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Dedication
by Michael Lopp
Being Geek
Praise for Being Geek
Dedication
Preface
How to Contact Us
Safari® Books Online
Acknowledgments
I. A CAREER PLAYBOOK
1. How to Win
A System Thinker
People Are Messy
A System of Improvisation
A Career Blueprint
A Collection of Moments
2. A List of Three
Technical Direction
Growth
Delivery
Simplifying the Infinite
3. The Itch
Are You Answering the Phone?
The Pissed Itch
Early Warning Signs of Doom
Engagement
Wanderlust
The Contradiction List
Who are you leaving behind?
The reality is:
Are you done?
The reality is:
What itch are you trying to scratch?
The reality is:
Bright and Shiny
4. The Sanity Check
Stalk Your Future Job
Initial Tuning
Can We Communicate?
One More Softball
No More Softballs
Your Turn
The Close
Long, Awkward Pauses
Adversarial Interactions
How’d It Feel?
Specific Next Steps
5. The Nerves
Question Types
The Answer Process
The Confidence of Knowing a Thing
6. The Button
Creatures and Structure
Interview Creatures
Pissed Off Pete
Chatty Patty
The Poet
Gotcha Greg
Slick Steve
Silent Bob
The CEO
A Fresh Perspective
7. The Business
You Are the Business
Pre-Game
How Am I Doing?
The Swag
Base Salary
Title
Sign-on Bonus
Stock
Negotiating Roles
Offer Compromise
Lower base salary
But it’s OK, here’s a bonus
Even better, here’s a pile of stock
And this is our final offer
Meh
II. DECONSTRUCTING MANAGEMENT
8. The Culture Chart
Ninety Days
Bridge
Detecting Culture
Culture Definers
Game Over
9. Managing Managers
A Management Assessment
Is There a 1:1?
Is a Staff Meeting a Casual or Structured Affair?
Are There Status Reports?
What Meetings Does He Schedule?
How Often Is His Hand in the Cookie Jar?
The Essential Elements
The Loop
10. The Issue with the Doof
On Experience
Up
Partial Information
Beware the Doof
Everything
11. The Leaper
On Excuses
On Delivery
Say Something Real
12. The Enemy
Management Transformations
The Interrogator
The Prioritizer
The Randomizer
The Illuminator
The Enemy
The M Word
13. The Impossible
A Hint of an Insane Plan
Skin in the Game
The Importance of Respect
What He Really Wants
14. Knee Jerks
One Eighth of a Second
The Jerks
Dr. No
Raging Bull
Still Water
Distiller
The Handler
My Bad
We’re Doomed
I Quit
Stages of Jerk
15. A Deep Breath
Sigh
Three Meetings
1:1s with my staff
Staff
“Look What We Built” meeting
Invest in the Boring
16. Gaming the System
An Entertaining System
Discovery: From Confusion to Control
Optimization, Repetition, and Win: A Paradox and a Warning
Achievement: Who Cares if You Win by Yourself?
The Rules of the Game
The rules need to be clear.
The rules must be inviolable.
The playing of the game must be inclusive, visible, and broadcasted.
Use money as a reward only as a last resort.
It’s not a game.
The Whiteboard Game
17. Managing Werewolves
A Dangerous Scenario
People Lie, Some Are Evil, Others Just Want to Screw You
This Isn’t Role Playing; This Is Life or Death
We Can’t Let the Werewolves Win
18. BAB
On the Topic of Trust
BAB
In BAB, you talk shit.
In BAB, you learn things unintentionally.
In BAB, you’re having work experiences without the work.
The Second Staff Meeting
19. Your People
Share What You Build
You Tell Stories
20. Wanted
The Requisition Situation
Spend an Hour a Day on Each Req You Have
I Found Them! I’m Done!
Deliberate Want
Hire for Your Career
21. The Toxic Paradox
Big Fat Toxic Assumptions
Go Team!
A Toxic Paradox
Everyone Is an Adjustment
22. The Pond
The Unspoken Royal We
Do You Mean It?
The Personality
Are they eloquent in email?
Are they self-directed?
How detail-oriented are they?
How well do they know the Pond?
Do they need the Pond?
Are they reliable?
The Right Job
The Culture
Friction Detection
Another Pond
III. YOUR DAILY TOOLKIT
23. The Nerd Handbook
Understanding Your Nerd
Understand Your Nerd’s Relation to the Computer
Your Nerd Has Control Issues
Your Nerd Has Built Himself a Cave
Your Nerd Loves Toys and Puzzles
Nerds Are Fucking Funny
Your Nerd Has an Amazing Appetite for Information
Your Nerd Has Built an Annoyingly Efficient Relevancy Engine in His Head
Your Nerd Might Come Off as Not Liking People
Advanced Nerd Tweakage
Map the Things He’s Bad at to the Things He Loves
Make It a Project
People Are the Most Interesting Content out There
The Next High
24. The Taste of the Day
The New Gig
The Taste of the Day
The Morning Scrub
Practice Productivity Minimalism
The Evening
25. The Trickle List
Trickle Creation
The Trickle Process
Structured Improvisation
26. The Crisis and the Creative
A Spectrum for Everything
The Crisis
The Creative
A Personal Model
27. The Foamy Rules for Rabid Tools
The Foamy Rules
My Tools Appear Deceptively Simple
My Tools Do Not Care Where My Work Is
My Tools Are Designed to Remove Repetitive Motion
My Tools Do Only What I’ve Told Them to Do
My Tools Are My Tools
An Evolving Foaminess
28. Up to Nothing
An Essential Exercise in Inactivity
Up to Nothing
Don’t Look for It
29. How to Not Throw Up
Not Throwing Up Is a Two-Phase Process
Phase 1: Practice Endlessly
Phase 2: Throw-up Avoidance
Improvise
Fret
30. Out Loud
Presentation or Speech?
The Unforgivable Mistake
The Disaster
Reduction
Presentation Punctuation
Something for Their Pocket
31. Bits, Features, and Truth
That Damned Triangle
Bits, Features, and Truth
Bits
Features
Truth
Circle of Comfort
Circle Analysis
Bits and Features are the same.
Truth is the same as Features.
Let the Negotiation Begin; It’s About the Debate
32. The Reveal
Three Phases
Three Alphas
Alpha Nothing: “I’m saying absolutely nothing.”
Alpha Game: “I’m game, but you drive.”
Alpha Drive: “I’ll drive.”
The Holy Shit Event Horizon
IV. YOUR NEXT GIG
33. The Screw-Me Scenario
You Might Be Lying
A Rubber Stamp Affair
No Guilt, No Doubts, No Fear
Game On
The Unforgivable Spin
A Screw-Me Detection Policy
34. No Surprises
Show Me the Money
Measures Versus Content
A Review Is a Conversation
Surprise!
The Permanence of the Written
35. A Deliberate Career
Three Choices
Question #1: Start-up or Established?
Start-up
Established
Question #2: Industry and Brand
Question #3: Management or Development?
Why would anyone want to be a manager?
A Complete Opportunity Move
36. The Curse of the Silicon Valley
Apprenticeship
On Language
Everyone Hates Engineering
No one knows what we actually do to build the software, so they assume it’s easy
We take our work personally and believe no else does
Our relationship is with the bits
The Curse
Geeks Gone Mainstream
37. A Disclosure
Management Is a Total Career Restart
You Go to a Lot of Meetings
You Are a Communication Hub
Abstraction and Filtering
You Will Be a Multilingual Translator
Drama Everywhere
Context Switcher
Say No
Say Yes
Trust So You Can Scale
38. Mind the Gap
The Gaps
Knowledge and Ability: “Alpha Knowledge”
Power and Influence: “Maestro”
Network and Communication: “The Insider”
A Matter of Perspective
39. The Exodus
This Sucks
Two Threads
Tactical
Strategic
The First Wave
Where does this exodus begin?
Why are they leaving?
Why are they letting them go?
The Second Wave
Approach #1: Wait it out
Approach #2: Stem the tide
The Third Wave
Which Wave?
40. Bad News About Your Bright Future
What’s Next
Biased by the Now
An Uncomfortable Ending
A. Hurry
You’re in a Hurry
B. The Rules of Back Alley Bridge
Preparing for Back Alley Bridge
Rules of Play
Index
About the Author
Colophon
Copyright
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Praise for Being Geek
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Preface
Dedication
To Spencer and Claire
.
My daily reminders of the value of caring about someone deeply
.
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