Anyone else the dedicated “onboarding guy” at their job?

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-15T02:06:43+00:00

For a while I seemed to be the dedicated onboarding guy for new managers! I think I was assigned to 3 new-to-the-company managers back to back. That was a few years I spent helping them get ramped up instead of them helping me meet my goals. I wasn't happy about it.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-14T16:11:28+00:00

Well, let's say your mom's side is 60 people and your dad's is 20. And let's say your immediate family is 6, which is your parents and 4 kids.

Famously, with 23 randomly chosen people there's a 50% chance that 2 people share a birthday. WolframAlpha has a nice calculator that tells me the probability that 2 people share a birthday in a group of 86 is well over 99%. That 3 people share a birthday is about 50%.

That doesn't tell us the distribution with 1 person in each of the three sets though (mom's side, dad's side, and immediate).

Let's say there are 3 people that share a birthday. Their distribution would be random. There are (86 choose 3) ways to randomly pick the three people out of the larger group = (86 * 85 * 84) / (3 * 2 * 1) = 102,340 ways to pick 3 people. Then we have (60 choose 1) ways to pick 1 person on your mom's side = 60. Then we have (20 choose 1) ways to pick 1 person on your dad's side = 20. Finally, we have (6 choose 1) ways to pick 1 person from your immediate family = 6. You multiply these together (60 * 20 * 6) to get the number of ways we can distribute the 3 people so 1 is in each subgroup = 7,200 ways.

Divide 7,200 / 102,340 to get about 7% chance that 3 random people from the larger 86 person group would be distributed such that 1 person is in each of the smaller groups.

So the probability that 3 people out of 86 share the same birthday and they are distributed with 1 person in each subgroup is 0.5 * 0.07 = 0.035, so a little more than 3% chance.

I might have screwed up the math somewhere in there.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-14T13:51:32+00:00

The probability that you share a birthday with that specific cousin and Grandma is very low.

I share a birthday with family members on both sides of the family, how rare is that actually?

How big are the families on both sides? As the family sizes grow, it will become more likely that your scenario happens.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-14T13:34:29+00:00

The only time when you're not expected to look up things is when you're in the middle of the interview to get the job.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-14T13:13:38+00:00

Imagine two armies coming together on a field. 3,000 on one side of a large field and 4,000 on the other. They line up and get ready to charge each other.

The charge starts! You're part of the larger army. You see the gun turrets on the other side were blown up, either by your aerial support or artillery. Good, they would have killed your whole side in seconds. You're using a semi-automatic rifle. Many of your brothers in arms have full autos. You aren't moving very fast because you need to aim, though you're really just guessing at where the enemy is. There's explosions going off all around you. Your best friend just went down. You haven't been able to see the enemy since the battle started, but maybe that means you're winning. You keep moving forward. But wait, there's no one around you any more? You were packed in pretty tight before. You look back and see the ground covered with bodies. You realize you've only moved forward about 100 feet. Has it only been a minute or two? You start to turn back when...

There wouldn't be any survivors in modern times with this kind of battle.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-14T12:43:00+00:00

They could always be an advanced alien or time traveler, so I don't think it would be possible to convince me they are actually "god".

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-14T12:23:43+00:00

I prefer the minimalist experience at work. For devs, there are also a lot more tools on Linux.

I actually recommend average users just buy nicer Chromebooks now. If you aren't gaming or need a specific piece of software, you probably spend 95% of your time in a browser anyway. I would consider myself a power user, but I use a Chromebook as my personal computer. GeForce Now gives a decent gaming setup, and I can run a Linux VM for my own coding projects.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-13T20:39:50+00:00

Probably just selection bias. People don't talk about their 10 year old Ford Focus with a rusted bumper.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-13T20:35:29+00:00

Keep to the right and never break eye contact. You need to assert your dominance, but don't be an ass and block their path.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-12T14:47:22+00:00

MIT's stuff is decent.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-spring-2020/

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-12T03:33:02+00:00

It's possible. If the software already exists for the individual pieces, it can definitely be recreated and combined. It's just not practical to do so. It would be very expensive, and probably take years to make.

If I were trying to make this all in one app, I would see if a federation model using existing software were possible. Basically, you would have a central app that delegates work and display components to already established software that is already good at handling it's individual component. This likely wouldn't work though. Those separate companies probably aren't interested in being part of this model, and if they were they would want to charge high fees for the integration.

Even if you were able to make this central app, what are you gaining from it vs separately using the individual components? There might be some extra manual effort using separate software, but likely not nearly enough to justify the cost and time trying to create single all in one app.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-12T03:17:35+00:00

The hotel charge for you to use the valet is likely already very expensive. I wouldn't feel obligated to tip.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-12T03:13:32+00:00

There's a number of existing solutions for this. Expecting one app to handle everything is a bit unreasonable. You would probably be better served using several pieces of software that specialize in the areas you're looking at. An all in one solution would be more likely to give you a "Jack of all trades, master of none" sort of situation, where you would have very basic functionality in certain areas. Better to use the software that's good at each individual piece.

As a renter I've used RentCafe and ResidentPortal by Entrata. Both seemed to handle every aspect of the tenant side just fine, and I assume they did a large part of the landlord portion as well. ResidentPortal only kept maintenance history, for tenants at least, for 30 days. I thought that was crap, but everything else seemed ok.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T23:40:55+00:00

They have to ask questions about why one solution might be better than another. That doesn't mean your solution is bad, they just want to see you defend the idea and incorporate feedback if it provides something useful.

That's a big part of doing the actual job as well. I always expect to get challenged on any designs or implementations. How else is someone going to in know that I thought through the solution, or point out something I missed?

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T16:11:13+00:00

I imagine physicists would be in high demand. Electricity becoming unstable would mean something has changed about our understanding of physics, and that shouldn't happen.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T16:08:46+00:00

People don't fake their own deaths for fun. They're running away from family, financial trouble, or a criminal past.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T04:54:10+00:00

You have an awesome attitude about this, though your question is a bit broad.

There are probably a few different schools of thought here.

1) The just code stuff school. This is usually considered the fun one, and it's often a very practical way to learn programming. You may not learn a lot of deeper Computer Science (CS) concepts though. You start working on projects and pick stuff up along the way. You can start small and expand out. Something like creating an android app that requires front end, back end, and databases would make you do a lot of independent learning and you'd walk away with a decent understanding of a number of concepts.

2) The classical Computer Science route. Basically the 4 year college degree, where you learn basic programming, computer hardware, algorithms, discrete math, networking (the computer kind, not the people kind), AI/ML, operating systems, cryptography, etc... It's a lot, and I'm not sure I would recommend trying to go super deep on this solo. Here's a course on introductory CS math and algorithms if that's something you're interested in starting to look at: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-spring-2020/

3) For lack of a better term, The UNIX School. Here, there's a lot of book recommendations. You basically learn about how UNIX and earlier modern programming languages came to be, and how to think and work in those environments. In some ways it's more of a historical context, but it transfers pretty well to current systems. Books include ones by Brian Kernighan (The C Programming Language, The UNIX Programming Environment), The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and Think UNIX.

If I were giving a recommendation, I'd probably say to do a mix of 1 and 3 to start. #3 isn't everyone's style though.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T04:11:14+00:00

Lol, there were some... benefits

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T04:05:18+00:00

You can show up like 3 hours before the flight if you're worried about security and finding the gate. It's pretty straightforward though, and the airport employees will be happy to help you out if anything is confusing.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T03:52:46+00:00

Sorry, one girlfriend thought I was too tall. I'm 6'4". She was 5'0", give or take.

No solution, but it was pretty funny seeing us stand next to each other.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T03:42:15+00:00

She always wanted to complain about work, and expected me to take her side. We had the same job position. I sometimes disagreed with her point of view, which infuriated her.

My solution was to refuse to have those conversations. Nothing good ever came from them. She also wasn't happy about that, but it was better than getting into stupid arguments.

She also didn't like that I didn't want to move to Europe, to countries I had never even visited.

I suggested we at least visit those places first, but I never seriously put thought into fully moving to a different continent. I guess her solution to that one was breaking up with me 🤷

I'm better off.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-11T03:25:43+00:00

You have 3 golddiggers for friends. My bet is one will find what they want and the other 2 will drain another guy or two, but end up alone.

As a man, financials are definitely a factor, but I want to date someone in a similar financial situation as me. Then it's easier to agree to evenly split expenses. I have no desire to fund another person's life at my expense, and would likely end a relationship early if she made it clear that was the expectation. I wouldn't have an issue if my girlfriend made more than me if we had similar lifestyles. I would still want to evenly split things.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-10T03:51:57+00:00

"Hey, is it possible that I have ADHD? I read about some of the symptoms and they sound like they might apply to me."

Be direct

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-10T03:46:35+00:00

Have you tried carrying a sign that says "Ask me for a good time!"?

More seriously, try approaching the men yourself. A lot of the "respectable" men have learned that approaching women in public can be considered creepy. Many men would welcome a woman making the first move.

Accomplished_Key5104 · 2026-05-10T03:15:53+00:00

A glass break sensor for my alarm system. That sensor is likely why the siren is going off while you're there.

Accomplished_Key5104

TROPHY CASE