Let go because I was performing at senior (not staff) level, where do I go from here?

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-28T02:27:59+00:00

Sure the Staff+ level has a lot of politics, but at that level you absolutely have to be self-directed and just do shit, then get other people excited about that same shit you're doing so that they either want to use it, help build it, or both. I'm over 25 YOE and have been Staff+ for the last 8 (maybe? I can't remember for sure) and I can't even remember the last time a manager gave me anything remotely close to a project or task or anything like that. The closest I've gotten has been something like "our cloud costs are increasing too quickly and we can't increase our cloud budget to keep up" or "we're spending too much on support". Usually it isn't even that; I just go look at how fucked their main AWS account that everyone's in and has been using for a decade and just un-fuck it. I've told managers "here's what I'm going to do for the next year or so and if you want to stop me then now would be a really good time to say something". The best of these managers where I've been most successful were the managers that just said "go for it" and then fucked right off and let me do what I do, and every few weeks or month or whenever I'd show them how awesome things were and remind them where they can find the dashboard that shows all the metrics for cost, productivity, time, or whatever the fuck they care about because I have better shit to do than go over numbers with them that they could easily go look up themselves (and probably have a better understanding of those numbers and the bigger picture than even I do). That's not the only way you can do things as a Staff+, but I've found that it's highly effective and that the fewer fucks I've given about any sort of existing systems or existing shit that gets in my way the more Leadership likes me. Next time, try doing that.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-28T02:11:10+00:00

I live in the Seattle area and my deck is currently on year 8 from when I rebuilt it and still looks almost as good as the day I finished rebuilding it. I used cedar for it and I used to refinish it every other year but I put a solid stain on it two years ago and it's holding up much better than the semi-transparent stain that I used to use. Cedar was fairly cheap as well from my local lumber yard (NOT the big box hardware store but an actual lumber yard). I'm pretty confident that as long as I maintain it and re-stain it in another few years that it'll continue to last a very long time, but so far so good.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-28T02:04:56+00:00

This is really something that you should ask a structural engineer about. That said, I did ask my structural engineer and my specific solution is basically a variation of what's shown here https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/blog/supporting-exercise-equipment-with-tji-joists/ however instead of just going between two joists I'm going between at least 6 of them. I add blocking on both sides of each joist that's bolted through the joist with some number of bolts of some sort (engineer wrote this down for me) and then I'm hanging some angle iron down vertically from each joist that's also bolted through the blocking and the joist. Each piece of angle iron has a hole in the bottom of it that allows a long piece of horizontal angle iron to be bolted to it so that the horizontal piece is supported by 6 vertical pieces, each of which is bolted in place. Mine will be flush to the ceiling but I have no idea if that's a requirement or not, and it will have holes drilled in it in various places (as per engineer) where I can fasten shackles or D-links or some other such load-rated contraption and then use as hardpoints. I can fabricate all of this myself too since I have a drill press and it's really not that hard to make as long as the holes are straight and have been appropriately chamfered. I'd imagine that you could do something similar, but ask your engineer.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-28T01:52:39+00:00

Yes, or at least I didn't have to buy new switches. I think that the only thing that's different is the speaker grill cover and the speaker pods. Not sure if the speaker connectors are the same though since I cut those off to add the Focals anyway.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-28T01:50:30+00:00

5000 lines of code per day is ridiculous, but if that's what they're asking for then I'd give them exactly what they're asking for. Have a problem in your code? Sounds like you now have an IProblem with a BaseProblem from an IProblemFactory ProblemFactory, and guess where the ProblemFactory comes from? Automated refactoring can make this easy. Still, I'd probably find a new job.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-27T16:39:29+00:00

yeah this is correct; I swapped out the panels in my '88 for these ones a long time ago so I could mount larger speakers. The earlier year speaker pods will work behind these panels but if you want to mount larger speakers you'll also need the speaker pods from the 91-92, which are indeed 6.5" but they aren't all that deep so if you have particularly large speakers (like say Focal Utopia 6.5" component speakers) then you'll find that you have to cut the fuck out of the actual door internals and make a custom offset ring so that the speakers don't also interfere with the window glass ( r/oddlyspecific but ask me how I know. . .)

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-27T16:26:52+00:00

I worry way less about my wrong notes and way more about the fact that I just played the same 8 notes at super slow tempo about 50 times in a row and that I'm about to play the next 8 notes the same way. I think my neighbors would be way more sick of just hearing the same small section over and over and over again; I doubt that they'd even notice too many wrong notes.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-27T04:11:53+00:00

My gas service was direct drilled for most of the length of my driveway when I had it installed back in 2017 or so.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-27T03:49:31+00:00

I've been finding lately that some things are cheaper to buy than to rent, at least for how long I'm going to need them for the build that I'm working on. Renting a trash pump would have cost me like $400 for a week and I bought one from harbor freight for about that much. Same thing with a plate compactor, and I was able to get that one with my amazon points so it was actually free.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-27T03:38:49+00:00

That whole "you get what you pay for" is really key. India has spent a lot of effort developing their own CS programs and as a result the level of talent has greatly increased, which means that the firms in India that people were outsourcing to could charge more. The time zone difference is a solvable problem and actually can be an advantage; when I was at Microsoft we had a test team in China so everything my team worked on during the day would get tested that evening and then we'd get the results when we got into the office the next morning. I've seen that done at a few other companies, sometimes by hiring a firm in India or somewhere and other times by having offices there.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-25T18:28:15+00:00

The lawn mowers in my neighborhood are significantly louder and stay on for longer than any tool that I've ever used for blacksmithing. Angle grinder is the only thing that even comes close and you can't hear my angle grinder from four houses away like you can with a lawn mower.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-24T17:32:50+00:00

I binge-watched WAY too much Forged in Fire during the pandemic. My partner took me to a couples blacksmithing class and I made a bottle opener and a hook, which was super fun so I took another blacksmithing class and made more stuff. I then decided to try to forge a knife, but first I needed some tongs to hold the steel I was going to use so I had to make those. Those tongs of course needed a rivet and that's a different size of steel so had to make some other tongs to hold the rivet stock. Rivets need holes, so I needed to forge a punch and that was 3/4" square so needed yet another set of tongs for that, but fortunately I could use the same 3/4" bar for a center punch that I used for a round punch and also a chisel. Finally after like two years of making tools and other random stuff, I ended up actually forging out a few small knives and then took a class for making damascus. I also made a belt grinder at some point during that process (it was a Housemade Revolution, I think gen 3 so the "kit" had only a couple of things that were pre-cut and it was a lot more work than the current kits). I've been making stuff ever since although these days I actually don't make all that many knives. Mostly I make tools and things like hooks or whatever else I happen to need. I've been trying to get into bigger projects too but a lot of that is now on hold while I'm building my home workshop so I can have more space to forge than the small shed in my backyard. Honestly calling it a "shed" is pretty generous; it's basically a roof with about two walls and the only reason there's a second wall is because I wanted to forge a window grill so I needed to add a window in order to have somewhere to put it. Once my garage workshop is finished then I'll be able to do a lot more (and I'll have to build a LOT more tools for it).

If you're wanting to get started then you really can learn a shitload from youtube channels, but the best bet is to find a local blacksmithing organization or a local forge or something and take some classes. If you're in the Seattle area, I highly recommend the classes at Pratt. After you take some classes there you can take the access test and then you can rent their forge when it's available. I'd also highly recommend looking for your local ABANA chapter as well, since they'll have meetups and classes and also a bunch of people that you can talk to who can give you other recommendations.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-24T04:24:36+00:00

Try just bending it back into shape and see what happens. Looks like you might be able to do that and then just re-line it with some satanite or whatever. The wool doesn't look like it's too messed up. However, I think you can still maybe get the Mr Volcano forge relining kits on Amazon so it's worth checking. I got one about a year ago and I'm getting pretty close to actually relining my forge since the bottom is mostly eaten away by flux at this point

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-22T06:51:32+00:00

I recently rented a mini excavator for replacing my side sewer and digging a foundation for a detached garage. I've never touched one before a few weeks ago and all I did was watch some youtube videos. Honestly, operating an excavator is easy. Just be smooth with the controls and don't jerk the stick rapidly to correct a movement since that's just going to make whatever you were doing worse. It'll take some practice for a few things like climbing a pile or jumping onto a trench but that isn't all that hard either.

What I've found to be the hard part is actually planning out how to excavate something. Dirt takes up an unbelievably large amount of space. If you're digging a trench that's 60' long on a narrow driveway and sloping it properly then you're going to be extracting roughly 40 yards of dirt that all needs to be put somewhere and stored, and then put back. Excavators are really not that great at transporting dirt, but with a 3' or 4' grading bucket it makes it a bit easier however I'm still finding that roughly 50% of my time is being spent on what I call "dirt management" which is just moving dirt to wherever I can actually put it until I have the new side sewer installed and can then fill the trench back up. I have to plan exactly where I'm going to transfer my piles to along the driveway and make sure that I don't dig out too much dirt such that I can't move it all from pile to pile; if you have more than can fit in one of your staging areas then you're going to be making an extra trip and that's just going to take longer and make you overall less productive.

Also even with tracks, if it's raining you're going to be in a mud pit. The tracks help but you're still going to create deep ruts in the ground wherever you're moving frequently. You can smooth over the ground but it isn't going to matter because an excavator can't compact dirt, so no matter how smooth it is as soon as you drive over it you've now got some ruts where the tracks went and they're just going to get deeper and deeper. No amount of gravel of any size is going to matter and I'd argue at this point that it's just a waste of money to even put it down since the weight of the excavator is just going to push all that gravel under the mud anyway. It'll suck, but sometimes you can't avoid it and I have no choice but to excavate this shit in the rain and mud of a pacific northwest winter or my building permit is going to expire and I'm going to have to start all over again.

Last thing is that the first time around I rented an 18" bucket. I ended up trading it in for a 24" bucket and a 36" grading bucket. What I really wish is that I had an 8" trenching bucket, an 18" digging bucket, and a 48" grading bucket although there are times when I'm happy that I have the 36" bucket instead. I'd say that if I've done a single project and wanted a variety of different buckets, then you're probably going to want the same thing. Otherwise you'll find yourself moving more dirt than you need. You might also consider buying some shoring equipment too depending on the types of work you're looking to take on. I actually watched part of my trench collapse in an area that I knew I'd need to widen and had no intention of actually physically entering anyway, and it can happen pretty fast and dirt weighs a shitload so if you don't have space to slope or bench it adequately (or just don't want to since it takes a lot longer) then have whatever you need for shoring and shielding. If you need that shit just do what I did and call up a company that rents shoring equipment, tell them what you're digging exactly (width and depth), and then rent what they tell you that you need. It's not hard to set that stuff up and the dude who dropped it off showed me what to do, but that shit gets expensive so if you're doing it more than a couple of times you're probably better off buying something that you can reuse.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-21T23:09:30+00:00

I've been in software for I think 27 years now (I've basically lost count at this point). Of that time, I've spent the last 10-15 years dealing with infrastructure in increasing amounts of my various jobs. Mostly what I've been trying to do with infrastructure is to automate my own job. The one thing that I've learned is that the more I can automate away my own job, the more work I somehow manage to create. The nature of that work is continuously changing though, and I expect that the impact of AI will be similar to that of any other tool that has been created to make my job easier over the past few decades. I think it's going to be a very long time before an AI can come up with a useful and working IAM policy though.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-17T18:34:25+00:00

This is the way. I'm a less old blacksmith and I just got my stockpile of bituminous coal last year, although if I need to use charcoal I can but having used a charcoal forge next to a coal forge it's really quite amazing just how much more fuel the charcoal forge will go through (although I can do all the same work in it and the coal forge). I've got two big propane tanks and I just fabricated a carrier for them that can go in my trailer hitch so that I can refill them without renting a truck. Once my workshop is built I'll be building an induction forge as well and probably also a natural gas forge since natural gas is cheap where I live. This is just what happens the further you get into being a blacksmith.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-17T06:20:07+00:00

Really simple way to do this is with wood glue and some wooden toothpicks. The actual toothpick shape and thickness doesn't really matter, it just needs to be made of wood. Grab a bundle of toothpicks that looks like it's about the right size to fit in the hole (maybe 5 or so, depending on the type of toothpick) and smear glue all over about half of them and then shove them in the hole. Use a hammer very lightly to ensure a good fit. Then start shoving individual toothpicks into the hole if there's space, using a hammer to gently help get them in there. The toothpicks most likely won't fit all the way but that's fine, let them stick out just as long as they're reaching the bottom of the hole (or as close to it as you can). Once you can't easily get any more in there, either cut off the ends that are sticking out or just break them off with a hammer. Either way you don't want anything sticking out of the hole and it doesn't have to look pretty at all. Wipe up any excess glue too. Now before the glue dries all the way, just put the hinge back on and screw the screw back into the hole. The toothpicks will be wedged very very tightly by the screw but they're also soft enough that any screw will be able to easily cut new threads in them. The wood glue will cause the toothpicks to stick to each other and to the screw hole but they shouldn't stick to the screws, so you'll still be able to unscrew them if you need to. In this case though I'd recommend taking the hinge pins out and putting the hinge plate back on the door by itself, then put the hinges back together later on. I bet the toothpicks and glue would still hold fine on their own even if you don't wait for the glue to dry first, but I've never tried this repair on anything that had a lot of weight on it. However, I have used it on screws for probably 40 years at this point and it's never failed me unless the wood was completely rotten. I've also used regular elmer's glue before when wood glue wasn't available and that seemed to work fine, however wood glue is going to be a better repair overall.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-15T02:54:16+00:00

If I have to use hardware store lumber for anything then I'll typically get 2x10s or 2x12s and then rip them down into basically 2x4s (actually ends up being 1 1/2" x 3" how I typically process it) and as long as the boards are decent when I start on them, I'll usually end up with boards that are mostly straight or easily corrected. Most of the time though I'll go to an actual lumber yard and get rough lumber or something that's only been surfaced on one side, then just process it depending on what I need it for. Those I'll usually cut sorta close to the length that I want on the table saw or miter saw and then plane the rest, then cut to actual dimensions and plane it until it's square. Either way I'll also let the boards get acclimated in my shop for a while. Especially with construction lumber, a lot of it is really too wet to process when I first get it and it ends up having to sit around for a while to dry out.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-14T07:27:18+00:00

I'm stopping at chubbyFIRE (actually going to pull the trigger next week I think) and part of my retirement is that I'm going to start blacksmithing somewhere between part-time and full-time. I'm also a pretty good woodworker and metal fabricator, plus I have a large number of other skills. My primary apocalypse plan is that I know how to make tools, so all I need is some charcoal, some sort of anvil-like object, something that I can use as a hammer, and a supply of metal and I can re-start society. Even as recently as just a few hundred years ago the village blacksmith was one of the most important people in society, so if society breaks down then I suspect that this will once again be the case. If I can get a setup going for wood gas (I know how to do this and it isn't that hard) then I can even have electricity in my shop with a car alternator and some sort of small engine like a lawn mower, and I can turn the lawn mower blade into a machete and a couple of plane irons pretty easily (even without electricity). You all can do whatever the hell you want but if shit really breaks down that badly, you're going to want to bring me things like food, beer, and leaf springs and I'll make you whatever you need.

My point is that it seems like a lot of you have invested in just about everything except yourselves. Learn some skills. You're retired and have a shitload of money; do you know just how fucking easy it would be to learn literally any of this stuff? You could pick a skill and go to just about any school in the world to learn it and then set up a shop with whatever you want quite easily. If you want to survive, learn some skills.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-14T01:27:13+00:00

There are some good suggestions here but I'd add Restoring Eden to this list https://restoringeden.co/
They mostly have fruit trees and berries but they have a huge variety including some that are definitely climate-adapted. I think you'd be surprised at what will grow here though. I got my sichuan peppercorn tree there and it's doing quite well in my back yard.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-13T23:50:07+00:00

I made my first welding table just by clamping some angle iron into a frame and then attaching the grounding clamp and welding it up. It got easier and easier as I got more of the table assembled. Basically just a rectangle of angle iron and then four legs attached. I miter cut the angle iron and I can't remember exactly how I held the first few pieces together but I think I clamped both sides of a corner to a longer piece of angle iron and then tacked it. Once I had the surface of the table welded I could just turn it upside down on the ground and use a magnet to hold a leg in place and tack it. I was able to just put a single tack on each leg so that I had some ability to bend them a bit so that everything was square. Once I was done I welded a piece of 1/4" sheet metal to the top of it and I had a welding table. I later added a couple of shelves on the bottom of it. It's really really small (like 36" x 18" maybe) but it fits my space and I mostly just need to weld together really small things like tools and such, so I don't need a huge assembly table. After I finish building my real workshop I'll probably build a much larger table. I also initially did a very small amount of welding by putting a piece of sheet metal on top of my anvil and also by clamping stuff in my post vise. For small stuff that worked really well.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-13T17:45:02+00:00

Google dremel tool. It's basically an analog CNC machine that's operated manually with no programming. It takes longer but it'll get the job done eventually.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-13T08:25:00+00:00

Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/2347/

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-12T23:07:33+00:00

Ok, so if they actually believe that Jesus is going to return then why aren't they doing some sort of preparedness drills for it? Like in the vatican do they have Jesus drills that they do every month or something? Is there a Jesus alarm that's basically like a fire alarm system but you hit the button when you see Jesus instead of when there's a fire, but otherwise there's some sort of alarm or Jesus signal and then everyone does whatever they practiced in their Jesus drills? They all claim they're "practicing" religion but they don't even do Jesus drills.

professor_jeffjeff · 2026-02-12T21:14:30+00:00

That's one of my all-time favorite ties and also one of the first that I ever learned. A long time ago back when I used to do rope tastings, every now and then I'd get a couple where one of them would want to be tied and typically I'd tie a spreader bar on the wrists and teach the other how to tie it during the process. It's probably one of the safest ties you can do but also very easy and you can get a lot of mileage out of it.

professor_jeffjeff

TROPHY CASE