Author: stlplace

Categories
Career Stocks

Interview story (a while ago)

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Originally written 2005-02-08

Holiday Inn Clinton

After I picked up the rental car (with GPS) at Newark airport, I was on the way to my destination. I took an exit on I-78 by accident, with the help from GPS I did get back to the road without problem. At about 9:40 PM I arrived the hotel. I could see the snow on the parking lot — it’s colder in NJ than in St. Louis. The hotel looks pretty nice, and the town reminds me of Rolla, a small mid-west town where I spent 3 years for study (1997-2000).

After dinner and shower I began to prepare my presentation for tomorrow (2/04/05). My bro told me run it 4-5 times before the actual presentation. I wrote down what I want to say for my slides. Besides work related stuff, I also put down some light side stuff: where I grow up, hobbies, things/places I experienced in the States. This is my first time to give presentation after I graduate from school in 2000. A bit nervous, but my experience in presenting research in car companies during school days did help a lot. I also ironed the shirt for the big day. Went to bed at 1 AM.

Interview

The presentation went very well, much better then I expected. The participants (mainly managers) were impressed. Then comes the harder part.

HR manager is a middle-aged lady who seems very sharp. She talked about the Chinese employee’s work ethic and China’s growth. She also asked about questions about working availability/eligibility, how I heard about the opportunity, and some other behavior type questions. I think it went OK.

Manager 1: this is the make-or-break time. Because he is going to be my boss if I get the position. I heard from HR manager he is a very aggressive person, and he moved around a few times inside the company to get his current position. He asked many technical questions (Qns), some of them I am not comfortable with. At one time I asked why I left my graduate school in China (not get the degree) and come to US. Why not come to US after getting the degree. This is a legimate Qn but I was annoyed by the way he went about the Qn. Finally I told me there is not an ideal way around this, because of visa and financial support issue. He asked if he regretted my decision at that time, I said no. I don’t know if I would be better off or worse off if I made another choice at the time, but I want to look forward. In retrospect, I think I would say there is always things to lose when you try to get something (trade off). This reminds me another Qn I was asked by an interviewer in another company: what I would be if I stay in the same company, and how to work towards to that position. I goofed on that one because I said it just takes time to become a senior engineer/project leader. I took a facility tour with him after the Qn session. General impression was good, the cafeteria and fitness room is much better than my current employer’s. I saw many Indian engineers, later on I learned from Product Mgr they are hired from India on H-1B. In retrospect, I think one reason he is asking tough Qns because he wanted to test my skills to handle the stress situations, which will be very common if I take the position.

Manager 2: he is my would-be-boss’ boss, he, Mgr 1 and I had a lunch together. They’ve all travelled to China on business. He tried to initiate the conversation and asked me a few common things, talked facilities in China. I really regretted with the big sandwich I ordered, but I tried to talk as much as I can. I think it went OK.

Manager 3: he is a product manager, and he seems like a nice guy. His team will rely on our system for new product development, so he wanted to make sure the system is up and running, and the data is not corrupt. He listed an instance that half-a-years’ product data get lost during data migration (from old system to new system). I don’t know if that eventually get resolved or not, but it seems like a common problem.

Ms. C and Mr. D (would-be direct reports): teleconference went not very well. Like Mgr 1, they also prepared a list of technical Qns for me to answer. I think I scored poorly (<50%). It looks like I’m the guy to solve their problems and headache. But again In retrospect, I think one reason they were asking tough Qns because he wanted to test my skills to handle the stress situations, which will be very common if I take the position.

Categories
Economy Fun Technology

Is America becoming dumber and dumber

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Or it was always that way? It’s just I (dumb me) vastly underestimated some people’s stupidity. Or let’s blame the smartphones and the tech bros who helped this journey of “making us dumber” 🙂

Smartphone and Social Media

This is not a joke actually, because sometimes I joked too much and my kids usually think my “dad jokes” are not funny. Probably my wife doesn’t think highly some of my jokes either. There are research (google search) that says “social media” make people think less critically – if they were thinking critically before social media, I guess. Let me quite some results from Google search below.

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Search Labs | AI Overview
Is social media making us stupid and less empathetic? – Peerbagh
Yes, social media can make people less able to think critically and analytically, and it can also contribute to mental health issues.

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Reddit: Social Media is making us Dumber

Note with all the American exceptionalism (which in my mind, it’s a myth or overrated to say the least). I don’t think America is exceptional in terms of social media usage though – at the same time, the tech bros are raking in money from social media and overuse of big tech left and right:

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Zuckerberg’s FB/Instagram/Whatsapp;

Elon Musk’s X/Twitter (at least he hoped he could make more money from X, he did make tons of money from Tesla, with quite a bit government subsidies);

Jeff Bezos’ Amazon – earth’s biggest store, shop until you drop;

tech bros’ Google;

tech bros’ Apple;

and so on

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I do similar things on the Chinese social media platform WeChat and Red Note too 🙁 In other words, I believe overall we are all dumber because our eyes are glued to the phone or screen all the time (again if applicable, nothing personal).

Missouri aka the show money state

The outcome of recent lawsuit that awards Missouri $24 billion seems confirmed my worry. I was too simple, too naive. MO AG Andrew Bailey doesn’t seem to be a nice person, btw. As practical matters, this will just make the lives of Chinese people in Missouri a little bit harder. Because as a Chinese person who lived in the show money state since 1997, I know most people here cannot even tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people and so on. I can’t either: when I met a Chinese couple back in January 2015 for my old daughter kindergarten registration, at first I thought they are Korean 🙂

I am expecting more “go back to your country” shenanigans 🙁

Tariff is another good example. It’s 100% shoot yourself on the foot – those who start the trade war. Here is a good example.

If a country wants to reduce trade deficit: the rational way is to reduce imports, or reduce consumption. Right: don’t buy the junks from Shein and Temu.

If a country wants to boost manufacturing sector, the country can do things such as educate young people on engineering and manufacturing, advocate and support manufacturing business (instead of doing the bitcoin and cryptos shit; or put 100% tariff on EVs from the country you don’t like), and soon. In either case though, tariffs for imports or subsidies for domestic manufacturing are interventions, in other words the Government is meddling in the market. What happens to the republicans free market narrative?

AP: Missouri plans to seize assets to make China pay a $24.5 billion judgment, but can it collect?

Categories
Chinese articles

哪吒 NeZha

Reading Time: < 1 minute

NPR (in English): The new Chinese animated film ‘Ne Zha 2’ is setting new box office records

油管: 独家】打破中国影史纪录！专访《哪吒之魔童闹海》导演饺子 大量《哪吒2》制作故事首次公开！1900多个特效镜头是如何诞生的？导演曾考入名牌大学药学专业？| 故事会 Story Hour

我十多年之前在Autodesk 打过15月的工。在那之前在一个三维计算机辅助设计软件公司打过八年的码工。昨天看哪吒2的后台制作参访时我看到这个软件，应该是 Autodesk Maya, 看到三维模型和图形界面很亲切。不过我当时都是用英语学的，国内工程师说渲染，我需要查一下才知道是rendering.

祝贺饺子和团队。这片子在文化（讲故事，story telling) 和动画的计算机技术上是一个里程碑。

油管：《在故事的最終》粵語版 也很值得体味。
粵語填詞：心之洛
翻唱：何璟昕

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人生於世 似故事 始終有日
年月在消退 倒數會行到一
離別一刻 哭到衣襟都已濕
也需強忍這份痛失

檐底香氣 滿滿伴 炊煙四溢
回味在心裡 鼓舞成長獨行
何日再會 故鄉阡陌
再擁至親 愛未泯

此去或者再會很遠 前程未過問
此去或者永難相見 誰人亦抱憾
離合與悲喜歷來相映襯
能攜過手 已是無憾
不必嗟嘆或含恨
願你都笑著懷念 不再自困

同路是緣 有你在 今生有幸
難陪伴一世 都算情牽一生
誰若先走 會先等候
會給對方作導引

此去或者再會很遠 前程未過問
此去或者永難相見 誰人亦抱憾
離合與悲喜歷來相映襯
能攜過手 已是無憾
不必嗟嘆或含恨
願你都笑著懷念 不再自困

人生於世 似故事 始終有日
誰離別先行 不必悵然似失
緣定他生 哪管虛實
會感世間 暖流滲

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国语版在这里。

哪有故事能讲得没有尽头
再用力挽留 也到分别时候
行至路口 就算眼泪不停流
也终究要学会放手
哪有屋檐能将你永远收留
成长不就是 无法回头地走
有天终于 懂了乡愁
向更广阔处远游
只能送你走到这儿了 前路仍悠悠
只能陪你走到这儿了 离别总会有
该启程了别在原地等候
正因为失去是必修
拥抱才紧到颤抖
毕竟每次相遇都 绝无仅有
多庆幸能有一程伴你同游
走不到永久 也曾片刻拥有
沿途会与 遗憾邂逅
将笑与泪都领受
只能送你走到这儿了 前路仍悠悠
只能陪你走到这儿了 离别总会有
该启程了别在原地等候
正因为失去是必修
拥抱才紧到颤抖
毕竟每次相遇都 绝无仅有
哪有故事能讲得没有尽头
再用力挽留 也到分别时候
等多年后 你再回首
总有回忆如暖流

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Categories
Chinese articles Saint Louis

圣村华人教会的兴衰

Reading Time: < 1 minute

昨天一个偶然的机会，我开车经过圣查尔斯，看到圣路易斯华人浸信会教会 St. Louis Chinese Baptist Church 的教堂⛪️。我没有去过那个新教堂，但是多年以前我有去过他们在Page/Ashby 路上的老教堂。我记得出生于香港的黄英杰牧师讲道：我还蛮喜欢。我也记得在换教堂期间，就是老教堂已卖掉，新教堂还没落实的时候，他们每礼拜天租用了highway 64 旁边的美国人教堂：我还去过几次。前几年听说他们搬过去新堂以后，后来就有一些问题，好像黄牧师也搬到外州去了。我好像在脸书上还看到过教堂荒废的照片。

其实我听说村里的另一个华人教会圣路易斯华人教会 St. Louis Chinese Christian Church, 有时候华人会说CCC, 我记得当时是自己建新堂的，近年也因类似的原因衰落了。我也去过那个教会，参加过团契，英文崇拜，好像搬新堂的时候还去帮忙打扫卫生还是搬东西。08年汶川地震的时候我和我太太还去参加过那里的聚会/讲道。

这是两个我在圣村二十多年多多少少参加过的教会。村里还有其它的一些华人教会。有了孩子以后我们去过橄榄村的路德教会的基督之光教会，严格来说基督之花不是一个独立的教会，她是路德教会以马内利橄榄村教会 Immanel Lutheran Church Olivette 的分支。后来主要因为疫情和其它政治原因（华人教会里有较多的川粉），我们也就不去了。这个教会其实离我家非常近。

PS: 网上查询黄英杰牧师的时候看到一篇说他坏话的文章。我的直觉是北美保守评论是一个在美华人基督教徒的一个极右组织。

油管：我今天早上也在散步的时候想到这个问题，就说一下吧。

Categories
uber-and-side-hustle

More Uber Driving Tips

Reading Time: 3 minutes

(Update 03-19-2025) I paused Uber driving for last few days since the power outage as a result of the powerful tornado hit STL on Friday 03/14/25 night. I resumed it today (this morning). And I made a mistake – I turned off the Cellular Data for “Uber Driver” app as a measure to save the cellular data usage. I used up about 5GB one day without realizing it until I already used it – I thought playing from YT Music is not using data – my assumption was not correct – it doesn’t use data only when I played it from “Download” folder on the YT Music app.

The problem this morning is as soon as I drove away, my Uber Driver app stopped working. Eventually I stopped at the Stacy Park, and thought maybe I would just do morning walk. But at that time, I realized my cellular data setting and turn it back on. And I went back to the Uber app (after closing the app and re-open) and the trip was still there. So, I proceeded as usual. The lesson for me is I should not turn it off at the first place.

Also, came across this sad news – Father of Houston rideshare driver speaks out on son’s death during carjacking – FOX 26 Houston via YT.

(Update 03-08-2025) Today I drove a bit on gravel road the 1st time as Uber driver. Note gravel road is not popular in America, but there are still some in rural areas.

Be relaxed

A few things came to my mind. Recently sometimes I don’t want to drive far out of way, and then come back home empty handed. So I screen the ride requests carefully, sometimes I stop the car and wait in the parking lot, and only accept the ride I liked. This morning is a good example, I declined a few ride requests before getting a one at Dobbs tire shop, at Olivette, near where I live. Second trip was driving from near the Dieberg’s at Craig to the La Boone Bouchee at Olive and Tempo Dr. I even got tips from both trips. I was not expecting, but I guess when I am relaxed, customers (passengers) may feel that way too.

So this is about “take it easy”. Not solely chasing for the money – honestly I still feel Uber driving is not an easy way to make money or bring bread home.

Again I do understand I am probably lucky in a way because I am not going to kill myself to make money via driving for Uber. Somedays if I feel not like it, I can just do my other things, such as exercise instead of driving. I think I am going to do that tomorrow morning 🙂

Audio

Also, about audio. I think ideally I want to have one AirPod in my left ear, so that I can listen to the passenger just in case. Because I have a 2012 model car, the build in audio is not that sophisticated, so I just use my iPhone and AirPods.

Uber App Notifications

I realized I don’t need the instant notification. I just need to turn on the notification summary. This way I can save quite a few “surge” notifications during my normal work day.

Cleanliness of the car

I washed my car (2012 Toyota Sienna minivan) as practically as possible. Due to snow and the road salt, the car looks dirty from outside, finally I was able to clean over the weekend, due to the warmer temperature. One thing, I noticed, is unfortunately the faucet for the garden hose was broken during the extreme cold weather, and the ice inside the faucet. I am researching and will hopefully come up with a good fix soon.

I may summarized more and refer to my earlier Uber driving tips.

Categories
Business Technology

Switch of software or IT vendor

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Sudden Change vs Gradual Change

I have seen a few sudden changes of vendor in my career. And this is usually sign of either “not thinking through” or “the bean counters are in charge”.

Once at Ascension Health, it seems they only implemented the Okta two factor authentication for a few days or a few weeks, then suddenly they switch back to Microsoft AD (Active Directory). It seems to me this one was due to some executives have second thought on Okta. They want to go all in with Microsoft in terms of authentication (and authorization) as well, and they built a layer on the top of Azure AD B2C (and named it as AscensionID).

Now I think about it, in a way “sudden change” is probably easier than change an entrenched software (or rewrite), or trying to slowly change a software or app. Because the “sudden change” approach is somewhat like “just rip off the bandage”. In the case of the example above, because it barely went into production, it was not entrenched.

On the contrary, I have seen in a few cases in my career, we were trying to rewrite an app or a software, only end up going nowhere after spending quite some time. Re-write has its own challenges, btw.

In fact, in most cases: I realized we end up not switching – note this is after decent or significant efforts (in terms of money, multi-millions dollars). If it’s my money, I don’t think I would spend it like that.

FAA (Key Officials)

About 2 years ago, I recall this incident – (CNN) Aging, outdated technology leaves air travel at risk of meltdown. Quote:

The glitch at the center of this week’s headache was a corrupted database file in a pilots’ advisory system that issues warnings, known as NOTAMs, of various hazards that could affect a flight, ranging from notices of closed runways to the presence of nearby construction equipment. The damaged file was also present in the FAA’s backup system, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, which first reported the detail on Wednesday.

Officials moved to reboot the main NOTAM system early Wednesday morning, but it failed to be completely restored by the time rush hour began on the East Coast, leading to the FAA ground stop. A senior US official told CNN Wednesday there was no evidence of foul play in the incident, a detail the FAA later publicly confirmed.…

The NOTAM issue occurred just days after the FAA had said an “air traffic computer issue” was responsible for hours-long flight delays to Florida airports on Jan. 2. That system, known as ERAM, is responsible for tracking hundreds of flights at a time and is considered a critical component of the FAA’s efforts to modernize the US airspace.

More recently, I heard that the DOGE or more precisely Elon is going to fix the old systems at FAA. See below. Note this is different from the system above: also current system is neither Verizon or Starlink.

(Twitter/X) The FAA is close to canceling a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon and HANDING IT OVER TO STARLINK.

(Politico) Musk slams a Starlink competitor amid questions about $2.4B FAA contract

(Rolling Stone) FAA Officials Ordered Staff to Find Funding for Elon Musk’s Starlink

Quote Rolling Stone here:

Elon Musk’s satellite business Starlink may not have officially taken over Verizon’s $2.4 billion contract with the Federal Aviation Administration yet to upgrade the systems it uses to manage America’s airspace. However, on Friday, FAA officials ordered staff to begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal, according to a source with knowledge of the FAA and two people briefed on the situation.

The sources note that these internal directives have mostly, if not entirely, been delivered verbally — which they say is unusual for a matter like this. The source with knowledge of the FAA tells Rolling Stone that it appears as though “someone does not want a paper trail.”

I can recall in a few other cases “verbal instructions only” are used, e.g., the dismantle of USAid, CFPB by the DOGE team.

And last but not the least, Protest held at South County Tesla dealership.

Full disclosure: no stock positions on $MSFT, $OKTA, $TSLA and $VZ at this time.

Categories
Life

Sad story Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa

Reading Time: 2 minutes

(Update 03-09-2025) LA Times – His wife dead, an ailing Gene Hackman was stranded alone in his house for days, authorities believe.

(Update 03-7-2025) Huff Post: Gene Hackman And Wife Betsy Arakawa’s Causes Of Death Released. It seems to me in other words: Mr. Hackman who is in his 90s and has dementia, appears not aware of his wife’s passing and lived one more week on his own after his wife (who is 30 years younger) died suddenly. 用中文来说，有老年痴呆症的老先生好像没有意识到比他的年轻30岁的日本裔太太已经突然去世。虽然平常是他的太太照顾他，他自己一个人生活了一个礼拜。不知道他这一个礼拜是怎么过来的。而且因为他们是非常有钱的人，房子，院子也是巨大无比，我估计邻居一是平常不一定有交流，而是不会很容易看到他们家有啥异样。最后还是打扫院子的工人透过玻璃（窗或是门）发现的。当然类似的事情美国以外也偶尔有发生。

Alzheimer’s Expert Suggests Caregiver Emergency Plans After Deaths of Gene Hackman and Wife Betsy (Exclusive)

(CNN via YT) Actor Gene Hackman and his wife found dead in their New Mexico home || The CNN YT Video showed a lot of Tom Cruise and my memory of Gene Hackman is this move The Quick and the Dead.

(People Mag) All About Gene Hackman’s Wife, Classical Pianist Betsy Arakawa, Who Died Alongside the Actor and Their Dog

Gene Hackman Wikipedia

(Huffington Post) Close Friends Of Gene Hackman, Betsy Arakawa Recall Family’s Last Conversation With Couple

Some of my thoughts

It sounds to me they committed suicide(s): but we will have to wait what the police has to say. Refer to CNN: Actor Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead in their home this week under ‘suspicious’ circumstances. Here’s what we know.

This also exposed one problem that’s hitting our modern society – and my dad (who lives in China) mentioned it in recent years too: that is the loneliness of elder/older people.

Also, I saw a unique problem in America: some people are dependent on, or more precisely, addicted to the prescription drugs and hard drugs such as Fentanyl. This is happening to people of all economy backgrounds: I recall Michael Jackson died from drug over-dose years ago.

For substance abuse, e.g., Fentanyl, Peter Santenello (YouTuber) has a good documentary Inside America’s #1 Epidemic. In St. Louis area in recent years, I saw increasingly some (homeless?) people asked for money at the busy intersections. I hope they are not on drugs. A related problem/issue I see (or I don’t understand) why the states are making cannabis (marijuana) legal in last few years – it seems both Dems and Republicans are supporting that.

References

(YT: Dr. Josef)10 MOST Dangerous Prescription Drugs

Categories
Politics Saint Louis

华人亚裔们如何在生活工作中避免川普2.0带来的一些弊端

Reading Time: < 1 minute

美国最近一个月，川普他胡汉山又回来了。他这一卷土重来，可谓是来者不善善者不来。基本上把联邦政府翻了底朝天。他最近半年来宠幸的世界首富马斯克，带着一帮美国红卫兵，直接关了两个机构（USAID和CFPB），裁了所有的试用期的联邦政府员工。同时所有的机构包括国防部都要裁员。对华人来说，在高校研究机构工作的人，有不少是拿联邦政府的grant, 一般是通过NIH（卫生部）和NSF（国家科学基金会）。她们中应该也/已有一些收到直接间接的影响。有点搞笑的是，其实华人中有不少是川粉，或者是投票给川普的选民。这下好，搬起石头，直接砸自己的脚。这个让我想到前两天看到一个博文下的两个有点意思的评论：

如果川普发动战争，让你儿子死在战场，川粉会说，如果没有川王保护，我们会全家覆灭。奴才永远没有清醒的能力；


川粉但凡有点思考能力就不会是川粉了。川粉醒悟不了，有个关于美国农民的新闻里说得挺好，被川虐待千百遍，仍待川普如初恋。

安全

我97年夏天来美国，经历过克林顿（三年多，小克第二任任期是从97年1月20日开始），小布什（8年），奥巴马（8年），川普 1.0（4年）， 拜登（4年），接下来不出意外川普2.0还有3年11个月。

其实我刚来美国的时候，我在罗拉 University of Missouri at Rolla (后来改名为 Missouri University of Science and Technology: 一般现在简称是 Missouri S&T). 罗拉是一个小镇，97年是美国发生9-11（2001年）之前，所以在那里当时总的来说我感觉并没有什么歧视。我现在想想，那时候没有感觉受到各种歧视，尤其是种族歧视。我猜主要还是因为我们那时就是穷学生，尤其从经济上来说，当地美国人心理上对我们其实是有优越感的。

Covid

I recall lots of unprovoked violence towards Asian and Chinese during pandemic, especially the early days (the shutdown phase). Note for many Americans (white, black and latinos), they cannot tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

这不，醉心村(Creve Coeur) 的高档超市 Dierbergs 上礼拜五就有人在打移民，嫌犯被警察给抓了 – Man arrested for ‘discriminatory’ grocery store attack in Creve Coeur。引用一下KSDK：

“I’m tired of foreigners, man. Walking all over the place, making our money cost so much more than it should. F—ing people trampling over us.”

这个应该就是在 Marshall’s, TJ Maxx 所在的购物广场，BJC West，醉心村 Millennium Park 的对面。我以前就住醉心村：醉心村是圣村/圣路易斯郡当中不错的居民区，也有不少移民，包括华人，印度人，其它亚裔等；犹太人也不少。

我也没啥好的建议：我想大家能低调还是低调吧。还有可以考虑练一下防卫术，美国尤其是密苏里不禁枪，所以。。。大家心里有数。实在忍无可忍的时候是要自卫的。

PS: actually, now I have read the KSDK article, and I recall I had a similar incident at the Busch stadium probably in year 2008. A white man said something racist to me, and I talked back. At that time, we didn’t have kids: just me and my wife. So, something to keep in mind, if you have small kids (hint: the safety of your kids is probably the most important).

Reference

Federal Shifts in Higher Ed: A Survival Guide for Academia Kindle Edition by Ruopeng An

西裔女童遭同学威胁向ICE检举“抓你全家” 轻生身亡 || School district confirms bullying occurred after investigation following Texas girl’s death by suicide (CNN) || After 11-Year-Old’s Suicide, School Confirms She Was Bullied — but Claims There’s More to the Story. Her Mom Denies It (People)

My point here is always pay attention to your kids’ mental health.

Categories
Software development

Two observations on software engineering

Reading Time: 3 minutes

For a guy with a hammer, everything is a nail

Use SQL for everything

At Mastercard, I used to have a colleague who is great at SQL. And once I realized he used PL/SQL for quite complex business logic for a “promotion build” and it backfired. The customer noticed there were some inconsistencies and notified us. Upon further examination from yours truly, it appears the code has some logic flaw. Note the flaws in the PL/SQL is hard to detect, compared to code/app written in a more general purpose programming language such as Java and following proper testing procedure. The cost of that mistake is we end up sent about $40 k to the business customer (a bank). I can understand why PL/SQL is being used there, because that’s the main skill my former colleague had, and in other words, he has this hammer (SQL), and he was using it at every place possible. A second reason is my manager was probably under pressure to deliver that functionality, and he probably was not willing to or getting help from the dev team: and I knew we have quite a few Java developers there, and some of them are pretty good.

Performance Testing went too far

This applies to performance testing (JMeter is a popular tool). When I worked at Ascension, my boss likes running performance testing via JMeter. Also at the time, we have an engineer who knows the tool. And once we ran performance testing without realizing that we sent emails in our testing, and our testing brought the company outlook server down to its knees 🙁 In hindsight, I felt this kind of testing is not really necessary. You can read some of the examples I listed in my blog post too. The lesson here again is: someone fell in love with the performance testing, or performance of the system. I am not saying it’s a bad thing, but the approach they were taking to me is very amateurish. And as you can read from my blog post, that’s one main factor a multi millions dollars project failed. Somehow the recent DOGE efforts in finding fraud and waste in the US government reminded me of that failed project.

Layoff to cut cost

Now Elon’s DOGE team seems got obsessed with cutting staff (hammer) in the federal government: which was first used during the Elon’s Twitter takeover. He is using that hammer again from his previous experience. In short term, if you cut staff, you may get some more productivity from the remaining staff, because the remaining people will be scared and have to work harder to make up the slack etc. But there will be longer term consequence. I don’t think it’s as straightforward as cutting staff at Twitter (X). But again Elon only knows hammer. He really doesn’t have other tools in his toolbox.

I am pretty sure this “hammer/nail” mentality applies to other fields as well. For example I saw quite a few Asian parents pushing kids to work harder (the main reason is those Asian parents mostly worked hard to get here), without realizing “work smarter” is actually way more important.

How to measure the productivity of software engineers

My short answer is you cannot. But for managers they cannot take this answer, especially at the places they have mandatory quota based layoffs, in America I recall Jack Welch is the one who started it: refer to Jack Welch: how he justified his famous ‘fire the bottom 10%” and Short-term profits and long-term consequences — did Jack Welch break capitalism?

And at Mastercard, in early 2019, yours truly was hit by that too. I was Lead Software Engineer at the team, but unfortunately I got into some “grunt” work, not necessarily code related, thus my GitHub stats was not great.

What are the grunt work? You may ask. And since you ask me: I would ask google. Here are the answers from Google’s Search Labs | AI Overview

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“Grunt work” in software development refers to the repetitive, often tedious, and basic tasks that are necessary to complete a project, like data entry, basic code cleaning, configuration management, or setting up initial infrastructure, essentially the foundational work that needs to be done before moving on to more complex features or design elements. Key points about “grunt work”:

Example of grunt work in software development:

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So my lesson learned from there, along with a similar lesson I learned from Ascension Health, is: coding more, and do less of the grunt work.

At least, when a manager who only cares about those stats come by (aka, someone like Elon Musk), I can point to the source code repository, and show her/him the stats.

In reality though, layoff is more than just the stats.

PS: came across this YT video – Aging Software Dev – Can You Still Compete After 40?

Categories
advice and tips Life Tips

Kids or younger folks used apparel shoes resell stores

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Not a complete list

Online

I am aware of eBay, Etsy, PoshMark. But I learned couple new ones.

Curtsy : our 14 year old (when she was still 13, but almost 14), bought a nike puffer jacket

Depop (wikipedia, just realized it’s a subsidiary under Etsy) – our 14 year old tries to sell her Lululemon shorts from Plato’s closet (too big)

Offline, brick-mortar

Plato’s Closet: seems heavily gear toward teen and 20 to 30 years old younger adults