Blog Tag: Work
When Yahoo Calls, You Have A Couple of Minutes
3 Comments | Latest by: Phil | Add A Comment! »»
"Hi, is this Phillip Harrington?"
"Speaking."
"Hi I'm [an internal recruiter] calling from Yahoo. We'd like to speak to you about a full time benefited position. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?"
When it's Yahoo calling, you have a couple of minutes.
The Hilarious Solution
Earlier this week at work I was entering some data into the 'rules' table. I needed a related record ID from the 'delivery' table but I didn't want to worry about figuring out what data it needs ('delivery' has about 20 fields).
On a whim, I tried this:
mysql> insert into delivery set id = 0;
I thought the query would fail. Instead the response was:
Query OK, 1 row affected, 7 warnings (0.00 sec)
Seven warnings?! That made me laugh out loud. But hey! The row got inserted and I could move on. Sometimes the hilarious solution to a problem is the best solution.
Virtual Fortune for Virtual Goods
1 Comment | Latest by: Erica | Add A Comment! »»
I'm a web a guy. I make stuff that goes on the web. I've been doing this for going on 8 or 9 years now. My "life's work" is web sites.
However, my life's work is simply 1's and 0's on a piece of hard drive some where. One big magnet could wipe all of it out very easily. Granted, the magnet would have to be used in several places and take into account all the backups that exist of various things, but it's possible. No hard-goods exist for all my efforts. All of the goods I've produced are virtual.
I get paid real money for doing this work, but after direct deposit and cashing checks, etc. that money, too, ends up on a hard drive somewhere. I hope to hell they have a backup! I view my accounts through online banking. It's a virtual fortune (and it's no fortune, mind you) for all intents and purposes.
Boil it all down, and I make web pages, then get paid for them and look at the money on a web page.
If I made ice sculpture, it would last as long, but be prettier. It makes me want to become a carpenter who only barters.
Think Better Without Concentration
James Hong posted an interesting entry about thinking better when he's not concentrating. I especially liked the thought experiment he does sometimes with interviewees.
One time I was interviewing a guy for a job position, and he was close to the solution but for some reason couldn't get it. So after 10 minutes of frustratedly watching him almost getting it, I told him to stop and that I wanted to try an experiment. I aksed him to put the paper aside, and i asked him a series of random questions.. "what is your favorite fast food restaurant," "what is your favorite tv show", "what books have you read lately", and then i immediately told him to look at the problem again.. and within 10 seconds, he got it!
James Hong
The entry made me think about my own process. Honestly, sometimes I'm not thinking about the task at hand. I'm learning more and more to focus on the thing my brain wants to focus on (if at all possible), think it through, and get something done with it. It feels like my brain is running the show, but I would rather take advantage of it's "natural proclivity" to be thinking of a certain thing and dig in than try to turn a river.
Also, I get most of my best ideas in the shower.
We Did It!
2 Comments | Latest by: Matt Gray | Add A Comment! »»
If you've had the unfortunate opportunity to speak with me about my job in the last four months, you will have heard me speak coherently for about three minutes before bursting into fits of swearing and frothing at the mouth... To those of you who had to endure that, I apologize.
It's still "too soon to call" officially, but as of now, about 8:20 am, we have squished the few glaring bugs. Basically, our massive, swell foop of a change to the system everyone at work uses everyday seems to have worked.
Holy Balls! We did it! Wow. It feels surreal...
Now we have a couple of weeks to make a few interface changes and then this project is done.
Eclipse Dislike
I have an intense dislike of the Eclipse. Except when it's working, then it's cool ;-)
Ask About the Connection
2 Comments | Latest by: Lord Christopher of The Evil White Conservatives of Peckerwoodshire | Add A Comment! »»
Note to self: remember when interviewing somewhere to ask what kind of Internet connection they have, and to really nail them down on exactly how fast it is and how often it falls over everyday :-/
