Do you have to have passion to be a good coder?
Where are the passionate forklift drivers? (๑•﹏•.
Welcome to Remotely Interesting brought to you by Netlify.
People who were remotely interesting:There have been a lot of discussions online about passion and programming. We dig into working for money vs(?) working for passion, how passions have been weaponized, generational views, and forklift wallpaper (of course).
We also talk about the other sides of coding jobs and using them to follow other passions. How we can care too much about code and other coders (hero worship). Coming from a variety of starts, career paths, and passions, we hope we can share some of our insights on passion, coding work, and, again, forklifts.
SHOW NOTES:
TRANSCRIPT:
Cassidy Williams: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Remotely interesting.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:02] This is remotely interesting.
Divya Tagtachian: [00:00:05] That seems a little presumptuous.
Sarah Drasner: [00:00:07] That's the name on the show?
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:00:18] So we have a few things on the agenda. and like one kind of starts from the question of does your number one, passion has to be coding to be a good coder and broke it down into is there such thing as too much coding? And can you care too much about your code? The answer is.
Cassidy Williams: [00:00:39] Hey, I think that you don't have to be a passionate coder to be a good coder, an engineer, and employed in this industry.
And I think that's a very common misconception and it's dumb because some of the, okay, it's not
Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:59] for you. I thought I would get the first interruption in early. What would, what does it, what do you mean by passionate though? Because you have to at least have some interest in it. Sure.
But I
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:01:12] think there's like excitement. There's passion. There's lots of different adjectives to describe different ways about coding. I think the biggest scary part would be saying that The only way you can be a good coder is if you just purely have a passion for coding. So those kinds of restrictions.
Cassidy Williams: [00:01:30] Yeah. Cause I, I do know some people where they say I am totally in this industry for the paycheck. I honestly don't care about my work. I just have to get it done. So that way I can pay my rent.
Sarah Drasner: [00:01:41] I think that even like the debate is a very Twitter phenomenon, Because I. was it dark matter?
Quote, unquote developer for sure. A very long time before. Jack was for a very long time. and, I started because I didn't have any money and I needed. To make money. And I think that's how a lot of people start and whether or not you stay at that level of enthusiasm for your job, probably waxes and wanes over your career.
Like I started a hundred percent because I was like, I need cash now. and then at some points I really was like, Oh, I'm having a really great time with this, but that's not like. Required. It wasn't a requirement of what I did. And in fact, I wasn't always working the most when I had the most passion or vice versa.
there were times when I was feeling very passionate, I was spending a lot of time learning stuff and wasn't coding as much or something. And then there were times where I was like pedal to the metal, doing a crown ton of things and just doing them because I needed to support myself for other people.
So I don't, they're not really that related. And I think people who aren't on Twitter problem bully, aren't having that conversation with themselves. I just can't help.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:02:48] But imagine that imagining you trudging along coding with a bowl of ramen in front of you, and then all of a sudden, like few years down the line, you have a fur coat,
Sarah Drasner: [00:02:57] like coat
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:02:58] platinum diamonds in a foot bath, and you're like,
Sarah Drasner: [00:03:00] I'm enjoying coding now.
It's . Let's do a fancy ramen though. Yeah.
that's actually exactly what I was picturing without a name. Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: [00:03:19] There was a microwave in step one and now it's got an egg green onions and vegetables.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:03:26] I do think this debate happens outside of Twitter. but I think it falls out of there's a lot of content. That's not programming related that talks about what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
And they're there the self-help category of books that talk about finding your passion or finding the thing that drives you and trying to make money out of that. And I like, I do think that's a useful way to operate, but I think where it is, it seems to get weaponized because if you are working as an individual, And you're like, I really like to do a thing. I would love it. If the thing that I like was also the thing that paid my bills. And sometimes you can line that up. I like to build silly things for the internet. Somehow I've been able to turn that into a career. Excellent. I'm really happy about that, but If you're, if your passion is to like, make things with your hands or you're really into cooking, but you don't want to run a kitchen.
Like maybe you shouldn't do your passion, you should have a job that enables you to do your path. and I think the problem is that we flip it. And it gets, it gets weaponized by companies where they're basically like I'm only gonna hire somebody who's super passionate about this because we want them to put in all these, this extra effort and do Blake care about the company, like it's their own.
And it feels almost like a, it feels like dirty at that point where somebody is basically saying we want to pay you like a regular employee, but we want you to work like a founder. And I think that's where the that's where it starts to make me uncomfortable.
Cassidy Williams: [00:04:54] Yeah. I've noticed that too.
I've mentored some students and stuff. And it's really interesting how that has permeated, like the gen Z zoomers too, where I was talking with someone recently and she was saying. Yeah. I've been talking with my classmates because I liked the idea of being able to afford being able to go to musicals all the time, because I love musicals.
But the only way if I can do that is to take on a career that I don't really care about that will pay the bills. And I was like, that's totally fine. that's allowed like what you just said, Jason, like it enables your hobby and your passions. And she was saying that. Her peers are very much just like you're doing society a disservice.
If you don't pursue your passions and bring your whole self to the world in your work. And I was like, that's how any of this works? Yeah. And she was saying that it's not just like a certain friend group that's like that. It's. Everyone she knows of her generation of students. And I hope that's not something that they're teaching the kids, but somehow that's getting that message is getting across.
Sarah Drasner: [00:05:56] It's not like it,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:05:57] this is the kind of thing in every industry and every, you wouldn't expect well, Okay. You're interviewing for a job, driving a forklift truck. We hope that you really passionate about forklift trucks and you drive on at home in your own time because you want to better yourself in your loading.
Sarah Drasner: [00:06:15] You're welcome for
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:06:16] person. Better be forklifts.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:06:19] No doubt, but it just doesn't translate to every. Every industry or every role. And for some reason, we I dunno, we fetishized it a little bit, I think, in the development world, because I don't know, maybe it's partly to do with the fact that we do hang out a little bit on social media and we communicate on social media and you can fall into that trap of comparing your real life to someone's highlight reel, which is the kind of common thing that happens on Instagram and Twitter, where, You don't post the stuff about, banging your head against the wall, trying to fix a bug that you can't do for 20 hours off the top of my head as an example, No, you
Jason Lengstorf: [00:06:54] never happened to me. People are.
Sarah Drasner: [00:06:56] So
Phil Hawksworth: [00:06:56] people took her out. Yeah. they promote the good stuff and it's easy to let that just get separated from reality a little bit and compare yourself to that. And. I don't know. I don't think it's particularly healthy. enthusiasm is healthy, but making it like this has to be the fundamental thing that is about your, is your identity.
That doesn't, that can't be a hundred percent healthy.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:07:16] I think it's the money too. I think because it's good money that you have to be able to, people want you to answer the moral question along with it. yeah, you have the option to make a lot of money, but are you doing it? and following.
With your tenants, and it's, I think it's just an easy target to be like, Oh yeah, you can make a lot of money. That's why you're doing it. You have no soul. It's that's harsh.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:07:43] I think a counter argument to that is like the way that people tell you to determine what you should do for the rest of your life is to imagine that you've you never have to think about money.
What would you do if you had unlimited funds and you could do whatever you wanted. And if your answer, like they say that how you should choose your job. But if your answer is I would hang out with my pets and go on long vacations and take a road trip around country. that's most likely not a job, but if you work in tech, you make enough money that you can bankroll that.
And you can have long weekends and hang out with your family and your pets, and then take those road trips, like working in tech because it pays so well, can be. The way that you like, that's your lottery ticket that enables you to live the life that you want to live? I don't think that we should stigmatize somebody who like has a goal and sees tech as a way to get them to that goal and not be goal in
Cassidy Williams: [00:08:34] itself.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:08:35] Let alone the freedom of doing remote work. Like I was able to do. I was just talking before this podcast about the camper trip that I took from Ohio and then all the way up the West coast, I did that because I was doing a toxin meetups all along the way and coding on projects along the way. So I could stop in a forest and do some coding and work on a project.
there's a lot of really awesome privileges that you can have. In the world of coding as well.
Sarah Drasner: [00:09:01] Cassidy had brought up a really good example of somebody who, of like the anti-pattern that comes up. If you only do things for passion too.
Cassidy Williams: [00:09:11] Yeah, there's this person that I knew.
And I'm going to be speaking in very vague terms, were responding to a code review, completely freaked out because their code was their religion. And if you insult their code, that's insulting their beliefs. they were, so they, I couldn't handle any sort of criticism because they attach their identity to their code.
And similarly, there's a lot of There's a lot of, kind of hero worship in the tech community too. I think, and people are just like, Oh, I want to be a developer like them. And I think in a way the industry encourages it. Even if it's not about an individual, how many of us are wearing a tech t-shirt right now?
Because we're, we brand ourselves with tech things. And we're just like, I'm attaching myself to this product. Cause I work on it. I use it. And sometimes it's just a tee shirt, but it's still something that has been encouraged in the industry. And that can lead to toxic behaviors.
Sarah Drasner: [00:10:12] I mean that, just to Phil's point earlier, I don't think with forklift driver and I could be wrong, but there might not be.
Famous forklift drivers like this kind of concept of you need to be like X person or X company. And I obviously don't know very much about the forklift.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:10:30] I'll send you some YouTube links. You're going to have that.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:10:33] I used to drive a forklift. So if anybody needs someone to look up tail. I'm very short, but just,
Sarah Drasner: [00:10:39] otherwise
Cassidy Williams: [00:10:40] you did it.
Of course I'm
Sarah Drasner: [00:10:41] still taller than me. So I'm still
Jason Lengstorf: [00:10:45] someday I look forward to the like biopic on Tara, because every time that I talked to her, there's another story that I'm like, wait, you also did that
Phil Hawksworth: [00:10:57] to the point that we're even not certain. If she's joking about the forklift
Cassidy Williams: [00:11:03] figures,
Jason Lengstorf: [00:11:06] a hundred percent.
Convinced that she has driven a forklift. I'm good at
Phil Hawksworth: [00:11:10] it. She's nodding.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:11:12] What's interesting is that this happens in certain career paths than doesn't in others. Like there are celebrity chefs, there are people who are like, fashion icons and things like that. And so for whatever reason, like in certain fields, that culture of like their, passion and going above and beyond, and it turns into a, like a little bit of a hero worship culture.
and I don't really know where it comes from, but I talk to you on a Mac has a T shirt actually that I love that says hero, worship, kills community. and I'm like, I'll make sure that we put a link to that in the show notes. But I really liked that. Just encapsulating that thought like that because, the thing that's weird about it, is if you walk into a room and you see somebody that you've heard of before and you treat them weird, But you're like, Oh my God, I've heard of you before.
As opposed to just being like, Hey, we both work on the same things. Like it instantly does that conversation and you're not like, You're not like talking to a person anymore. You're like meeting depending on what side of this you're on, you're meeting a fan or you're meeting a hero and that's a really weird conversation.
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:15] your dynamic
Sarah Drasner: [00:12:16] totally. But counterpoint to that in parks and rec, when Ron Swanson goes to the woods, goes to this like one convention and he's There's that guy and they're like, go talk to him. And he's I couldn't possibly he's swarmed with people. It's just like a guy standing alone, like drinking
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:32] coffee.
Sarah Drasner: [00:12:35] It's like con tech conference.
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:39] And even yesterday, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit, Sarah, like someone I know on discord. Made an awkward joke and tweeted Sarah. And she replied here and he
Sarah Drasner: [00:12:51] started
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:52] posting in this discourse saying, Oh my gosh, Sarah Drasner replied to me. I'm famous. Now this is insane.
And I was like, you got to stop. she's just a person.
Sarah Drasner: [00:13:01] You should have been
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:13:01] like, she was on her Peloton window. She
Cassidy Williams: [00:13:06] you're probably doing something lame when she replied. Yeah, no. and the, sorry, Sarah, I didn't
Sarah Drasner: [00:13:12] remember. But earlier that day I was telling Cassidy that I have bathroom issues on
he's really? It's not that big of a
Cassidy Williams: [00:13:22] deal. Yeah. And that's something that. I feel like I'm constantly having to nip it. But, both around other people. I know. and around like my own Twitter thing, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but just as people who are prevalent on the internet, people are just like, wow, I can't believe I'm talking to you.
And I'm just like the, these people are just people. Who happened to tweet a lot.
Sarah Drasner: [00:13:45] It also does seem like the platform. And I think the hero worship Kilz community is a really good way of framing it too, because when you're talking about like everyone being a group, Putting one person above other people make damages the whole thing, but it also no one on a pedestal is going to ever live up to anyone's expectations.
everyone who's a person is going to be a person. And so there's a lot of unhealthy habits that come into that. And there's some balance there because there are people I look up to in the industry as Oh, they're really good at X. And I would like to learn from them. And I think so there's there are people whose.
I think there's like acknowledging that some people have traits that we're like, Oh, I would love to get better at it if that skill, and I'm probably gonna, watch what they're doing. They're like, speaking for myself, I worked with Chris Coyier for you years on CSS tricks. And he does, he has such a wonderful ability to break things down to core concepts and explain them really well in a really.
Friendly way, but that also is shepherding community, right? that he, instead of trying to elevate himself and make himself sound smarter, he always makes you feel after you've read the article, Oh, that wasn't so bad. And I got it that acknowledging that he does that. I'm not like, Chris choir, the buzzard, everybody likes screw
there's. I think there. We're not so good at nuance on Twitter sometimes where we put things into all or nothing categories. Cause now I'm also seeing this like passion thing turned into you can't have passion and it's like, Whoa, like you can like not, yeah. Maybe it's not all or nothing for these things.
And that we can't, it's not that saying that someone is good at something, can't be the same as this fever pitch. Like you are a hero, whatever mentality it. It has to be a little bit of both of understanding that someone can be okay at what they do and you don't tear us up. Cause the counter of that is like tearing people down and stuff.
I don't want to do that. There's a way that we can all elevate each other and make it a little bit more welcoming to everybody where there's not so many traps. What I'm worried about is that there's traps here and there. For different things and that people can get anxiety. Like I mentored someone, a little bit ago who was saying that they were.
Really worried because they were like, I'm studying really hard to become a developer. And people have told me, I can't study after hours. I'm like, you can, if you want to, if that sir, like they were starting to feel super guilty and it's not, they shouldn't feel put upon to do that, but they shouldn't feel guilty either.
And so I worry that we get interviews, like things where we start to gate, keep each side in. I don't know, there's a little bit more to the company.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:16:32] I agree. And I think that the other thing that's interesting too, is that we talk about them as if they're constant States. Like I've had periods of my life where I felt very passionate about a thing, and I'm like excited about it.
I want to learn. And so I do some weekend projects. I work, some late nights and then I've had long stretches where that's the last thing on earth that I want to do. And I, I will work. 35 hours and that's when I'm like, no I'm done. I just, yeah. and I think that we're going to oscillate in our careers.
We're going to have like moments where we really want to put the pedal to the floor and do a bunch of stuff and get a big project on, or do a big push to learn a thing. And then we're going to have times when we just want to do the job and live our lives outside of the work.
exactly.
But that's such an important thing that we lose in some of the absolutest conversation that happens where it's like, we're not talking about people, we're talking about qualities and then you like people try to fit themselves inside of a quality instead of the other way around.
Sarah Drasner: [00:17:30] Yeah. That's what I meant by the ebb and flow state earlier. I think you explained it much better, but like that there it's not like one thing or the other and it probably never will be for any humans are capable of all sorts of thoughts and feelings and different thoughts and feelings through time.
And I guess I worry about that about not even this conversation, but just some of the discourse in. Some of our discourse in general becomes very like towards one thing or another.
Cassidy Williams: [00:18:00] And I think,
Sarah Drasner: [00:18:01] go ahead.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:18:01] Oh, thanks.
Cassidy Williams: [00:18:05] you owe me a soda.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:18:11] I was just going to say real quick that especially with people on this team, we all have. Such different things that we like to do to relax. they're not all code, like Phil likes to eat charcuterie in a hot tub. And then, Sarah likes to animate and make sure like Coda on the side.
So it's sometimes you. I let both of you speak to your likes and dislikes if you like,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:18:31] but I don't think I've got anything to add really to that.
Sarah Drasner: [00:18:35] can I like eating structure DRI in the hot tub? Just
Phil Hawksworth: [00:18:37] not my thing.
Sarah Drasner: [00:18:38] I just don't.
you can't keep warm meat.
Cassidy Williams: [00:19:00] this conversation was going now.
so I think all this talk of ebb and flow and stuff. this could sound very wise, even though it's probably dumb. I think a lot of developers, they think in extremes because our code is ones and zeros. A lot of our career is in these, this is binary. This is how this thing should work.
And that's just not how humans work. And I think when you see people being successful in doing all of these awesome things, or even expressing passion, if even if they don't. Have it all the time. You start to compare yourself to that and then start figuring out, okay, do I want to be a part of that or demonize it and did you don't have to do either.
And there's a Mark Twain quote comparison is the death of joy. And I think that's something that you really have to remember and take to heart, because if you want to be successful in something, then you will work towards it and you can't rely on the passions and. Successes and failures of other people to guide what you're doing.
And so you, shouldn't also guide how you speak about people and all of these extremes based on what other people are doing to pursue their careers and passions.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:20:18] It's so funny that you say that like with code being ones and zeros and. I agree with you. I think that the belief that code is like true or false can lead to thinking that life is true or false, but I feel like I've been going the other way.
as I've been, I'm getting older, I'm not sure if I'm getting wiser, but I'm getting better at not making myself miserable. And I think all of it has just been this long slow climb toward realizing why the answer that you always get from senior devs is it depends. And I think that's true in my life.
That's true in my code. It's true in everything you have to think about, what am I optimizing for? What do I care about right now? What's the thing that I actually want to get out of this? what are we trying to accomplish? Not just is this right or wrong?
Sarah Drasner: [00:21:02] Yeah. I would even go so far as to make an analogy to application development in that when you're dealing with the UI state, people who are starting out, typically express it in booleans like.
Is submitted. Is that right? And actually when you express it in strings, you start to extend it a little bit better in the code gets less brittle because you're not, you're then able to say a myriad of States because otherwise what. What I've seen in growing applications is that if you express everything in Williams, you end up with these checks that are like, and this or this and this, and it gets really long and complicated.
Whereas then otherwise you're able to say in one statement, okay, it's been submitted AMS. This hasn't happened yet, or something like that. And it becomes much more flexible. So it's a good analogy in a way to like how. We're thinking about these things like over time at first, it's Oh, this is so clean.
I'll just express it as this or this. But then over time to see that's not actually clean because it doesn't, allow you to. Take in all of the possibilities.
Cassidy Williams: [00:22:05] I think today's lesson is, life is not a bullying.
Sarah Drasner: [00:22:07] It's an email.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:14] I feel like there's a lot of, especially with meditation stuff, you talk about like conscious living, conscious eating. And so like with conscious eating, it's okay, when you start your meal, are you hungry? Are you feeling hungry? Are you just sitting there and eat? halfway through your meal, are you eating really fast?
Are you still hungry? Are are you happy with what you're eating? It's if we did that with coding, like one, we would probably learn to go to the bathroom much more frequent than
Sarah Drasner: [00:22:41] do I paint myself. One of
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:45] those things where it's you're coding. And you're like,
Sarah Drasner: [00:22:47] I've had a pee for two hours
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:48] now, but it's also Hey, I'm coding and I'm really excited.
And I'm really happy with the progress I'm making. This feels great. then keep going, you're asking yourself, you're checking against yourself about what you're doing. And I think that's probably a healthier way to maybe do it. And if we were just like, I've been banging my head against the wall for 20 hours, cause my name's Phil, then, get up and eat some show.
Cool.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:23:15] So this isn't an admission of anything, but when you just mentioned, there's a very, just in time approach to going to the bathroom, have you ever been so engrossed in making something and just I'm just going to do this one last one next bit. I'm just gonna solve this one next bit.
Have you ever got to the point that you've actually stood up to go to the bathroom, but you're still leaning down at your desk and typing and like your legs and started walking towards the bathroom, but you're like, I'm just okay. People can't hear this, but there are people nodding on this call. I just want, it's not just me.
Sarah Drasner: [00:23:45] The record
Cassidy Williams: [00:23:46] show. Everyone is nodding.
Sarah Drasner: [00:23:49] Everyone agrees with me. They're not saying I'm
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:23:51] weird or anything.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:23:54] So another. when, Sarah and Jason were both talking about kind of the ebb and flow and it's not a, it's not a sustained level of interest or engagement all the time. And those kinds of things.
One of the things that I feel is also contributed to that for me, at least. And I feel like this is probably a common thing in our sphere is that, many of us are fortunate enough that. To be doing something for a living that we've enjoyed outside of that, we've enjoyed kind of making stuff with code or, building a thing.
And it's almost I've heard people talk about, Oh great. Now the thing that was my hobby is now my job. I don't know if I'd quite go to that extent, but certainly the thing that interested me outside of my work became the thing that I was doing. And that's, that feels like an absolute blessing because Oh, now I get.
Pay to do the thing that is my hobby, but the flip side to that is that, now your hobby is your job. And it is sometimes really hard to understand where the line is between the two. And I definitely have caught myself in the past in other roles where I've been working throughout the day. And then in the evening kind of sitting on the sofa, the TV has been on.
And then on the arm of the sofa, my laptop's been there and I've been doing. Doing stuff still because, Oh, this is still just my hobby. And it, I feel like that's a really, it can be a sticky trap to fall into if you're not careful because you end up you'll your hobby now is your job. And it just grows into something where you don't have that pallet chain, that pallet cleanser, you don't have that change of tempo if you're not careful.
I gotta go out and find new hobbies. And that's what a wonderful problem to have, but I think it's a, it can be a trap you fall into where your energy levels are. Just all your attention levels. They're just sustained the whole time because you never change 10 track
Jason Lengstorf: [00:25:33] hobbies, not jobbies.
Sarah Drasner: [00:25:36] Yeah. Especially like with Corrine team, I think it gets really squishy, right? because you're not, or even if you're just remote working in general, because you don't have that cutoff period the same way. And I think a number of us have even talked about not on this podcast about how. Like people aren't signing off the same way and we have to make better async hygiene to remind ourselves to not respond.
Cause man, like it's tough because you're. The things that you used to do outside of work, where you'd like, stop, go to a bar or restaurant and see people are different now. And even if you like your coworkers, like maybe you're chatting with them. And then a work thing comes up or something like it, it becomes tougher.
I think for people who work remotely during quarantine to have that stopping point, then it takes actually like you, having. Like thinking about it and being cognizant about it, where before you just leave your job and you'd go. Yeah,
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:26:38] let me, so one of my best friends works in an architecture firm and architects in particular
Cassidy Williams: [00:26:44] have really.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:26:45] Not that great work time, or like the management of how long they're working and to try to give them more or free time, the office manager was like, okay, let's try just instead of taking Saturday and Sunday off, just pick whichever two days out of the week, work best for you. So if you want to go to the beach on a Tuesday and Wednesday, you do that.
But that doesn't work because you're on a team. So without people taking the same days, someone's still going to be paying somebody's still going to be waiting for somebody. So it was like having to have that organization across remote teams that will, a lot of us are doing now. It's just, it's not easy.
Cassidy Williams: [00:27:24] It's like those companies that have unlimited vacation, but it's. Quote unquote, unlimited vacation and then it nobody taking vacation. Yeah. Like I think a good term should be like unlimited vacation with a minimum of, and then that kind of forces people to do it because yeah. Otherwise people will tend to overwork and just never take their weekends.
like your architecture
Sarah Drasner: [00:27:47] friend.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:27:48] I have a proposal. She has, we are at, at the time Mark that we talk each same. One thing that sparks joy for us about coding. And one thing that's frustrating for us that is anything but coding
Jason Lengstorf: [00:28:06] on the spot.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:09] Don't
Jason Lengstorf: [00:28:09] mess this
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:10] up.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:11] Okay. Easy. It's just such an easy thing to think about. I could.
Sarah Drasner: [00:28:16] Think of many
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:17] things that do this. For me when I think about it.
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:22] okay.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:23] So I just
Phil Hawksworth: [00:28:24] quality stalling going on answering your own question and you still have to do that. Ridiculous.
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:32] Just start a sentence.
And I just keep talking until I find the end of
Phil Hawksworth: [00:28:35] it. The sentence will justify the fact that I've started it
Sarah Drasner: [00:28:39] or to keep going with the parks and rec happily.
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:45] to say this sentence, that
Sarah Drasner: [00:28:47] passion is this true in the dictionary is defined as.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:53] so I like, there are two things that actually happened to me last week, but I'm just gonna put it down to one.
And, I have spent so much time lately in front end that I forgot how. Satisfying. It can be to set up infrastructure and have a pink come through correctly, like hitting a database, having the information come back correctly, that you set up all the infrastructure yourself. And as it, cause there's not really much, like you don't have a front end change that happens.
It's just like bits working out behind the scenes and something happens and it works right. And it's just Oh, such a good feeling. I love that so much. and then non coding. obviously my child is like the best child ever of all children ever, that I've made.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:29:43] So
Sarah Drasner: [00:29:48] so that is
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:29:48] one of those things. Like I was just on CASPI. He woke up at two in the morning last night, but I still really liked him.
Sarah Drasner: [00:29:55] Yeah,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:30:00] he's fine. It was that your answer is
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:30:05] those are brilliant answers. So obviously that's my answer.
Sarah Drasner: [00:30:10] Okay. Okay.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:30:13] I can go. Now I go on Jason
Jason Lengstorf: [00:30:15] in code. I've been really enjoying, setting up like the interplay between, Jamstack front ends and e-commerce, so I've been doing a lot of work with Stripe lately and setting up like different subscriptions and things.
And I keep playing with ways to do that. Like I launched a sticker store on my website and I'm putting together a, like a fun subscription thing with my friend Christmas Gardy and, and it's, that's been just a blast. Like it's really fun to see how approachable that's become, especially compared to 10, 15 years ago, when you would try to take a credit card online.
And then in my personal life, we've started learning how to make our own pasta. And it has been good for everything, except my waistline. Like I am eating so much.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:31:00] I bet your waistline is very happy.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:31:02] yeah,
Sarah Drasner: [00:31:03] it's
Jason Lengstorf: [00:31:03] a, it's really just like spreading out, getting comfortable.
Cassidy Williams: [00:31:08] Do a set up before you eat, you'll be good.
Oh, go next. I really like refactoring. Like I love going into a code base and being just like, this is gross, but I know how to fix it. And then just like making it beautiful, shiny, and new. And then when you make that PR and it's mostly red because you deleted so much, I just, that feels so good. I'm just like, I destroyed this and made it better.
It reminds me of an, I was going to talk about like crafting and stuff next, like a wood plainer, how you like scrape on that. And all of a sudden, all the joints and everything are just beautiful. It's like that. But with code, I just think that's so fun. So the thing that's non code, I really like just.
Making things like my monitor standards in front of me is something that I made and I liked building keyboards and I have a laser cutter in my garage where I make stuff. And sometimes it's dumb and useless, but it's something that I've made. And I think it's so fun to just make something physical that you can.
Give to someone or just look at and be like, ah,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:15] I'm miffed that you took the refactoring thing. Cause that's, that was up there for me as well.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:32:20] I'll only one of you can enjoy things.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:22] I think you should just say it as if she didn't say it.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:25] Oh yeah. Yeah, I ignored it or I'll say it. I'll say it, but I'll say it better in fewer words, we factor it.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:34] Not that you can't believe. No one has Mitch. Oh,
Cassidy Williams: [00:32:36] good.
Sarah Drasner: [00:32:38] That was good.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:39] Thank
Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:39] you. Oh, thank you. okay. But, so I'll do a different one. I really like, and this sounds terribly dull, but I really like making something, work in code that I didn't know how to do. And I've. Gone off and I've found the documentation.
I've read it. I've tried it. And it works. It makes me feel like a genius, even though what I'm doing is I'm following someone's instructions, but there's something incredibly gratifying about starting approach, starting a task where he's I don't know, I don't know how to do this. and then finding the thing that will teach you how to do it, learning from it.
Executing that bit of code and seeing a result, even if it's just a tick in a box or, some okay. Message. Yeah. Hello world is very gratifying. particularly for something you didn't know how to do before you feel like you've Being enriched a little bit. So I like that. and for
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:33:29] one that's not done
Jason Lengstorf: [00:33:30] good.
That feeling is the whole premise for learning that Jason
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:33:34] like our jobs
Cassidy Williams: [00:33:36] or careers.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:33:40] Okay, good. I feel I'm feeling better about that choice. That's good. Okay.
Cassidy Williams: [00:33:44] Feeling good now. So get ready.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:33:46] Okay. yeah. and, things outside of work. So I don't think anything makes me happier than giggling with friends. If I'm honest, get like giggling to the point that you can't breathe and it hurts.
And your like, it's a problem is a problem because you go and then you just get the giggles and it's just like the. The virtual circle, the vicious circle. And it's okay, now, if someone was saying something that's no longer funny, but it's just a trigger. I love getting into that state with friends.
Yeah. And that's a, that's the only thing that's not a very productive or creative thing that I'm describing, but that a lot of
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:34:20] calories yeah. It would help with just Jason's pasta making.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:34:25] Yeah. If I was doing that instead of making pasta, I might have a six pack by now.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:28] That's why I'm in such fantastic shape.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:34:33] Sorry that wasn't sorry.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:34] Yeah, the laughter was noted. Yeah. Thank you.
Cassidy Williams: [00:34:36] It's especially fun when you're, when you get those bouts, like in a meeting that's really important or something, and it's not supposed to be fun. You're supposed to be paying attention, but when you're just like funny and you just can't hold it in, I love that.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:51] Sometimes there's a bit of back channel action in meetings. I haven't seen that happens a little bit in LFI, but not as much to other places where we not in our meetings. Cause we're. Fiercely professional.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:35:04] Oh, wait. Yes,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:35:05] I have been, I've been in other organizations where, sometimes there'll be like a few little back channel comments that are just designed to try and make you like, lose your cool and crack up.
I'm very grateful that we've risen above that here.
Sarah Drasner: [00:35:20] It was a meeting. I was on recently where this was in this group, but two members of another group were telling me that they were just mimicking someone else in the meeting. And once you noticed it was very subtle, but once you noticed, like it's impossible to stop laughing you.
Cassidy Williams: [00:35:41] One of my favorite meetups I went to was. We a friend of ours was speaking and we had a big group of people were just like, we're going to watch this person speak. And they kept saying the phrase button and I was just waiting for them to say button. and so then there was a point where I just text everyone in the group.
I was just like, blue button is a button and just. Then they set it at one point and it was just the perfect moment. Must be just like, Oh my
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:05] gosh.
Cassidy Williams: [00:36:06] And we're all just like trying to hold our breath. And people were like tearing and people's faces were red and we were just like this isn't funny, but
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:14] it's
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:36:15] and humor too.
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:16] I'd love to
Cassidy Williams: [00:36:17] just dump so stupid. It was hilarious. And I just, I love that. That was a good one, Phil. Wow. Two for two. Yeah.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:36:28] Good. Good. Good luck, Sarah. Follow that up.
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:37] so I just fell, took Cassidy's I'm going to take terrorists too. so I've been setting things up where you set something up with dynamo DB, and then you, then you. allow an API to use it through Lambda and API gateway. Yes. And there's a good amount of steps involved in. So like when I finally, I used insomnia, I moved over from post-meal twist insomnia a little while ago.
And when I. Actually put it into insomnia and it gives me the thing that I want back after all of those steps, I always am just like, did Steve?
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:37:13] Totally no joke. Literally dancing
Sarah Drasner: [00:37:15] happens. Yeah. such an amazing feeling. and then on the other side, I think a lot of people who know me would assume that I would say drawing because I really like drawing and I do it on my, in my spare time. However, drawing is similar to coding where it takes a lot out of me.
Like I have to think a lot while I'm doing it. I think people think you just sit down and you like fart things out and it. Whatever, but
Cassidy Williams: [00:37:43] things out, but a different way.
Sarah Drasner: [00:37:46] That's what I'm using charcoal. It's more art theory than art. but, It, it takes a lot out of me in a way.
That's not like super letting go. And so I would say like in the super letting go category, I got a karaoke microphone for my stepdaughter's birthday seven. when we first it was her birthday was in February. So it was like right as quarantine was hitting. And so we've been doing these dance parties late at night before they go to bed.
And it is the funniest thing. There's three children and me. Jumping on the bed, in the dark with a karaoke microphone for 20 minutes until disease, Oh my God, that's enough. Hello. It's not the
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:38:27] lighting set up too, right?
Sarah Drasner: [00:38:29] Oh yeah, that's right. I also got her this, you can get one on Amazon for $7 or like other places you don't have to go to Amazon.
There's a little light and then a little thing around it and it spins and it disco project. It like a gender. It's like a little dome and it projects, stars and different colors around the room. They're super cheaply made, but yeah, the effect is like this, dude, so we put that on and then dance, but also my stepdaughter is making more and more rules.
The longer we do this. So like now it's very complicated. They did like parts of the room or a lava. This person has to be holding this prop. Like only these people are allowed on the bed during the day, the song
that has become actually like really one of the, most let go of things that we in, let go is actually a really good way of describing. Cause we use that song quite frequently from frozen
Cassidy Williams: [00:39:26] great song to belt. Do it, do any of you have a, playlist of just pump up songs for coding or do you have just strictly, I need to focus.
Sarah Drasner: [00:39:35] Yeah. I have an open store. I opened sourced one a while ago or open source, but I put it on Twitter a while ago. This like coding playlist I use
Cassidy Williams: [00:39:43] because I have a focusing playlist, but I also have a, I am getting to the end of this. I am pumped. I'm going to dance type of playlist where it's just People belting on Broadway and stuff.
And I'm just like, yeah. I'm like them as like code and it's great.
Sarah Drasner: [00:39:57] Oh, that's amazing. I don't have one of those.
Cassidy Williams: [00:40:01] It is. It is great.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:40:03] I have a playlist that I call the ultimate party playlist. That is actually just, it's every song that I can remember from like high school until now that is a song that when you hear it, you immediately grown and then you dance and sing along.
So it's Nelly, Flo rider and biz Markie and like stuff that you're like, you're going to hear it and, Ugh. And then you're going to just go, okay, fine. I'll dance. And then by the end, you're like, yeah, like
Cassidy Williams: [00:40:31] the best.
I hope you found this remotely. Interesting.
Sarah Drasner: [00:40:38] This has been Jason
Jason Lengstorf: [00:40:40] Cassidy, Tara,
Sarah Drasner: [00:40:41] Sarah, and Phil from the net with I-Team wishing
Phil Hawksworth: [00:40:46] you.
People who were remotely interesting:There have been a lot of discussions online about passion and programming. We dig into working for money vs(?) working for passion, how passions have been weaponized, generational views, and forklift wallpaper (of course).
We also talk about the other sides of coding jobs and using them to follow other passions. How we can care too much about code and other coders (hero worship). Coming from a variety of starts, career paths, and passions, we hope we can share some of our insights on passion, coding work, and, again, forklifts.
SHOW NOTES:
- Tatiana Mac's Hero Worship Kills Community Shirt: https://styledotcss.com/collections/tees/products/hero-worship-kills-community-tee
TRANSCRIPT:
Cassidy Williams: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Remotely interesting.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:02] This is remotely interesting.
Divya Tagtachian: [00:00:05] That seems a little presumptuous.
Sarah Drasner: [00:00:07] That's the name on the show?
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:00:18] So we have a few things on the agenda. and like one kind of starts from the question of does your number one, passion has to be coding to be a good coder and broke it down into is there such thing as too much coding? And can you care too much about your code? The answer is.
Cassidy Williams: [00:00:39] Hey, I think that you don't have to be a passionate coder to be a good coder, an engineer, and employed in this industry.
And I think that's a very common misconception and it's dumb because some of the, okay, it's not
Phil Hawksworth: [00:00:59] for you. I thought I would get the first interruption in early. What would, what does it, what do you mean by passionate though? Because you have to at least have some interest in it. Sure.
But I
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:01:12] think there's like excitement. There's passion. There's lots of different adjectives to describe different ways about coding. I think the biggest scary part would be saying that The only way you can be a good coder is if you just purely have a passion for coding. So those kinds of restrictions.
Cassidy Williams: [00:01:30] Yeah. Cause I, I do know some people where they say I am totally in this industry for the paycheck. I honestly don't care about my work. I just have to get it done. So that way I can pay my rent.
Sarah Drasner: [00:01:41] I think that even like the debate is a very Twitter phenomenon, Because I. was it dark matter?
Quote, unquote developer for sure. A very long time before. Jack was for a very long time. and, I started because I didn't have any money and I needed. To make money. And I think that's how a lot of people start and whether or not you stay at that level of enthusiasm for your job, probably waxes and wanes over your career.
Like I started a hundred percent because I was like, I need cash now. and then at some points I really was like, Oh, I'm having a really great time with this, but that's not like. Required. It wasn't a requirement of what I did. And in fact, I wasn't always working the most when I had the most passion or vice versa.
there were times when I was feeling very passionate, I was spending a lot of time learning stuff and wasn't coding as much or something. And then there were times where I was like pedal to the metal, doing a crown ton of things and just doing them because I needed to support myself for other people.
So I don't, they're not really that related. And I think people who aren't on Twitter problem bully, aren't having that conversation with themselves. I just can't help.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:02:48] But imagine that imagining you trudging along coding with a bowl of ramen in front of you, and then all of a sudden, like few years down the line, you have a fur coat,
Sarah Drasner: [00:02:57] like coat
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:02:58] platinum diamonds in a foot bath, and you're like,
Sarah Drasner: [00:03:00] I'm enjoying coding now.
It's . Let's do a fancy ramen though. Yeah.
that's actually exactly what I was picturing without a name. Yeah.
Cassidy Williams: [00:03:19] There was a microwave in step one and now it's got an egg green onions and vegetables.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:03:26] I do think this debate happens outside of Twitter. but I think it falls out of there's a lot of content. That's not programming related that talks about what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
And they're there the self-help category of books that talk about finding your passion or finding the thing that drives you and trying to make money out of that. And I like, I do think that's a useful way to operate, but I think where it is, it seems to get weaponized because if you are working as an individual, And you're like, I really like to do a thing. I would love it. If the thing that I like was also the thing that paid my bills. And sometimes you can line that up. I like to build silly things for the internet. Somehow I've been able to turn that into a career. Excellent. I'm really happy about that, but If you're, if your passion is to like, make things with your hands or you're really into cooking, but you don't want to run a kitchen.
Like maybe you shouldn't do your passion, you should have a job that enables you to do your path. and I think the problem is that we flip it. And it gets, it gets weaponized by companies where they're basically like I'm only gonna hire somebody who's super passionate about this because we want them to put in all these, this extra effort and do Blake care about the company, like it's their own.
And it feels almost like a, it feels like dirty at that point where somebody is basically saying we want to pay you like a regular employee, but we want you to work like a founder. And I think that's where the that's where it starts to make me uncomfortable.
Cassidy Williams: [00:04:54] Yeah. I've noticed that too.
I've mentored some students and stuff. And it's really interesting how that has permeated, like the gen Z zoomers too, where I was talking with someone recently and she was saying. Yeah. I've been talking with my classmates because I liked the idea of being able to afford being able to go to musicals all the time, because I love musicals.
But the only way if I can do that is to take on a career that I don't really care about that will pay the bills. And I was like, that's totally fine. that's allowed like what you just said, Jason, like it enables your hobby and your passions. And she was saying that. Her peers are very much just like you're doing society a disservice.
If you don't pursue your passions and bring your whole self to the world in your work. And I was like, that's how any of this works? Yeah. And she was saying that it's not just like a certain friend group that's like that. It's. Everyone she knows of her generation of students. And I hope that's not something that they're teaching the kids, but somehow that's getting that message is getting across.
Sarah Drasner: [00:05:56] It's not like it,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:05:57] this is the kind of thing in every industry and every, you wouldn't expect well, Okay. You're interviewing for a job, driving a forklift truck. We hope that you really passionate about forklift trucks and you drive on at home in your own time because you want to better yourself in your loading.
Sarah Drasner: [00:06:15] You're welcome for
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:06:16] person. Better be forklifts.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:06:19] No doubt, but it just doesn't translate to every. Every industry or every role. And for some reason, we I dunno, we fetishized it a little bit, I think, in the development world, because I don't know, maybe it's partly to do with the fact that we do hang out a little bit on social media and we communicate on social media and you can fall into that trap of comparing your real life to someone's highlight reel, which is the kind of common thing that happens on Instagram and Twitter, where, You don't post the stuff about, banging your head against the wall, trying to fix a bug that you can't do for 20 hours off the top of my head as an example, No, you
Jason Lengstorf: [00:06:54] never happened to me. People are.
Sarah Drasner: [00:06:56] So
Phil Hawksworth: [00:06:56] people took her out. Yeah. they promote the good stuff and it's easy to let that just get separated from reality a little bit and compare yourself to that. And. I don't know. I don't think it's particularly healthy. enthusiasm is healthy, but making it like this has to be the fundamental thing that is about your, is your identity.
That doesn't, that can't be a hundred percent healthy.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:07:16] I think it's the money too. I think because it's good money that you have to be able to, people want you to answer the moral question along with it. yeah, you have the option to make a lot of money, but are you doing it? and following.
With your tenants, and it's, I think it's just an easy target to be like, Oh yeah, you can make a lot of money. That's why you're doing it. You have no soul. It's that's harsh.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:07:43] I think a counter argument to that is like the way that people tell you to determine what you should do for the rest of your life is to imagine that you've you never have to think about money.
What would you do if you had unlimited funds and you could do whatever you wanted. And if your answer, like they say that how you should choose your job. But if your answer is I would hang out with my pets and go on long vacations and take a road trip around country. that's most likely not a job, but if you work in tech, you make enough money that you can bankroll that.
And you can have long weekends and hang out with your family and your pets, and then take those road trips, like working in tech because it pays so well, can be. The way that you like, that's your lottery ticket that enables you to live the life that you want to live? I don't think that we should stigmatize somebody who like has a goal and sees tech as a way to get them to that goal and not be goal in
Cassidy Williams: [00:08:34] itself.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:08:35] Let alone the freedom of doing remote work. Like I was able to do. I was just talking before this podcast about the camper trip that I took from Ohio and then all the way up the West coast, I did that because I was doing a toxin meetups all along the way and coding on projects along the way. So I could stop in a forest and do some coding and work on a project.
there's a lot of really awesome privileges that you can have. In the world of coding as well.
Sarah Drasner: [00:09:01] Cassidy had brought up a really good example of somebody who, of like the anti-pattern that comes up. If you only do things for passion too.
Cassidy Williams: [00:09:11] Yeah, there's this person that I knew.
And I'm going to be speaking in very vague terms, were responding to a code review, completely freaked out because their code was their religion. And if you insult their code, that's insulting their beliefs. they were, so they, I couldn't handle any sort of criticism because they attach their identity to their code.
And similarly, there's a lot of There's a lot of, kind of hero worship in the tech community too. I think, and people are just like, Oh, I want to be a developer like them. And I think in a way the industry encourages it. Even if it's not about an individual, how many of us are wearing a tech t-shirt right now?
Because we're, we brand ourselves with tech things. And we're just like, I'm attaching myself to this product. Cause I work on it. I use it. And sometimes it's just a tee shirt, but it's still something that has been encouraged in the industry. And that can lead to toxic behaviors.
Sarah Drasner: [00:10:12] I mean that, just to Phil's point earlier, I don't think with forklift driver and I could be wrong, but there might not be.
Famous forklift drivers like this kind of concept of you need to be like X person or X company. And I obviously don't know very much about the forklift.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:10:30] I'll send you some YouTube links. You're going to have that.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:10:33] I used to drive a forklift. So if anybody needs someone to look up tail. I'm very short, but just,
Sarah Drasner: [00:10:39] otherwise
Cassidy Williams: [00:10:40] you did it.
Of course I'm
Sarah Drasner: [00:10:41] still taller than me. So I'm still
Jason Lengstorf: [00:10:45] someday I look forward to the like biopic on Tara, because every time that I talked to her, there's another story that I'm like, wait, you also did that
Phil Hawksworth: [00:10:57] to the point that we're even not certain. If she's joking about the forklift
Cassidy Williams: [00:11:03] figures,
Jason Lengstorf: [00:11:06] a hundred percent.
Convinced that she has driven a forklift. I'm good at
Phil Hawksworth: [00:11:10] it. She's nodding.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:11:12] What's interesting is that this happens in certain career paths than doesn't in others. Like there are celebrity chefs, there are people who are like, fashion icons and things like that. And so for whatever reason, like in certain fields, that culture of like their, passion and going above and beyond, and it turns into a, like a little bit of a hero worship culture.
and I don't really know where it comes from, but I talk to you on a Mac has a T shirt actually that I love that says hero, worship, kills community. and I'm like, I'll make sure that we put a link to that in the show notes. But I really liked that. Just encapsulating that thought like that because, the thing that's weird about it, is if you walk into a room and you see somebody that you've heard of before and you treat them weird, But you're like, Oh my God, I've heard of you before.
As opposed to just being like, Hey, we both work on the same things. Like it instantly does that conversation and you're not like, You're not like talking to a person anymore. You're like meeting depending on what side of this you're on, you're meeting a fan or you're meeting a hero and that's a really weird conversation.
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:15] your dynamic
Sarah Drasner: [00:12:16] totally. But counterpoint to that in parks and rec, when Ron Swanson goes to the woods, goes to this like one convention and he's There's that guy and they're like, go talk to him. And he's I couldn't possibly he's swarmed with people. It's just like a guy standing alone, like drinking
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:32] coffee.
Sarah Drasner: [00:12:35] It's like con tech conference.
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:39] And even yesterday, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit, Sarah, like someone I know on discord. Made an awkward joke and tweeted Sarah. And she replied here and he
Sarah Drasner: [00:12:51] started
Cassidy Williams: [00:12:52] posting in this discourse saying, Oh my gosh, Sarah Drasner replied to me. I'm famous. Now this is insane.
And I was like, you got to stop. she's just a person.
Sarah Drasner: [00:13:01] You should have been
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:13:01] like, she was on her Peloton window. She
Cassidy Williams: [00:13:06] you're probably doing something lame when she replied. Yeah, no. and the, sorry, Sarah, I didn't
Sarah Drasner: [00:13:12] remember. But earlier that day I was telling Cassidy that I have bathroom issues on
he's really? It's not that big of a
Cassidy Williams: [00:13:22] deal. Yeah. And that's something that. I feel like I'm constantly having to nip it. But, both around other people. I know. and around like my own Twitter thing, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but just as people who are prevalent on the internet, people are just like, wow, I can't believe I'm talking to you.
And I'm just like the, these people are just people. Who happened to tweet a lot.
Sarah Drasner: [00:13:45] It also does seem like the platform. And I think the hero worship Kilz community is a really good way of framing it too, because when you're talking about like everyone being a group, Putting one person above other people make damages the whole thing, but it also no one on a pedestal is going to ever live up to anyone's expectations.
everyone who's a person is going to be a person. And so there's a lot of unhealthy habits that come into that. And there's some balance there because there are people I look up to in the industry as Oh, they're really good at X. And I would like to learn from them. And I think so there's there are people whose.
I think there's like acknowledging that some people have traits that we're like, Oh, I would love to get better at it if that skill, and I'm probably gonna, watch what they're doing. They're like, speaking for myself, I worked with Chris Coyier for you years on CSS tricks. And he does, he has such a wonderful ability to break things down to core concepts and explain them really well in a really.
Friendly way, but that also is shepherding community, right? that he, instead of trying to elevate himself and make himself sound smarter, he always makes you feel after you've read the article, Oh, that wasn't so bad. And I got it that acknowledging that he does that. I'm not like, Chris choir, the buzzard, everybody likes screw
there's. I think there. We're not so good at nuance on Twitter sometimes where we put things into all or nothing categories. Cause now I'm also seeing this like passion thing turned into you can't have passion and it's like, Whoa, like you can like not, yeah. Maybe it's not all or nothing for these things.
And that we can't, it's not that saying that someone is good at something, can't be the same as this fever pitch. Like you are a hero, whatever mentality it. It has to be a little bit of both of understanding that someone can be okay at what they do and you don't tear us up. Cause the counter of that is like tearing people down and stuff.
I don't want to do that. There's a way that we can all elevate each other and make it a little bit more welcoming to everybody where there's not so many traps. What I'm worried about is that there's traps here and there. For different things and that people can get anxiety. Like I mentored someone, a little bit ago who was saying that they were.
Really worried because they were like, I'm studying really hard to become a developer. And people have told me, I can't study after hours. I'm like, you can, if you want to, if that sir, like they were starting to feel super guilty and it's not, they shouldn't feel put upon to do that, but they shouldn't feel guilty either.
And so I worry that we get interviews, like things where we start to gate, keep each side in. I don't know, there's a little bit more to the company.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:16:32] I agree. And I think that the other thing that's interesting too, is that we talk about them as if they're constant States. Like I've had periods of my life where I felt very passionate about a thing, and I'm like excited about it.
I want to learn. And so I do some weekend projects. I work, some late nights and then I've had long stretches where that's the last thing on earth that I want to do. And I, I will work. 35 hours and that's when I'm like, no I'm done. I just, yeah. and I think that we're going to oscillate in our careers.
We're going to have like moments where we really want to put the pedal to the floor and do a bunch of stuff and get a big project on, or do a big push to learn a thing. And then we're going to have times when we just want to do the job and live our lives outside of the work.
exactly.
But that's such an important thing that we lose in some of the absolutest conversation that happens where it's like, we're not talking about people, we're talking about qualities and then you like people try to fit themselves inside of a quality instead of the other way around.
Sarah Drasner: [00:17:30] Yeah. That's what I meant by the ebb and flow state earlier. I think you explained it much better, but like that there it's not like one thing or the other and it probably never will be for any humans are capable of all sorts of thoughts and feelings and different thoughts and feelings through time.
And I guess I worry about that about not even this conversation, but just some of the discourse in. Some of our discourse in general becomes very like towards one thing or another.
Cassidy Williams: [00:18:00] And I think,
Sarah Drasner: [00:18:01] go ahead.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:18:01] Oh, thanks.
Cassidy Williams: [00:18:05] you owe me a soda.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:18:11] I was just going to say real quick that especially with people on this team, we all have. Such different things that we like to do to relax. they're not all code, like Phil likes to eat charcuterie in a hot tub. And then, Sarah likes to animate and make sure like Coda on the side.
So it's sometimes you. I let both of you speak to your likes and dislikes if you like,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:18:31] but I don't think I've got anything to add really to that.
Sarah Drasner: [00:18:35] can I like eating structure DRI in the hot tub? Just
Phil Hawksworth: [00:18:37] not my thing.
Sarah Drasner: [00:18:38] I just don't.
you can't keep warm meat.
Cassidy Williams: [00:19:00] this conversation was going now.
so I think all this talk of ebb and flow and stuff. this could sound very wise, even though it's probably dumb. I think a lot of developers, they think in extremes because our code is ones and zeros. A lot of our career is in these, this is binary. This is how this thing should work.
And that's just not how humans work. And I think when you see people being successful in doing all of these awesome things, or even expressing passion, if even if they don't. Have it all the time. You start to compare yourself to that and then start figuring out, okay, do I want to be a part of that or demonize it and did you don't have to do either.
And there's a Mark Twain quote comparison is the death of joy. And I think that's something that you really have to remember and take to heart, because if you want to be successful in something, then you will work towards it and you can't rely on the passions and. Successes and failures of other people to guide what you're doing.
And so you, shouldn't also guide how you speak about people and all of these extremes based on what other people are doing to pursue their careers and passions.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:20:18] It's so funny that you say that like with code being ones and zeros and. I agree with you. I think that the belief that code is like true or false can lead to thinking that life is true or false, but I feel like I've been going the other way.
as I've been, I'm getting older, I'm not sure if I'm getting wiser, but I'm getting better at not making myself miserable. And I think all of it has just been this long slow climb toward realizing why the answer that you always get from senior devs is it depends. And I think that's true in my life.
That's true in my code. It's true in everything you have to think about, what am I optimizing for? What do I care about right now? What's the thing that I actually want to get out of this? what are we trying to accomplish? Not just is this right or wrong?
Sarah Drasner: [00:21:02] Yeah. I would even go so far as to make an analogy to application development in that when you're dealing with the UI state, people who are starting out, typically express it in booleans like.
Is submitted. Is that right? And actually when you express it in strings, you start to extend it a little bit better in the code gets less brittle because you're not, you're then able to say a myriad of States because otherwise what. What I've seen in growing applications is that if you express everything in Williams, you end up with these checks that are like, and this or this and this, and it gets really long and complicated.
Whereas then otherwise you're able to say in one statement, okay, it's been submitted AMS. This hasn't happened yet, or something like that. And it becomes much more flexible. So it's a good analogy in a way to like how. We're thinking about these things like over time at first, it's Oh, this is so clean.
I'll just express it as this or this. But then over time to see that's not actually clean because it doesn't, allow you to. Take in all of the possibilities.
Cassidy Williams: [00:22:05] I think today's lesson is, life is not a bullying.
Sarah Drasner: [00:22:07] It's an email.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:14] I feel like there's a lot of, especially with meditation stuff, you talk about like conscious living, conscious eating. And so like with conscious eating, it's okay, when you start your meal, are you hungry? Are you feeling hungry? Are you just sitting there and eat? halfway through your meal, are you eating really fast?
Are you still hungry? Are are you happy with what you're eating? It's if we did that with coding, like one, we would probably learn to go to the bathroom much more frequent than
Sarah Drasner: [00:22:41] do I paint myself. One of
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:45] those things where it's you're coding. And you're like,
Sarah Drasner: [00:22:47] I've had a pee for two hours
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:22:48] now, but it's also Hey, I'm coding and I'm really excited.
And I'm really happy with the progress I'm making. This feels great. then keep going, you're asking yourself, you're checking against yourself about what you're doing. And I think that's probably a healthier way to maybe do it. And if we were just like, I've been banging my head against the wall for 20 hours, cause my name's Phil, then, get up and eat some show.
Cool.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:23:15] So this isn't an admission of anything, but when you just mentioned, there's a very, just in time approach to going to the bathroom, have you ever been so engrossed in making something and just I'm just going to do this one last one next bit. I'm just gonna solve this one next bit.
Have you ever got to the point that you've actually stood up to go to the bathroom, but you're still leaning down at your desk and typing and like your legs and started walking towards the bathroom, but you're like, I'm just okay. People can't hear this, but there are people nodding on this call. I just want, it's not just me.
Sarah Drasner: [00:23:45] The record
Cassidy Williams: [00:23:46] show. Everyone is nodding.
Sarah Drasner: [00:23:49] Everyone agrees with me. They're not saying I'm
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:23:51] weird or anything.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:23:54] So another. when, Sarah and Jason were both talking about kind of the ebb and flow and it's not a, it's not a sustained level of interest or engagement all the time. And those kinds of things.
One of the things that I feel is also contributed to that for me, at least. And I feel like this is probably a common thing in our sphere is that, many of us are fortunate enough that. To be doing something for a living that we've enjoyed outside of that, we've enjoyed kind of making stuff with code or, building a thing.
And it's almost I've heard people talk about, Oh great. Now the thing that was my hobby is now my job. I don't know if I'd quite go to that extent, but certainly the thing that interested me outside of my work became the thing that I was doing. And that's, that feels like an absolute blessing because Oh, now I get.
Pay to do the thing that is my hobby, but the flip side to that is that, now your hobby is your job. And it is sometimes really hard to understand where the line is between the two. And I definitely have caught myself in the past in other roles where I've been working throughout the day. And then in the evening kind of sitting on the sofa, the TV has been on.
And then on the arm of the sofa, my laptop's been there and I've been doing. Doing stuff still because, Oh, this is still just my hobby. And it, I feel like that's a really, it can be a sticky trap to fall into if you're not careful because you end up you'll your hobby now is your job. And it just grows into something where you don't have that pallet chain, that pallet cleanser, you don't have that change of tempo if you're not careful.
I gotta go out and find new hobbies. And that's what a wonderful problem to have, but I think it's a, it can be a trap you fall into where your energy levels are. Just all your attention levels. They're just sustained the whole time because you never change 10 track
Jason Lengstorf: [00:25:33] hobbies, not jobbies.
Sarah Drasner: [00:25:36] Yeah. Especially like with Corrine team, I think it gets really squishy, right? because you're not, or even if you're just remote working in general, because you don't have that cutoff period the same way. And I think a number of us have even talked about not on this podcast about how. Like people aren't signing off the same way and we have to make better async hygiene to remind ourselves to not respond.
Cause man, like it's tough because you're. The things that you used to do outside of work, where you'd like, stop, go to a bar or restaurant and see people are different now. And even if you like your coworkers, like maybe you're chatting with them. And then a work thing comes up or something like it, it becomes tougher.
I think for people who work remotely during quarantine to have that stopping point, then it takes actually like you, having. Like thinking about it and being cognizant about it, where before you just leave your job and you'd go. Yeah,
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:26:38] let me, so one of my best friends works in an architecture firm and architects in particular
Cassidy Williams: [00:26:44] have really.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:26:45] Not that great work time, or like the management of how long they're working and to try to give them more or free time, the office manager was like, okay, let's try just instead of taking Saturday and Sunday off, just pick whichever two days out of the week, work best for you. So if you want to go to the beach on a Tuesday and Wednesday, you do that.
But that doesn't work because you're on a team. So without people taking the same days, someone's still going to be paying somebody's still going to be waiting for somebody. So it was like having to have that organization across remote teams that will, a lot of us are doing now. It's just, it's not easy.
Cassidy Williams: [00:27:24] It's like those companies that have unlimited vacation, but it's. Quote unquote, unlimited vacation and then it nobody taking vacation. Yeah. Like I think a good term should be like unlimited vacation with a minimum of, and then that kind of forces people to do it because yeah. Otherwise people will tend to overwork and just never take their weekends.
like your architecture
Sarah Drasner: [00:27:47] friend.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:27:48] I have a proposal. She has, we are at, at the time Mark that we talk each same. One thing that sparks joy for us about coding. And one thing that's frustrating for us that is anything but coding
Jason Lengstorf: [00:28:06] on the spot.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:09] Don't
Jason Lengstorf: [00:28:09] mess this
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:10] up.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:11] Okay. Easy. It's just such an easy thing to think about. I could.
Sarah Drasner: [00:28:16] Think of many
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:17] things that do this. For me when I think about it.
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:22] okay.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:23] So I just
Phil Hawksworth: [00:28:24] quality stalling going on answering your own question and you still have to do that. Ridiculous.
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:32] Just start a sentence.
And I just keep talking until I find the end of
Phil Hawksworth: [00:28:35] it. The sentence will justify the fact that I've started it
Sarah Drasner: [00:28:39] or to keep going with the parks and rec happily.
Cassidy Williams: [00:28:45] to say this sentence, that
Sarah Drasner: [00:28:47] passion is this true in the dictionary is defined as.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:28:53] so I like, there are two things that actually happened to me last week, but I'm just gonna put it down to one.
And, I have spent so much time lately in front end that I forgot how. Satisfying. It can be to set up infrastructure and have a pink come through correctly, like hitting a database, having the information come back correctly, that you set up all the infrastructure yourself. And as it, cause there's not really much, like you don't have a front end change that happens.
It's just like bits working out behind the scenes and something happens and it works right. And it's just Oh, such a good feeling. I love that so much. and then non coding. obviously my child is like the best child ever of all children ever, that I've made.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:29:43] So
Sarah Drasner: [00:29:48] so that is
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:29:48] one of those things. Like I was just on CASPI. He woke up at two in the morning last night, but I still really liked him.
Sarah Drasner: [00:29:55] Yeah,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:30:00] he's fine. It was that your answer is
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:30:05] those are brilliant answers. So obviously that's my answer.
Sarah Drasner: [00:30:10] Okay. Okay.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:30:13] I can go. Now I go on Jason
Jason Lengstorf: [00:30:15] in code. I've been really enjoying, setting up like the interplay between, Jamstack front ends and e-commerce, so I've been doing a lot of work with Stripe lately and setting up like different subscriptions and things.
And I keep playing with ways to do that. Like I launched a sticker store on my website and I'm putting together a, like a fun subscription thing with my friend Christmas Gardy and, and it's, that's been just a blast. Like it's really fun to see how approachable that's become, especially compared to 10, 15 years ago, when you would try to take a credit card online.
And then in my personal life, we've started learning how to make our own pasta. And it has been good for everything, except my waistline. Like I am eating so much.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:31:00] I bet your waistline is very happy.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:31:02] yeah,
Sarah Drasner: [00:31:03] it's
Jason Lengstorf: [00:31:03] a, it's really just like spreading out, getting comfortable.
Cassidy Williams: [00:31:08] Do a set up before you eat, you'll be good.
Oh, go next. I really like refactoring. Like I love going into a code base and being just like, this is gross, but I know how to fix it. And then just like making it beautiful, shiny, and new. And then when you make that PR and it's mostly red because you deleted so much, I just, that feels so good. I'm just like, I destroyed this and made it better.
It reminds me of an, I was going to talk about like crafting and stuff next, like a wood plainer, how you like scrape on that. And all of a sudden, all the joints and everything are just beautiful. It's like that. But with code, I just think that's so fun. So the thing that's non code, I really like just.
Making things like my monitor standards in front of me is something that I made and I liked building keyboards and I have a laser cutter in my garage where I make stuff. And sometimes it's dumb and useless, but it's something that I've made. And I think it's so fun to just make something physical that you can.
Give to someone or just look at and be like, ah,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:15] I'm miffed that you took the refactoring thing. Cause that's, that was up there for me as well.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:32:20] I'll only one of you can enjoy things.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:22] I think you should just say it as if she didn't say it.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:25] Oh yeah. Yeah, I ignored it or I'll say it. I'll say it, but I'll say it better in fewer words, we factor it.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:34] Not that you can't believe. No one has Mitch. Oh,
Cassidy Williams: [00:32:36] good.
Sarah Drasner: [00:32:38] That was good.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:32:39] Thank
Phil Hawksworth: [00:32:39] you. Oh, thank you. okay. But, so I'll do a different one. I really like, and this sounds terribly dull, but I really like making something, work in code that I didn't know how to do. And I've. Gone off and I've found the documentation.
I've read it. I've tried it. And it works. It makes me feel like a genius, even though what I'm doing is I'm following someone's instructions, but there's something incredibly gratifying about starting approach, starting a task where he's I don't know, I don't know how to do this. and then finding the thing that will teach you how to do it, learning from it.
Executing that bit of code and seeing a result, even if it's just a tick in a box or, some okay. Message. Yeah. Hello world is very gratifying. particularly for something you didn't know how to do before you feel like you've Being enriched a little bit. So I like that. and for
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:33:29] one that's not done
Jason Lengstorf: [00:33:30] good.
That feeling is the whole premise for learning that Jason
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:33:34] like our jobs
Cassidy Williams: [00:33:36] or careers.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:33:40] Okay, good. I feel I'm feeling better about that choice. That's good. Okay.
Cassidy Williams: [00:33:44] Feeling good now. So get ready.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:33:46] Okay. yeah. and, things outside of work. So I don't think anything makes me happier than giggling with friends. If I'm honest, get like giggling to the point that you can't breathe and it hurts.
And your like, it's a problem is a problem because you go and then you just get the giggles and it's just like the. The virtual circle, the vicious circle. And it's okay, now, if someone was saying something that's no longer funny, but it's just a trigger. I love getting into that state with friends.
Yeah. And that's a, that's the only thing that's not a very productive or creative thing that I'm describing, but that a lot of
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:34:20] calories yeah. It would help with just Jason's pasta making.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:34:25] Yeah. If I was doing that instead of making pasta, I might have a six pack by now.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:28] That's why I'm in such fantastic shape.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:34:33] Sorry that wasn't sorry.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:34] Yeah, the laughter was noted. Yeah. Thank you.
Cassidy Williams: [00:34:36] It's especially fun when you're, when you get those bouts, like in a meeting that's really important or something, and it's not supposed to be fun. You're supposed to be paying attention, but when you're just like funny and you just can't hold it in, I love that.
Phil Hawksworth: [00:34:51] Sometimes there's a bit of back channel action in meetings. I haven't seen that happens a little bit in LFI, but not as much to other places where we not in our meetings. Cause we're. Fiercely professional.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:35:04] Oh, wait. Yes,
Phil Hawksworth: [00:35:05] I have been, I've been in other organizations where, sometimes there'll be like a few little back channel comments that are just designed to try and make you like, lose your cool and crack up.
I'm very grateful that we've risen above that here.
Sarah Drasner: [00:35:20] It was a meeting. I was on recently where this was in this group, but two members of another group were telling me that they were just mimicking someone else in the meeting. And once you noticed it was very subtle, but once you noticed, like it's impossible to stop laughing you.
Cassidy Williams: [00:35:41] One of my favorite meetups I went to was. We a friend of ours was speaking and we had a big group of people were just like, we're going to watch this person speak. And they kept saying the phrase button and I was just waiting for them to say button. and so then there was a point where I just text everyone in the group.
I was just like, blue button is a button and just. Then they set it at one point and it was just the perfect moment. Must be just like, Oh my
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:05] gosh.
Cassidy Williams: [00:36:06] And we're all just like trying to hold our breath. And people were like tearing and people's faces were red and we were just like this isn't funny, but
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:14] it's
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:36:15] and humor too.
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:16] I'd love to
Cassidy Williams: [00:36:17] just dump so stupid. It was hilarious. And I just, I love that. That was a good one, Phil. Wow. Two for two. Yeah.
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:36:28] Good. Good. Good luck, Sarah. Follow that up.
Sarah Drasner: [00:36:37] so I just fell, took Cassidy's I'm going to take terrorists too. so I've been setting things up where you set something up with dynamo DB, and then you, then you. allow an API to use it through Lambda and API gateway. Yes. And there's a good amount of steps involved in. So like when I finally, I used insomnia, I moved over from post-meal twist insomnia a little while ago.
And when I. Actually put it into insomnia and it gives me the thing that I want back after all of those steps, I always am just like, did Steve?
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:37:13] Totally no joke. Literally dancing
Sarah Drasner: [00:37:15] happens. Yeah. such an amazing feeling. and then on the other side, I think a lot of people who know me would assume that I would say drawing because I really like drawing and I do it on my, in my spare time. However, drawing is similar to coding where it takes a lot out of me.
Like I have to think a lot while I'm doing it. I think people think you just sit down and you like fart things out and it. Whatever, but
Cassidy Williams: [00:37:43] things out, but a different way.
Sarah Drasner: [00:37:46] That's what I'm using charcoal. It's more art theory than art. but, It, it takes a lot out of me in a way.
That's not like super letting go. And so I would say like in the super letting go category, I got a karaoke microphone for my stepdaughter's birthday seven. when we first it was her birthday was in February. So it was like right as quarantine was hitting. And so we've been doing these dance parties late at night before they go to bed.
And it is the funniest thing. There's three children and me. Jumping on the bed, in the dark with a karaoke microphone for 20 minutes until disease, Oh my God, that's enough. Hello. It's not the
Tara Z. Manicsic: [00:38:27] lighting set up too, right?
Sarah Drasner: [00:38:29] Oh yeah, that's right. I also got her this, you can get one on Amazon for $7 or like other places you don't have to go to Amazon.
There's a little light and then a little thing around it and it spins and it disco project. It like a gender. It's like a little dome and it projects, stars and different colors around the room. They're super cheaply made, but yeah, the effect is like this, dude, so we put that on and then dance, but also my stepdaughter is making more and more rules.
The longer we do this. So like now it's very complicated. They did like parts of the room or a lava. This person has to be holding this prop. Like only these people are allowed on the bed during the day, the song
that has become actually like really one of the, most let go of things that we in, let go is actually a really good way of describing. Cause we use that song quite frequently from frozen
Cassidy Williams: [00:39:26] great song to belt. Do it, do any of you have a, playlist of just pump up songs for coding or do you have just strictly, I need to focus.
Sarah Drasner: [00:39:35] Yeah. I have an open store. I opened sourced one a while ago or open source, but I put it on Twitter a while ago. This like coding playlist I use
Cassidy Williams: [00:39:43] because I have a focusing playlist, but I also have a, I am getting to the end of this. I am pumped. I'm going to dance type of playlist where it's just People belting on Broadway and stuff.
And I'm just like, yeah. I'm like them as like code and it's great.
Sarah Drasner: [00:39:57] Oh, that's amazing. I don't have one of those.
Cassidy Williams: [00:40:01] It is. It is great.
Jason Lengstorf: [00:40:03] I have a playlist that I call the ultimate party playlist. That is actually just, it's every song that I can remember from like high school until now that is a song that when you hear it, you immediately grown and then you dance and sing along.
So it's Nelly, Flo rider and biz Markie and like stuff that you're like, you're going to hear it and, Ugh. And then you're going to just go, okay, fine. I'll dance. And then by the end, you're like, yeah, like
Cassidy Williams: [00:40:31] the best.
I hope you found this remotely. Interesting.
Sarah Drasner: [00:40:38] This has been Jason
Jason Lengstorf: [00:40:40] Cassidy, Tara,
Sarah Drasner: [00:40:41] Sarah, and Phil from the net with I-Team wishing
Phil Hawksworth: [00:40:46] you.