I’ve been backpacking through Europe for the last couple of weeks and stayed at hostels in order to save some money – and be cool like everyone else lol. If there is one thing that I could improve at all hostels with only a fixed costs, it is making beds a more intimate experience. Simply surround the bed with a box that I have the key to – it can act as a locker while I’m gone, I get privacy while I sleep, and it is slightly more secure. The main worry is that it might be a hazard in case of fire and that some people might be claustrophobic (or even make it less secure) but it would certainly improve privacy. The security concerns can also easily be addressed with a fixed (non-recurring) cost.
Until then, I won’t go to hostels anymore. I like my privacy
The main perk at Facebook is working with brilliant people and getting access to top-level execs. How top-level? Mark Zuckerberg invited all the Engineering interns to a BBQ at his house. I had a meeting for high-level discussion with the VP of Growth, Chamath Palihapitiya. It’s no small deal. These people have grown companies from idea to billion-dollar scale. They must have done something right. To be able to interact with them and pick their brains is something that very companies, even Google, cannot do easily.
There are also the likes of Andrei Alexandrescu and Bret Taylor. It’s hard to resist the temptation of working for Facebook with this team.
Oh and BTW there are also other perks such as free food and laundy (with the bane of my existance, folding, taken care of) and amazing offsites, and ripsticking. But those are of marginal importance.
There’s always more work to do when classes are done. There is already a lot of stuff going on campus every single day. They have to choose from all those events, and they have to also try to squeeze in some social life.
Social life you say? That’s it!
Find events where they hang out and organize fun social games. Since they’re also broke, a beer or slice of pizza will go a long way. They’re already at the event, you don’t need to convince them to make time for yours. Make it fun and non-intrusive. Since they’re more relaxed in that context, you have a better chance that, if you make the pitch fun, they will pay attention and learn something cool while at it.
You want to tell them about your new online product X? Give a free drink at a student social event for anyone who throws a dart at a target with the company’s logo and web address on it and gets at least Y points. They did not get enough points after three tries? Give them a free drink anyway.
Organize a treasure hunt event at the venue, or organize some fun games with pizza slices as prizes. Put the website on the plate or give away t-shirts to those that can trick someone into doing something funny (be very mindful of politically incorrect or bad connotations etc).
There are tons of social games that one can play and have fun, and you can use swag as game tokens: your own version of Werewolf (similar to Mafia), games where you secretly place a sticker on someone and then start counting them and if the count reaches ten without them finding and getting rid of the sticker they have to eat a cookie or do some silly, funny action (like karaoke) etc.
Make your pitch fun. Give a small gift and don’t insist. Bottom line is that you should not expect them to make time for your event, as relevant as it may be. You should go where they hang out.
Since Joel from www.joelonsoftware.com is done blogging, there’s an opening for a good blog. Let’s see what happens.
The advice is simple yet it took me a long time to arrive at: the work you do is really not that important ( so long as it is in your field of interest). You don’t have a lot of interest in anything in particular? Keep on reading.
The crucial element is the mentor. I cannot stress this enough. Find someone who is good at what they do and, this is very important, that you work well with. It’s hard to figure the second part out especially without working with them to start with, but the chemistry (or lack thereof) is usually kind of easy to spot.
A good mentor will help you grow more than you could by yourself. They can motivate and guide you. They can exert both positive and negative pressure. Volunteer for someone, you have nothing to lose. Your time is everything you have to offer, and a mentor can help you make great use of it. They can help you grow.
It does not matter if the project is not a perfect match: a good mentor will know how to sell it to you. It’s really not about “selling” per se but more about getting someone excited about stuff. Revealing an ultimate goal, a tangible objective. Making you feel that you are building something useful.
There is something to be said about the “marketing” skills of a mentor. If they manage to motivate a project and paint their vision clearly everything else will follow. A good motivation is quickly internalized by students and generates real results, it really entices them to work. Grades and other types of coercion/seduction systems currently used (salary bonuses for example) are almost never internalized, so they won’t really engage students/employees at the core. Sure, they might get some results, but a lot of times they backfire, and a search on studies analyzing incentives will show you that most of the time they actually disengage people and make them less passionate. Don’t replace passion with money or fear, direct it. Stimulate it with interesting ideas.
This is what school assignments lack: you work on something that will be thrown out at the end of the class. If the assignments were things that will be part of, say, an open-source project then the incentive is different: your work will be used by other people for real projects. You are part of something greater.
For some classes it is tricky to do this (Calculus for example) but one can easily imagine a way to turn some of the assignments into fun-looking projects that will be of use to someone.
Of course, you always have JoelOnSoftware’s guide to interviewing that should point you in the right direction: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html
But I want to go one step beyond that. For the record, I interned with Microsoft, Google and (this coming summer) Facebook. So any experience I share applies to Software Developer positions, but should be useful for any job.
First off, think about your employer. Imagine you own that company. Read about it to get a feeling, understand their statement and market position and then imagine you are in charge of the department where you are applying. What kind of people do you want to have working for you? Even without reading a company’s statement (which you should), it should be clear that everyone wants to hire the best people that they can, for that job. It is important to realize that “best” means here “best fit” for the job. If I hire a programmer, I want her to be the best programmer out there. Not the best manager. Not the best clown. It’s great if she also has those skills, but I have to run a company and people pay for my product, not for how funny my employees are. Clearly in showbiz they pay for how funny your employees are but I’m digressing. Now, say you are an OK developer and really want to get a job. How do you distinguish yourself? Again, think like someone from that company. Who would you hire? Of two people of similar skills, what do you look at to distinguish? I would say passion is very important. I want someone who will work at a problem hard. People that do things on the side (develop software in their spare time, contribute to open-source projects) are a a great pick. GPA is important but too high a GPA might actually be worrying (unless it is backed up with other interesting things): it usually means that that person does everything school tells them to. Great, but I want people to also rebel a little bit, to come up with new ideas, disagree etc. If they rebel too much (GPA = 2.0 or so) this is also a worrying sign. Again, other activities might make up for it.
There is more to it, but it would be no fun if I just spelled it out. Read this as well and then keep imagining you are in charge of hiring. Look at your resume. Would you hire yourself for that position? If not, what would it take?
That’s it. Next time more on passion and how to get it.
Confidence. You have to be confident. Whether you are a guy or a girl, confident = sexy. You got me right. If you look it, you are it. It’s all about your attitude. This sounds like crap motivational book material, but it’s not. Look at it this way.
You see a person that is not amazingly good looking, but he/she is really confident. Not smug, not cocky not boasting, but you can feel that they are confident. They are just HOT. Why? Because confident people are successful. It is a bit of a circular argument (since being successful makes you confident), but the cool thing is that unlike looks this is something easy to control. Find someone who is confident and learn from them. Or just act it, it will catch up with you.
Imagine two identical twins: just as smart, physically identical. One of them is confident and asks you out, the other one sits in the corner counting his toes. Which one will you accept for a date? Well the one that asks obviously, how could you accept the other one since he never asked? Yeah, sure, maternal instincts in some girls might drive them towards the introvert, and that is good, but it’s a small percentage. By the way, there’s a difference between introvert and mysterious, we’ll talk about that some other time.
And really, being rejected sucks, but suck it up and get over it. It does not matter. Keep asking, one will say yes. You will perfect your technique. You will find out why the others said no (maybe bad breath had something to do with it and some mean/kind soul will tell you about this issue). Think about it. What have you got to lose? Image? Whatever, as soon as you get a hot girl/guy everyone will forget.
Smarts are also important. A friend of mine once said: ” There is nothing sexier than a hot guy.” It applies to girls as well, btw. How do you get smart? Well, read. Hang around smart and cheerful people. It’s bound to rub onto you. Smarts is only in small part nature, a lot of it is nurture. Nurture yourself to be smart. Yet another circular argument (since you gotta have some smarts to read this and know how to follow it), but you’re smart, you can figure it out. Oh, and BTW, believe it. Do not be cocky, smug or defiant. Just feel that you are smart and people will perceive that. They want to treat you to the image you project. And don’t just show it off, start reading as well. The credit people give you for acting smart is a short-term loan.
Why would someone be interested in a smart person? I don’t really need to answer this question, but it is good to reinforce the idea: Smart people make money. Smart people are fun to be with. Smart people can be introduced to friends. Smart people are not boring. Since they will make money, they are to be desired (yes not making any money is strange unless you are doing great voluntary work which is awesome). Smart people that do not make money do great things, like cure diseases around the world. Or they are idle and make great art (and little money).
Side story, from “Overheard in NY”: “Girl1: -He is not so great in bed, but that’s OK Girl2: -You mean he is rich? Girl1:-Exactly”
Whatever? Simply have a backup plan. Never not have one. If I am in love with this chick, like really in love, and I hang out with her and make some stupid remark or whatever (and I do make those from time to time), then I don’t care that much. Yeah I wish you would be my next girlfriend but really, if it does not work out, it’s OK, there is someone else there. There is always someone else, but if they are within reach it helps. Yes do get involved and lose (or at lease loosen) the backup with time, and do commit if you want to. But at least in the beginning, you must be able to relax. It’s not blackmail, it’s just a psychological release: the more you like someone the more stressed you will be with them or about the situation, and the more you need to have some backup. It’s not that you really will leave the one you love for the backup (not necessarily). You just need to know that it’s not a big deal if you fuck up something. Because you will fuck up, and when you do that, since you know it is not a big deal, you will laugh it away and it will all be good for both of you. No big deal. That’s the power of whatever.
Note: this is a note I wrote in the summer of 2009, while in SF while a Google intern.
The other day I was about to get out of the house at 11am. My host Joe had a friend over, that I had met during the weekend when I volunteered at the flea market. I greeted them, they asked me where I was headed to, and I said I was going to work.
1. It felt strange to say that, but there is no better expression that I could use. In retrospect, I probably should have said: To Google’s office in SF, to write some cool code. But then I would have sounded pretentious.
2. The guy replies: Going to work, to make some money. This time I had it, so I smiled and said: “No, I’m going there to have fun”. He laughed politely and I left.
The point is that I don’t feel that I “work” there in the sense most people ascribe to the word. I don’t look at the watch and leave at 5 (man that is horrible, always coming and leaving at the same time cuz you have to) because I look forward to leaving. In fact, I do look at the clock and try to leave at 7 (I rarely succeed), but because I want to go workout and swim and the YMCA closes at 9:45pm.
But I do not have job at Google. I am an intern. Even if I were a full-time employee, I would be doing the same thing as now: go there, work on hard problems, really enjoy it and get paid for it (not enjoying, but solving the problems) and deny that I “have a job”. I do not have to count my hours, in fact nobody does or cares, I do not have to be there at a regular time (I actually have quite chaotic times when I get to the office), I have a room to take a nap right across from my office (and I often do), food is taken care of.
Google is like my grandma: she cooks breakfast lunch and dinner for me, gives me massages, takes care of me when I am sick, gives me a comfy bed to sleep if I am tired and generally leaves me alone. She even buys me books that I want and takes me on trips, and even gives me pocket money. I love my real grandma (really, I do, she’s awesome, and so is my grandpa), and I love my summer grandma Google.
Why did my ex use to tell me to stop working and have some fun? Like…seriously, if I seem pissed at the code I am writing it’s not because I am unhappy, I am actually enjoying this. Ok, maybe I’m not enjoying the problems, but the thrill of arguing with the damn robot and (always) showing it who’s right. Take that, Hal!
Work IS fun, it must be, otherwise you’re doing it wrong. Do get a salary and do take breaks (a lesson I learned the hard way, and in Alex’s wise words: Breaks are part of work), but if the work you are doing makes you feel that you should find something fun to do, take a hard look at what you do. You’re not doing it wrong, you’re doing the wrong thing altogether.
Cheers
Update: This article made me re-think my post. I still stand by what I said, but some background thinking is taking place.
It was my first time. Yes, i was nervous. Wouldn’t you?
My heart was pounding. BAM! BAM! BAM!
I had this strange sensation in my feet. Most people feel butterflies in their belly, I felt something in my feet. She took my hand and led me to the bed. I lay down first, she was guiding me. We played it safe; she took care of everything. It did not really hurt, nor was there any real pleasure. Maybe the excitement of being the first time made me physically numb. There was a bit of blood, but she discretely wiped it. By the end, I was exhausted. She smiled and said a very sincere thank you. I was happy.
Her name is Héma. Héma Québec.
