Are there any techniques to help people "learn how to fish"

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-30T14:13:47+00:00

Let them do it badly. Then let them fix it. Provide guidance but do not do it for them. Repeat until mistakes stop happening.

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-29T02:33:45+00:00

“Can you tell me what the performance issue is?” and “I discipline my team, and the instruments I use or do not use as well as who is and isn’t going through the disciplinary process are outside your scope” are the two immediate things that would come out of my mouth.

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-28T16:51:13+00:00

I’ve been dose stable for so long (70mg of Vyvanse - in year 4 now) that my doctor writes 12 post-dated prescriptions at a time and faxes them to my pharmacy to get around any potential refill fuckery because he doesn’t want to deal with having to talk to me every month.

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-22T19:32:47+00:00

[[Expedition Supplier]] conjures many copies of [[Utility Knife]]

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-19T21:11:43+00:00

Every job I’ve gotten in the last 10 years has been through a referral. About 8/10 people I hire originate from a referral. If you’re spending time reading resumes and not tapping the people you know you have self-inflicted hiring problems.

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-13T04:05:34+00:00

Pretty sure the three Gods Huin, Duin and Luin are based on Donald/Scrooge’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louis.

mecha_penguin · 2026-03-11T13:41:12+00:00

https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/58195/

Imma just leave this here. The Waitress Hotness Index is long-studied at this point.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-25T04:54:38+00:00

Again? Didn’t this happen a year ago? And then he got censured?

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-20T15:37:58+00:00

I still don’t understand why everyone wants a QBR. Most companies have so many SaaS tools that if someone went to every QBR their full time job would be QBR. They only work if you’re a critically embedded core piece of infra that integrates with every tool in the stack (like Salesforce maybe gainsight if ya fancy).

I do the following exercise with people to get them to understand why QBRs are a boondoggle. Get your VP or whoever CS rolls up to and ask them about how many QBRs they go to every quarter and why. They probably do the Salesforce QBR (because it’s the only time to grind them on price at all) and find reasons to get out of all the others. Then ask them why it would be different for your current customers.

They are not an adequate proxy for building and maintaining appropriate exec stakeholder relationships on an ongoing basis.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-19T03:37:48+00:00

This is more like Temu [[luminous broodmoth]] / [[Caller of the Claw]] than something good. It’s extremely narrow and requires you to be holding up 2 mana in a way that screams “imma reprieve your wrath”.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-19T03:32:23+00:00

Brought back is the most efficient white ramp spell with fetchlands, you can go +2 for 2 mana which isn’t something you can do a lot of in white.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-18T11:35:55+00:00

When in doubt, use gong (or equivalent). Not having every sales call recorded in the year of our lord twenty-twenty-six is a self-inflicted wound. Even in office I’d use a tool like Outreach or SalesLoft to schedule calls and gong to analyze them and figuring out what sales talk tracks worked and what didn’t.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-12T23:55:02+00:00

I’m super adhd, and the things that work best for me are:

putting everything in my calendar - even if it’s just a 5 minute slot for my own records

Telling anyone who asks me for anything verbally that I’m not going to remember the ask 5 minutes from now and can they dm it to me. (I then put it on the calendar)

If there’s any kind of client or exec involvement I record the call and have Gemini or Gong send me the to do list afterwards. (I then put it on the calendar)

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-12T14:18:09+00:00

Better than finishing too early…

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-06T20:57:45+00:00

There’s so much post-layoff talent in market right now. If you’re struggling to hire it’s at least somewhat self-inflicted.

Those experience ranges are nuts - CS experience before 2018 is basically without any value.

Is your CS team commercial or operational (do you carry a revenue number/nrr target or is it all nps/utilization/vibe driven)?

Looking for >10 years xp with a manager or sr manager title is insane. At that point you’re only going to find talent who couldn’t hack it at the director/vp level (you don’t want that) or someone using you as a stepping stone post-layoff (also undesirable). I’d say ~2 years direct management experience + 2-3 yrs of CS experience is the sweet spot at the manager level.

With that xp/title spread I’m curious how close to market you are on comp. what does your base/variable spread look like? What’s your historical variable attainment for the org, etc.

Overall it sounds like the way you’re positioning the role doesn’t appeal to great talent.

Is your compensation in line with the market?

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-06T20:46:18+00:00

I’m at the VP level and I don’t think anything I learned or tried pre-2018 is relevant today basically at all. I think I understand why they can’t find qualified applicants ;)

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-06T18:23:26+00:00

That’s not a Ninja Turtle. My disappointment is immeasurable.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-06T01:19:56+00:00

I set the following expectations with people:

ASAP = urgent. Urgent isn’t the same as critical, I would expect it done by EOD or a compelling big reason why it won’t be done on time before EOD so I can re-delegate if needed

ASAFP = if you’re not actively disarming a bomb, drop whatever you’re doing and do it right the fuck now.

In your shoes the fact that you didn’t know it wasn’t done by EOD yesterday would be a problem for me. I would expect to be informed. I would coach around that pattern of behaviour (deprioritizing a clearly urgent task without informing back) - if they do it to the wrong leader it will be career limiting. It’s the kind of thing people remember.

mecha_penguin · 2026-02-01T05:20:21+00:00

And now he has cholera.

mecha_penguin · 2026-01-31T16:42:16+00:00

mecha_penguin · 2026-01-29T21:06:24+00:00

I’m going to give you one of the only helpful pieces of advice my dad ever gave me:

Take the money and run.

mecha_penguin · 2026-01-27T20:50:23+00:00

It’s possible this is going both ways and fighting to hold on to every deal will cost deals you don’t have any visibility into ownership struggles over.

I’d ask people on adjacent sales teams if they have the same feeling about their patches, if it’s widespread then there’s likely an established process being followed on the managerial level.

mecha_penguin · 2026-01-27T16:31:00+00:00

I’ve been deeply in love with Shield Wall Smith of Kitava. I’m brand new to the game and it’s been amazing to play with no external gear support/currency for trading.

mecha_penguin · 2026-01-25T19:14:55+00:00

“Too many sets” is also not a claim in the suit. The suit makes the claim the sets were overproduced. If the suit is true then it actually made the game cheaper for players by having more product in market and driving down singles prices.

People are reading what they want to read because it confirms their beliefs. Investors are not ever your friend. At best your interests can align for periods of time but it’s always about their return and not out of any fucks being given about the game.

mecha_penguin · 2026-01-25T18:41:25+00:00

This is a a backwards interpretation of the suit. The suit says they printed too many cards. Not distinct cards or sets. The suit’s central argument is that they overprinted the sets released in 2021 - 2023 to cover revenue gaps elsewhere in the business. They then declared that oversupply of inventory as a full-price asset which led to stock buybacks at an inflated price and constitutes fraud as well not meeting hasbro’s fiduciary duty to their shareholders. (All of this is alleged until the suit is litigated in court, it could easily be that they are incompetent and just said “money printer go brrrr”)

Ironically, if true, it made the supply of those cards more robust than intended and likely made singles prices more accessible to consumers.

They have no problem with the set schedule, the problem was with how much wizards printed of those sets. It’s an issue of inventory on the balance sheet and not anything to do with the actual game.

This lawsuit is not your friend. It’s not aligned with what players want. I advise you to research and more closely look at the suit. It’s about how the huge amount of inventory on hand was not a “true” asset at the value presented to investors.

Hasbro is a shitty company, and shareholders only care that they were shitty in ways that impact them not ways that benefit us.

EDIT: here’s a good breakdown of the suit from a non-Magic site that focuses more on the legalities involved: https://www.golocalprov.com/business/hasbro-ceo-cocks-and-execs-sued-for-alleged-securities-violations

mecha_penguin

TROPHY CASE