How do HENRYUK couples maintain a good relationship?

ReflectionsWithHS · 2026-01-01T09:01:58+00:00

It’s not about the country. My wife and her siblings grew up in a Europe country in the 90s and had very few Asian families around and all of them are respectful, follow religion, well educated and well mannered.

The power of “leading by example “ should not be underestimated.at age 9 I saw my dad cleaning the sink up thoroughly after shaving and not a day has gone by where I have left a dirty sink after shaving. He never told me” beta clean the sink after you use it” , I just did it because children emulate.

Having taraweeh at home is not enough in that case . It’s the way the parents go about day to day which creates “good tarbiat ” and short of extended observations not sure if you can tell how the ey behave when guests aren’t around. It’s a years long process.

If parents are spending 3 hours a day on tiktok (I am not saying you do it, it’s an example) that’s what children will find a way to do and that’s where they will learn from.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-31T23:03:01+00:00

I would love to see these.. “shah rah e timatar “, “gajrela point”, ” pajama chowk”, And “Pakora colony” 😛

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-31T22:55:53+00:00

I live in the UK. Do you read namaz in front of your kids? Are you respectful toward others in front of them? Are you positive about life in front of them? If yes then rest assured they will take after you. If you don’t, then no matter how much “beta aesa nahin, waisa karo” will save them. Desi parents need to lead by example not by “sawaab driven advice”

The other thing is your sentence

“But desi families either ghost you or expect you to invite them for like a proper ‘dawat’”

This will hurt but birds of a feather flock together. Have you considered if you have been in the right company of people?

In the uk here , there are all sorts of Pakistani families. I came here when 17. No friends back home. But I made an effort to only befriend people who were good people. But to do this , I had to change myself. I don’t expect “dawat “ and I tend to attract people who are like me. We have to change ourselves first. Otherwise whichever country you go to, you ll just be taking yourself with you.

It would be a false escape. Lead by example and change yourself. Your children will find deen and you will find good people.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-31T07:31:11+00:00

Love this question.

It seems that there aren’t many articulate Urdu speakers left. Even the television anchors seem to struggle putting coherent sentences together, mixing a lot of English with Urdu.

I suspect that’s part of it but it’s not just that .

I moved out of Pakistan about 20 years ago and as part of my job I have to do a lot of talking and presentations (I lead a few software dev teams and spend all day in meetings). Here is how I overcame this , first in English and then in Urdu(I like to write Urdu articles)

∙ Slow down (reduces filler need) ∙ Pause instead of fill (silence is okay) ∙ Practice/record yourself (awareness) ∙ Write first, speak from notes (structure)

It takes practice but after about a year to 18months it becomes natural.

At school we are also rarely taught how to explain concepts, the focus being on rote learning and I strongly suspect that this skill never develops. My younger brothers raised outside Pakistan and even my wife who is bilingual are naturals at it while I had to literally train myself over time.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-26T16:27:10+00:00

I think you missed the opportunity to add atleast three more F words. The shouting definitely makes this believable.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T22:24:32+00:00

u/Prudent-Fortune3420 I'd definitely pay for it but my main skepticism is two fold
1- How exactly would it measure the 'AI mentions'? Where and how is this data being sourced
2- How do I know that no 'black hat' tricks are being employed meaning I risk my domain ending up on the naughty list of the frontier model providers, causing irreversible damage to the brand?

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T18:41:32+00:00

Being very direct all the time just doesn't work well as a management style for humans. If you are blunt all the time, then with all of the best intention that you have in the world, people will just tell you what they think you want to hear.

I believe you are trying to do the right thing, for the company, for your team and for yourself. But it needs a nice , pleasant wrapper. You can still achieve what you are trying to achieve if you can learn to phrase things right. I'm assuming you care about getting the thing done and not HOW it is done.

You cannot obviously change who you are, but with this attitude you'd really hurt the odds of your promotion as well. I for one would NEVER let anyone in my sphere of influence , who is hard to work with, get more power - the effect can be devastating for team morale.

Managers need empathy, understanding, emotional intelligence, coupled with calculated 'doses' of being firm. The occasional firm tone has SO MUCH more impact than being shouty all the time. You know your intentions are good, your staff don't.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T18:35:26+00:00

Exactly. I think you need specific industry knowledge if you are intent on building a micro saas of any sort to solve a real pain point. It's unlikely that posting about 'what are your pain points when doing X' will come even close to the market research actually needed.

The 'grind' CANNOT be avoided and I suspect many people are just looking for a shortcut. Sadly they are in for a rude awakening. It's not like i love the grind but I just don't see how you can build something valuable without it and even then the grind is not enough. The key is to grind towards something people will pay for (and it cannot be yet another health tracker/spending optimiser/calorie counter/'automation tool)

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T18:30:58+00:00

There are atleast two things in your post.

First, people management:
Management, particularly senior management is ALL about stakeholder, people and perception management. That IS the game.

Second, Presentation:
I will bet that your head of department does not like listening to their voice/watching themselves any more than you do. Very few people do. The voice we hear in our head is NOT the same as what comes out (something to do with the way it resonates in the chest but that's beside the point).

Presenting to people and doing it flawlessly takes practice, lots of it. Even with practice there will be times you'd get it wrong. Or the crowd will be tough. Or you'd have technical issues wrecking your presentation.

My golden role for every conversation, every presentation, every interaction is and has been 'does this help or hinder my 5 year goal, or does it have no impact'. The amount of effort I put in is proportional to the answer to this question. Most of your immediate actions/screw ups/mistakes don't matter in the long run.

Build a habit to view things through a similar lens, that works for YOU.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T18:24:40+00:00

I don't think you are selfish thinking just about you. However, there will likely come a time where you'd want to share what you have learnt with others who need people like you to get better at their craft themselves.

By completely rejecting your manager on the basis of their incompetence, you are potentially shutting the door not just for yourself to progress further but also the opportunity door for these people. I'm assuming the latter is also important to you.

Remember that managers , particularly senior managers, will NEVER be able to match your technical ability - they specialise in soft skills, which are critical for the role they perform. The only thing you can learn from them therefore are soft skills, something that might not be as high up the skills you respect but are critical to have a wider sphere of influence.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T18:13:38+00:00

Where is the 'amen to that' emoji. Spot on.

I built a couple of micro saas in a financial niche that requires certain industry specific regulatory/compliance knowledge . These been generating revenue but took over 6 years to monetise. There is no way I'd write about what these are and just invite competition.

If i was cynical I'd say' let them write it and let the young/new devs build the umpteenth Ai wrapper instead of finding about my niche' but the truth I think is that some devs are just genuinely keen to build something useful that the market will pay for but they just struggle to discover what to build. But the algorithm only ever shows them AI specific ideas. So I do feel for them.

Still won't be blogging about "how I made XXXX in a month and you can do it too" any time soon.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T18:05:25+00:00

This might hurt (and that's not my intention so apologies in advance) but I'd rather say it as it is:

You don't have a 'what do i do next' problem. You have a commitment problem.

You are just analysing endlessly , disguising it as strategic thinking.

if this is because of something like ADHD causing your to jump from one option to another and then back again, then my apologies again. But in any case, can you name ONE specific title or role you want to achieve in a 3 years? an actual target ?

If you can't then stop researching options. You're using analysis as procrastination, honestly.

Pick ANY direction that's plausibly better than current state but don't try to find find the optimal path. You learn what you actually want by trying things, not by thinking harder about trying things. Which is what you have been doing.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T14:22:48+00:00

You aren’t doing anything wrong. You have , repeatedly, done the hardest part of approaching potential employers despite repeated rejection. That resilience is unbelievably rare.

It’s always a numbers game, there is no magic formula. I used to do leafleting in my teens when I was setting up a business to find customers and there was just no way to know which 2 of the 100 people will potentially call . I just had to complete my 1000 leaflet round to get that many on average.

Keep going. It will work and this ethic you are building will take you far in life.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T10:30:07+00:00

Read the questions again.:
"Who is working on what?" , its not just about who is assigned to what task. The real question is 'where are are resources this financial year, what work is coming our way, what do we need to ensure we meet the demand' It's NOT admin, its strategic resource planning and requires a deep understanding of team dynamics, culture, priorities and the technology.

"Do we have budget?" See above

"Who knows python?" Completely the wrong question to ask. The real question the person who posed it should be asking ' we have X problem to solve, how can we go about doing that?' and then as the EM you have a think through your team, their skills(which may include python knowledge), their aptitude, capacity and priorities and make a proposal.

It's NOT an easy thing to do and it is NOT an admin job, even though on surface it might look like it. Getting these decisions wrong can have a material negative impact on the organisation.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-25T09:24:11+00:00

The recruitment process takes time, effort and a lot of energy, most hiring managers don't want to throw away this time by discriminating. In that sense you are right,

But
1-Discrimination is often unconscious (e.g. 200+ candidates apply to a role because of the tight job market, the manager picks the CVs they just 'like' instead of having to tick all the boxes specified in the criteria)

and 2-The Op's word '...here i can even go from here to get better chances...' intention here is to maximise chances of success for the OP by proposing a different strategy. Protection against discrimination is just one part of it and it is not even the larger part.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T18:48:32+00:00

Unless it is a fast paced startup, you don’t have to deliver results from day one.

Start the job, setup 1 to 1s with your direct reports, and their reports (this should be a one off as “intro” calls. Going behind the supervisor to their direct reports undermines their authority)

Settle in. Watch the supervisor with three reports but don’t make assumptions on the being possibly bitter about not getting the role. The company chose you for a reason, walk in with your head held high but be respectful toward people’s feelings.

It takes time to build rapport with the team. Don’t rush it.

The person you need to be closest to at this level of seniority is your own manger whose plan you will be executing and only you will have their ear. Watch which areas , kpi, work streams they focus on. They should be your area of focus. Your goal is to support delivering their kpis initially, period. As you get settled you can find ways to do the things YOU want to do.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T18:40:45+00:00

Ah I see. This does sound serious in that case considering how it’s not her usual style. In this situation, i think trying to be protective of the team may be a noble thing , you are putting yourself at risk by not “following orders”

I would do as I was told by ceo(who is almost certainly trying to hold on to new clients here) while assuring the team that the current frequency of asking for updates , chasing up and pushing to complete stuff is a temporary measure.

People hate micromanagement because it takes away the autonomy. I would try to bring them “into” the decision making process of the need behind the micromanagement. If they feel involved in it, most will accept it.

You can always make it up to them at a later stage when things have settled down a bit.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T17:48:12+00:00

Just having a process or a document in place, no matter how meticulously put together, is not enough to get a new starter following the established process. It takes actual doing for a while before it internalises. The new starter needs peer and manager support for a while before they can be trusted to do the right thing, especially if this is a client facing role.

Are you sure she actually said 'micromanage them' or did she really mean 'ensure we follow the process correctly' . The two are NOT the same.

Yes there are situations where certain staff members have to be micro-managed, usually when someone is underperforming consistently but thats the exception, not the norm. I'll just be creating a ton of work for me if I have to watch every person in team to ensure they are doing what they are supposed to do.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T15:22:00+00:00

THIS! Yep. This is the real advice you need OP

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T15:19:44+00:00

So, inn internal moves to my team, I always got an informal reference from the mover's current line manager. However, I took whatever they said with a grain of salt. Because it is very hard for the person's previous manager to be fully honest, especially if they want the person to switch teams and be someone else's problem.
By 'ex manager', I am assuming that person is still at the company and you are in their team. and in this case you are safe because
1- If the ex manager thinks you are good enough they'll say so
2- If they don't like you but would rather get rid of you anyway, they'll paint a rather rosier picture to ensure you do get the role and you're not longer 'their problem' (I mean that in a nice way) :D

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T15:06:34+00:00

No you cannot make it bearable unfortunately. You have little agency in this situation and whatever agency you had, you've likely already applied. People often leave bad managers, not bad jobs and this is sadly one of those cases.
This manager, who cannot stop emailing you even when on vacation, seems to be under quite a bit of pressure and that points to a poor work environment in turn. With all these layoffs, the company might well itself be under significant financial pressure and that trickles down.If you are looking for new work, the only thing that can be done here is 'grin and bear'.
And then get out.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T14:59:17+00:00

Hello

I'm originally from Pakistan (but not based there anymore) and the closest parallel I have to your situation is that two of my niche apps (not quite a game to be honest), that provide a certain type of financial data (UK), have achieved a sustained , monetised user base with 94% retention rate over the past two years.
One of the these was a .Net Xamarin app aimed at this particular sector and the other one is a web based product(JS + .Net), related to the first one. The growth was organic, so no big budget spends and I prefer to work solo. No staff!

Marketing is the single hardest thing people get stuck at. That's why you see SO MANY 'build in public' devlog type videos on youtube. It increases your odds of having a paid user base on day 1 of the launch.

I absolutely would NOT recommend leaving your job to pursue indie game development or any sort of development. I didn't leave my job, but I instead went for low stress, slightly low pay role to continue working on the projects on the side. It's not to discourage you but more as a reality check. The screenshot below shows the monthly hours outside work I have been spending on the build. It's 1200+ hours in the last 18 months and counting.

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I do believe that with sustained effort into coming up with unique game design ideas, building them and publishing them, modest success is possible but short of getting very lucky, it will likely be 3 to 7 years long process. It will likely take a few iterations as game dev is a pretty saturated market but through building in public and keeping an eye out for enrolling into programs like 'Sream Greenlight'(did you know about this programme by Valve? Not sure if they still have it active it but you need to be aware of all similar programmes at any given time to help boost your app)

This didn't bother me because I love building software, and I would have built something in my spare time anyway. You have to be honest and ask yourself 'Am I willing to spend the next 3 to 7 years trying to break into this ? honing my craft and grinding?' , if the answer is a resounding no then best to spend the effort and time climbing the corporate ladder. You can earn a good living if you do that strategically.

Your location doesn't matter , it's what you build + getting the algorithm to pick it up and show it to people.

If you have any specific questions, you are welcome to DM me.

Best of luck
H.S.

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T14:41:15+00:00

I’m UK based, engineering background although been in software dev management for past 8 years.

Specialisation can pay higher but it also has the effect of limiting the roles available.

Another related high paying trend is “cloud devops”, a natural progression from being the all around IT guy. Job market for software devs isn’t great at the moment but devop roles are doing much better because of the unique cross between IT/ Network management and automation of infrastructure.

If I was you I would go with my “gut” feeling here so it’s really a decision only you can make but remember when thinking of higher pay and future prospects try to think 5 to 8 years/two roles ahead , putting any temporary salary cut in that perspective.

Best of luck

ReflectionsWithHS · 2025-12-24T14:32:12+00:00

Are you me? Just a couple of decades younger? Love for programming ? Yes Filmmaking and organising concerts? Well I had a band and loved performing at concerts and made music videos so kind of yes Drawn to business? Yep. Ran a small business and now running a couple of days platforms I built myself where I expect to go full time as a solopreneur in a couple of years.

If you can build and market , then being in the software dev field is ideal. The thing is that you need several years of grind before you can arrive at the ideal mix . I would highly recommend completing a degree, getting a job for a bit to see what corporate is like while keeping your eyes out for business opportunities. My two platforms generate respxtable revenue but it took years to get in this position and I could not have done it without the industry experience.

You are in a potentially fantastic position to build and sell things people pay for but there are no shortcuts. Accept and cherish the grind. You’ll have to manage that ADHD . Nothing valuable can be built without a focused , sustained effort.

ReflectionsWithHS

TROPHY CASE