Thoughts on Engineering. And Coffee.
While this could easily devolve into a discussion regarding Engineering Management and people putting mirrors on their monitors, that is not the point of this post. I have actually directly observed this practice – come on – who wants someone looking over their shoulder at work? The original post idea title was “Monitor Mirrors” until I realized that that was definitely not the intent of this topic.
Here are some fresh and hot coffee haiku for your morning edification.
Before I embark on this Engineer value post, let me try and explain why I am explaining this information. While it is very possible that I simply didn’t pay attention to these topics in school, I am also of the opinion that the US educational system does a pretty poor job of preparing people for the real world. But instead of going down that rabbit hole – instead, let me focus this advice from an older me to a younger me. These topics are things that I wish I had known as a young Engineer. There are a LOT of things I did not pay attention to that would have set me up better for things down the road. I wish I had had someone explain things to me, so it is my hope that these posts to a younger me may help some other young Engineer in some way.…
It has always been my intent on this blog to call out people that I admire. I even have some idea posts around setting up a new category called #Titans. These are pretty easy posts to come up with. Pick a person that is influential. Research that person. Write about that person. Rinse and repeat. However, as I have gotten older my views on life, politics, responsibility, and social issues have started changing. Now – I have a firm rule for myself that I am not going to use this blog in any way to discuss political ideas. I am not going down that path here. However, I was never totally comfortable with the term titans. It was an idea in my head and that word served it’s purpose as a placeholder for what I wanted to explore – but I always had a feeling that that word was wrong…
Wow – 25 posts already? And not just random junk thrown up. I am happy and proud of each post and the thought and effort that went into each one. So at this point I think it is time to set some more goals! However, my life has changed drastically over the past few weeks and I feel the need to talk about that for a moment. Please bear with me. I would like to take a quick aside from the goals portion for a minute to write something really difficult to write. I have not written much in the past few weeks because I lost my father. This was a sudden even for my entire family and it has been a very rough ride. He always wanted me to be happy. Writing this blog makes me happy. Therefore, I am going to continue writing and building and getting better…
For any new or otherwise “green” Engineer some of the best pop culture references are not from movies, tv, or comic books. Many of the best pop culture references are from various, potentially geeky, sources. These references occurred, were discussed over coffee and at water coolers, and may not be present in Engineer culture. However, I feel it is my duty to try and bring some of this culture and historical education back and present many of these topics for your edification and enjoyment. So I am introducing a new category for the blog, #theclassics and this is the first one to bring up and talk about. These will not be general movie, tv, or comic references. You are on your own for those. However, I hope you enjoy the ones that do get covered here and get some mileage in your own conversations and chats. If nothing else, I…
How about some Halloween themed haiku to start this morning off right? This is day 2 of getting back into writing haiku and the rust is flaking off pretty quickly – I am pretty proud of the second day effort! With one week to go before Halloween I hope you have your costume ready! Engineer costumesBut no candy given outToo many red shirts -KW Pumpkin spice coding?New bugs adding lots of tricksMust compile treats! -KW Spooky EngineersNo, wait, just office lights offCode in dark silence -KW
One of my most important goals with this site is to provide advice to all Engineers. One of the ways that I have decided to do this is to maintain a list of Rules for Engineers however, the plain rules list on that page simply states the text of the rule, not the context behind it. I would like to take the time to explain each rule and why it is important for success to give people the context behind it and how they might be able to use it in their daily lives. So to start, I decided to pick one at random. I would like to take a tiny aside here and let you know about an awesome function, let’s call it an easter egg, in good search. If you need a quick random number you can get one through search by rolling dice. For those familiar with…
When you are able to work someplace where you can have some fun with the people you work with you usually end up coming up with inside jokes and other fun things to do. Along with the previously discussed “pop time” one of the things that we did in my first full engineering job was to write workplace haiku. I am still searching for the lists of haiku that we wrote those many, many years ago and if I find them then I will work on posting some of the better ones. However, this blog gives me an ability to resurrect my haiku skills and attempt to create a couple of haiku per week. Now you may be asking yourself – why haiku? Actually, let’s take a step back and first cover: what is haiku? According to wikipedia, haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that is structured over 17…
Co-Ops, interns, fresh-from-bootcamp developers lend me your keyboards…. I have been very fortunate in being able to build a co-op program in conjunction with the engineering program at a local university. Both in targeting hiring entry level developers and during the time that this program has been running I have had the great (mis)fortune to read hundreds of entry-level resumes. Through the reading of so many resumes I would like to give some direct feedback to new and entry level people. First of all try and remember this: resumes suck. There is no getting around it. This will be a common theme from me on this blog. The main reason I don’t like resumes is very simple. How old are you while reading this? You may be in your early 20s. Let’s say that today is your birthday and that you are turning 20. You have now lived 7,300 days…
