That’s interesting to hear. I started out as a web dev and made quite a few transitions until I got the title software engineer, bounced around a few companies until I settled at my current job and since I got that first salary job have never been asked. I even did a short stint of security work a company that had a decent amount of government contracts when I was desperate.
I honestly didn’t think they were still a thing outside of maybe directly in government positions.
I’ve only ever had to pass a drug test for low paying hourly jobs. I’ve never been tested for a salaried position.
I don’t understand how not having social media is a red flag. I know people look at it funny, but I don’t get why.
I did a thing once where everyone brought a gift and some game was played and if you won your round you got to pick the gift you got, or something like that.
The person who picked before me got 2 crisp $100 bills, the person after me got airpods. I got… A painted rock, I was so excited. It was the only gift that someone put actual effort into and wasn’t just a quick buy.
Not that I would’ve been upset with $200 but I still have that rock sitting in my garden
I would have to lightly disagree about Linux. I think for the average person, just using a browser and occasionally editing a document, some distros are absolutely plug and play.
Installing it can be overwhelming for people unfamiliar but once it’s installed there’s not much to do aside from use it.
My sisters been using Linux for years since most of her schooling has been online, she was on mint for a while and then I switched her to Fedora. The gnome interface was the biggest hurdle to get over and she figured it out in about 10 minutes. She uses firefox, libre office for documents and sheets, the software app to keep everything up to date and install stuff. That’s all there really is to it. The only time she’s ever called me for help is when she changed her password and forgot what it was.
I think if it came pre installed people would do fine.
Not really a dumb reason, but back in the day I was stuck in the WordPress developer loop and tired of it. I was pretty familiar with a handful of languages, but wasn’t doing much more than setting up themes and building out pages with builders.
One day I heard the CTO talking about a tool he would love to have but couldn’t find anything that worked how he needed it to. The CTO was a big buzzword guy and recently shared an article with my manager at the time about how C++ was “the best language”. So naturally I chimed in and told him I could build that tool easy peasy and I would use C++ obviously because it’s the best language.
It was such a simple tool, basically just matching phrases and categories and spitting out a list of options. It took me months to make, but I learned a lot and it kind of worked for the most part and everyone was happy. I eventually got a de-facto department in the company where I would just build internal tools and handle some legacy codebases that they were previously outsourcing.
I later on got my current job because of that leap.
TLDR: I learned C++ because I was bored and lied that I already knew it.
I don’t think an uprising is going to break out tomorrow as an immediate reaction to his actions.
But at the very least he got a lot of people talking and thinking. People who a year or two ago would call someone “complaining” about the health conglomerates and the way we’re getting fucked crazy.
I was that person called crazy, and now my whole family, neighbors, friends, coworkers are fucking pissed and finally waking up. People who I never thought would.
It certainly doesn’t stop at health insurance, we’re getting killed from 100 different angles. But he got people talking.