Hard no.

When they fit, they’re excellent. I have the ones that I can keep in while sleeping. I am still occasionally surprised by how comfortable they feel to me.

Which one?

When we go to a hotel, we prefer the Finnish level of service: make everything work and otherwise leave us alone.

Finnish people are stereotyped to sound monotone, enunciate clearly, speak directly, and tersely. This makes them seem unfriendly.

And then they expect you to stay 3 m away from them at all times, which intensifies their seeming unfriendliness.

At least these are the memes.

I expected computer programmer.

You might be done with people, not the internet.

I think there’s room for both.

I have compassion for them. I don’t even blame them. I don’t know how to fix what’s broken, but I know that blaming and ridiculing them doesn’t work. If it did, then the situation would have improved by now.

I had a jar crack, because I don’t know what I’m doing. I infer it’s best to cool the soup completely first in the fridge, then allow it to freeze.

And now all the people who can’t resist correcting me will chime in. Go for it!

It has its moments, but it also led to significant terror every year, wondering whether this would be the last year people would hire me.

I started accidentally. I stockpiled cash from my IBM job, then I wrote some things about a topic that was becoming popular. Then people noticed me. Since I didn’t have to settle for another crappy job, I could take a chance on doing a few gigs that paid good money.

Two years later, somebody identified me as The Person to write The Next Book on that topic. And then a few influential people amplified me.

And then a few more.

That was the luck I needed.

My first Adult Job (not a teenager job) lasted 4 years and ended in 2001. After that I became a freelancer. Since then, the longest gig I’ve had is 11 weeks or 1-2 weeks every 4-6 weeks for about 4 years. Otherwise, I have worked with clients 2 hours to 5 days at a time.

I got away with that for 25 years and now I’m struggling to figure out what happens next.

Make sure? Impossible.

All jobs are an experiment and a guess. Interviewers are often on their best behavior, just like candidates are. There is no way to know. Hope for the best and be ready to leave, to the best of your ability.

I’m really very sorry that the situation isn’t better for you. I believe I’m facing similar issues.

Good luck. Peace.

Given the stereotypical difficulty of “product folks” and programmers agreeing on and building shared understanding of what to build, this joke seems clear and straightforward. It works because of course, the customer and the programmer failed to agree on something simple.

When we had several, I tended to use the name only to distinguish them; otherwise, they were all simply “cat”.

Cool.

People are responsible for their choices and people are not to blame for the influences they had no power to refuse. We could help them overcome those influences, but it’s tiring when their influences seem more prolific and powerful than our patience.

Two strategies that decrease the amount of empathy in the world:

• Teaching directly that empathy is a weakness.
• Blaming people for learning that empathy is a weakness.

Surely you mean 5318008.

Za.