But yes as a geek I love data, and I really enjoy charts and numbers. And yes if I go to gym and find out I left my heart rate strap at home, then I might feel discouraged and not workout as hard. Perhaps I will make a habit of working out without HRM once a week.
As I tell my friends, only health device you really need is yourself.
No I don't mind, I am 35. I was about 170 lb before I got into Fitbit about 3 years ago. I gained 15 lb chasing 10k steps. It might be metabolic change. But last year I stopped using Fitbit and switched to Polar watch with HRM. I am down to 177 lb now. My RHR has always been around 55bpm, it didn't really change when I cut out gym.
The thing is that I really believed in 10K steps being enough to stay healthy. So I gave up weights & running which I did not do out of joy but as something that you do. If they invent once a month toothpaste, I will switch to it. If I don't have to run and get sweaty, then I am all for it.
10K steps was easy for me. Before Fitbit, I might get 4-5K steps without any effort. After Fitbit I started going on longer dog walks (3-4K steps). Started doing house chores in the most inefficient manners (1-2K). I would walk around office a lot (3-5K). If I was still short at the end of day, I will watch TV while stepping in a place. On weekends, I preferred hiking to swimming.
I can see how extra 5K steps a day didn't require any significant effort for me. So it would have made no difference for me. I can see from this thread that many people struggle with that so it makes sense for them to hit 10K steps goal.
My RHR averages between 52 to 55 bpm. I always heard that unless you are an elite athlete, your HR should not be below 60 bpm. So I brought it up with my doctor and he told me to not worry about it. I wonder if there are other markers which would indicate if further testing is needed or not.
I got into 10,000 steps craze, thanks in part to my company providing Fitbits. I was not really a health nut, just 3 days a week at gym, lifting and cardio. I had a bit of muscle definition. Gym was just something I did like brushing teeth. I didn't focus my life around it.
Due to incentives and competition among co-workers, I got into Fitbit seriously. While it was fun, but after a few months, not only I lost some definition but also gained weight. I was expecting to lose muscle mass but didn't know that 10000 steps spread out throughout day were not enough activity.
Now I realize Fitbits are great for extremely unhealthy or lazy people. But those of us who been working out without any devices should stay away from any such devices. And not change your workout routines.
It is too late for me, now I cannot workout without a device and some nice charts. I ended up getting a HRM based device. I like the charts it provides but I was happy using mirror to judge how much I needed to workout. And I didn't need any external motivation back then.
I highly recommend manually tracking in spreadsheet in addition to whatever automated tool you use. You can start with a simple, date, merchant, thing, and amount columns.
I used to use a spreadsheet. Then came Mint, and I thought my days of manual work were over. But then I realized that now I was less careful with my money. I would check Mint daily, I would look at each transaction but by removing manual step of inputting amount spend, I sort of got immune to big or a lot of spendings.
Now in addition to Mint & Personal Capital, I also record each transaction almost daily. This way it is very hard to ignore multiple transactions in a row for dining out or buying junk etc.
Also if Mint goes away or they start charging you will still have your spreadsheet.
Send to Kindle plugin works great for me. I usually wait till bedtime, then read most articles that I had sent to Kindle during day. If anything is interesting enough, I will save the article otherwise I just delete it.
I made my profile by mistake; it is way too spammy and uses dark patterns. I would consider it the shadiest of all social networks. I don't use it anymore and filter any mail from Linkedin directly to trash. But I keep it around for occasional chat with old colleagues.
(Maybe if I haven't connected with my old colleagues on personal email by now, then I should just forget about advancing our relationship any further.)
So you play safe and give them a super rough estimates and a lot of buffer.
And now all of sudden you are invited to meeting to explain your super rough estimates. You remind them that it is just a super rough estimate. They ignore that.
Now if you are weak, they will get you to cut your estimate. If you are strong they will ignore your rough estimate.
So they create a deadline based on your estimate. You remind them that it is just a rough estimate and deadline seems unfair. They tell you just do your best, deadline is not a super strict deadline.
Of course, project scope is bigger and there is scope creep. You are unlikely to make deadline.
All of sudden you are being asked why is project going to miss deadline. They tell you you did estimation, you need to meet this deadline. Work extra hours.
You try to remind them that you were asked for a super rough estimate but you are ignored.
Also your teammates hate you because they think you promised the deadline and now they have to work over weekend to cleanup your mess.