A tale of two software career paths

Software can be the best of careers, it can be the worse of careers. It's up to you.

Path 1: Write sensibly-designed software, resilient to change, on a fast update loop. You aggressively squish bugs, of which you have fewer than do your peers because of your unit tests. You talk to people early and often. Work isn't killing you, so you have time to learn stuff--cool stuff that improves your designs, makes them more fault-tolerant or speeds your update loop. You can take on more responsibilities as your services take care of themselves and process is automated away. There's a lot more work up-front, but your tech improvements keep paying huge dividends. You have the option of decreasing your workload even as responsibilities increase. Increasing responsibilities increases your visibility, influence and rewards. You're a star individual contributor. What you do matters. You learn enough about corporate politics to magnify the influence you have from your technical prestige. You're good at that, but do you understand business? You have a nonzero risk of becoming part of The Problem at your company. If you're The Problem now, that's fine. You're a star IC, we're happy to have you.

Path 2: Continually accepting one-off shortcuts to deliver the task at hand. You deliver results fast, or you don't have to work as hard at the beginning, or you don't know how to squeeze in long-term improvements. You get into constant Fire Drill mode. Work is exhausting you. You don't have time to learn anything cool or try anything new. Extra responsibilities are punishments. You fear them. You're stuck working nights and weekends to keep your head above water for things that shouldn't be that tough. Your projects aren't important. You become very political to compensate for an inability to deliver. You're good at that, but do you understand technology? You have a nonzero risk of becoming part of The Problem at your company. If you're The Problem now, try again somewhere else and try to be more like that #1 guy.

A Litany of Do's

In response to one more Don't, presented here: http://ndsmcobserver.com/cm/2.682/viewpoint/what-not-to-do-to-make-a-lasting-relationship-1.2594645

A gentleman trying to bring himself up to be a good man in the Catholic faith is presented with a litany of don'ts regarding relationships: Don't have sex before marriage, don't pressure women for sex, don't hit on women at the gym (they're just trying to work out), don't bother girls who are studying at the library or LaFun, don't use alcohol as an excuse for unbecoming behavior, don't be too forward with a woman, don't disrespect a woman, don't date a friend's ex, don't try to date her before showing what a sensitive guy you are, don't risk ruining a friendship with a woman by dating her. Some of these don'ts are reasonable, some are a little neurotic, but in either case a good Catholic boy doesn't come across a single Do until he's discerned a vocation to marriage with a good Catholic girl.

As a Computer Engineering student, I was an angel when it concerned all of the Don'ts. I was led not into temptation by my choice of major. But this perfect record came at a cost of debilitating loneliness: What was the point of studying hard to make a nice living if current trends showed I wouldn't be building a family to share it with?

I looked everywhere for Dos from the Church regarding dating in a modern context and came up short. The closest I could find was the Theology of the Body, which saves its Dos for once you have a wife. Unless it's time to experiment by going up to LaFortune and asking young women if they would like to discern a vocation to marriage with me, there wasn't a lot there.

What about "do have confidence," "do be yourself"? That advice is 100% true. It's also 100% useless to the guys who need it most. What about "do have patience, the right person will come along when you least expect it"? That one is worse than useless. If every guy on the planet followed that advice we'd have an extinction of the species.

Frustrated to the point of jealousy of cultures with arranged marriages, I had to seek my Dos outside of the Church. I scoured the askmen.com dating advice column and bought an e-book called "The Art of Approaching Women" and received the first useful advice of my dating life. That was over four years ago. Today I'm a confident guy. I present the best version of myself to the world. I'm not afraid to take a risk to go after what I want. I now have what might be considered a "normal" dating life in 2011. Do I wish I had found the girl of my dreams and we agreed to marry at Notre Dame? Of course. Is that what I have now? No. Is what I have better than the crippling chronic loneliness of my college years? Infinitely so. Would I be in the same mess I was in if I had waited to get some Dos from the Church? Almost certainly.

Here are my Dos for good guys who can't get the girls (especially if they know they only need one woman):

• Do decide how you want to present yourself to the world
• Do present yourself to the world not only verbally, but with a strong posture, deep tone of voice and open body language
• Do pick out a cool hobby. Tons of cash and no love in your life? Nothing's sexier or cooler than flying airplanes, and getting your license only costs several thousand dollars!
• Do learn how to kiss a girl. Watch Hitch or something.
• Do expand your comfort zone by taking risks. Do realize that even the worst you're imagining really isn't that bad and that you're better at inventing ways for things to go terribly wrong than the Universe is at executing those tragedies.
• Do make sure your cell phone plan includes unlimited texting.
• Do have a plan for a date. Better yet, have a plan for this fun thing you're doing anyway but you'd really like it if this girl came too.
• Do learn to interpret ambiguous data in your favor. If you don't, who will? The fact that an interpretation is in your favor doesn't make it a false interpretation. This was a big one for me: I basically needed a girl to sign forms in triplicate before I would put her through the "inconvenience" of having me try to date her.
• Do get used to rejection. I know, it'll hurt the same every time, but getting rejected a lot will at least show you there are plenty of girls out there you would like to date.
• Do make decisions. The only wrong decision about where to eat for a dinner date is "I don't know, where do you want to go?" She doesn't want to go eat food. She wants to spend time with a man, and part of being a man is not getting hung up on trivial decisions.
• Do recognize that there are far more profound sexual differences than genitalia. Don't you wish that women could ask men out? Guess what? They can but they won't. Why? Because they're women, you're a man and it's your job to put yourself out there and risk that pain of rejection. Sexual equality is awesome. Pretensions to sexual sameness lead to travesties.
• Do learn to flirt. It's kind of similar to teasing. Think of her as a bratty little sister for a bit, see how that goes. We're all brothers and sisters in Christ, right?
• Do draw attention to sexual differences. This is why Barney Stinson wears suits. There's precious little in this world today that says "I'm a man, you're a woman" without being so base as whipping it out. And that's animalistic behavior unbecoming of higher beings such as ourselves. Animalistic whipping it out is for later.
• Do move your focus from attracting a specific woman to becoming more attractive to women generally. Then maybe you'll get the one you're after, maybe you won't, but how is that single-focus thing working for you now? Not so well? Thought so.
• Do experiment. You can't just sit back in an armchair and deduce what is going to attract women. You need to try stuff, see if it works, maybe try a few times but then ditch what isn't working and keep what is working. Start with that "would you like to discern a vocation to marriage with me?" line at LaFun. Maybe it works at Notre Dame, who knows? You'll know, after you try.
• Do realize that how you say things, especially on first meeting, is way more important than what you're actually saying. Do a thought experiment: Think of all the ways you can say, "Hi, I'm , how are you?" starting with the most awkward, botched deliveries and moving up to the most engaging, cool-as-a-cucumber stud-like deliveries. When people say the best pick-up line is "Hi," this is what they mean. For fun, try this experiment with cheesy pick-up lines, too ("Would you like to discern a vocation to marriage with me?").
• Do put on a clean shirt and stop farting. This is actually all you really need in order to get started, along with the willingness to experiment one. All else flows from this.
• Women have five basic senses. Do see that you can make yourself a delight to as many of them as you can. Bath, groom, learn to salsa and swing dance, invest in some timeless fashions and select and apply subtly a suitable cologne.
• Do have everything together in your life: grades/job, decent health, interests, a good character. This actually isn't a prerequisite for attracting women (I'm sure you can name many counterexamples), but it's a prerequisite for me to be interested in helping you. Those gorgeous girls with those loser guys who don't have it together, you want to rescue them, don't you? Get them with some guy who can take care of them and appreciate them like, say, you, right? Then you need to be that kind of guy.
• Do realize that even if you're getting advice on attracting women from sleazy PUAs, you don't have to be a sleazy PUA. Do look at what works for jerks and adopt what works without becoming a jerk. You're a smart guy, you can figure that out. By the way, sleazy PUAs will often tell you exactly the same thing and they have awesome advice because they've made experimenting with ways of attracting women their job.
• Do realize that in this day and age (outside of the Notre Dame campus), you *AS THE MAN* might have to put out. Boo-hoo, I know you're really upset that in order to find the woman of your dreams you might have to have sex. Do I wish I had met and married the woman of my dreams in school, that we saved ourselves for each other and that we lived happily ever after? Of course. Did that happen? No. Do I have friends who waited only get a nasty surprise in the bedroom post-nuptuals? Yes. Do I have friends who did it the night they met who went on to marry each other? Yes.
• Do realize that some of those Catholic Don'ts are good and valid, some are useless but benign, some are crippling.
• Don't become a scumbag now that you can all of a sudden attract women. First, you're capable of it, not super-awesome at it, so don't take any of them for granted. Second, being a scumbag to women makes it harder on decent, honest guys like who I thought you were, or at least who you used to be.

First solo cross-country debrief

190100Z, KRNT
Destination: KBVS via KPAE
Sky condition FEW at 4500, ceiling greater than 12,000. A beautiful day.
Cruising altitude: 2500 there, 3500 back.
Winds aloft calm and variable. Easiest WCA's ever.

I left work in time to meet my instructor Nyle as he was finishing up with his previous student's lesson. He reviewed my flight plan and endorsed me to fly. I had pre-flighted 639SP while he was finishing up with his student: 6 quarts of oil, gas tanks full to the brim, sumps as clear, blue, and avgas-smelly as ever, the drops from the sumps briefly appearing to bleach my thumbs where they touched via rapid drying.

It's a warm day, let's go for a hot start. It took a little extra cranking, but sure enough the engine started before I had a chance to try flooding the engine with the fuel pump. It's the Seattle area in the summertime, so everyone who's anyone who can fly an airplane based out of Renton is out there that day. The runup box has a single occupant when I reach it, leaving more than enough room for my own runup.

Traffic is the busiest I've seen at KRNT: after the runup, I'm third in line to take off from runway 34. Looks like I've got some time, might as well enter in the Paine VOR, the Skagit NDB and Seattle Approach. Then it's time to wait. And wait. I'm holding short at runway 34, and I probably waited for five minutes while other planes landed and performed touch and goes. No problem, it all counts on the Hobbs meter. The better to speed me towards my requisite 5 hours of solo cross-country time.

Finally it's my turn: Cessna 639SP, no delay, clear to take off Runway 34, make East Channel departure. My fingers have been poised over the landing light, strobes and mode-C transponder. Without delay, I snap them all on as I release the breaks and enter the runway. As I climb past pattern altitude past the East Channel I-90 bridge I note the time. I keep out of Seatac's keyhole-shaped bravo layer and turn towards the north end of Lake Washington. Don't need stinking headings for that. Not in calm but variable winds aloft and surface observations.

I request VFR flight following to Skagit while over Lake Washington. I dutifully enter my transponder code. Seattle approach soon hands me off to Seattle Center. I'm at 2500 feet and sauntering towards Paine Field's airspace at 110 KTAS. Getting closer. Closer. Closer. Where's my clearance? Closer. Paine's ceiling is 3100 feet. Closer. Time to turn right. 9SP, do I have clearance to enter Paine's airspace? No answer. Oh well. I circumnavigate the delta and note the time half way around. I was going to use the center of Paine Field as a waypoint, but this works too. Plus I get to log extra solo cross-country time. And it gives me time to think. What's my next heading going to be? Yeah, at this point I can just follow the GPS to Skagit, but I'd like to try to stick as close to my flight plan as possible. My first nav radio already tuned to Paine's VOR, I set the indicator for my KPAE - Port Susan heading (no wind, so my course matches my heading!). It takes a long time to get to my radial, but at last I'm there (and yes, the VOR properly reads FROM. Smart Alec).

**Edit: A friend of mine pointed out to me that if I'm on flight following with a squawk code, I should be clear to enter the airspace. I didn't know this at the time since on previous flights I'd received positive clearance to enter other airspaces.

Runway 10/28 is closed at Skagit, leaving runway 4/22. Surface observations suggest runway 22, and area traffic confirms this is the case. I overfly the runway, give friendly updates on my position to other planes and land. I take a few pictures on the ground to share later via Google+, text Nyle and call my Mom. Traffic has cleared out, so nothing slows my crosswind departure to the south from runway 22. I contact Whidbey Approach for flight following back to Renton.

Around Port Susan I'm handed back to Seattle Center. At 3500 feet I can just overfly Paine's airspace. I accidentally tune the wrong Seatac frequency. It's a little embarrassing, but I correct my radio and I'm back in business. When Seattle Approach hands me over to Renton they tell me to keep my squawk code but approve a frequency change to Renton's tower. Okay, whatever. I'd assume they'd have me squawk 1200, but I guess their way works too. Renton tower tells me to squawk VFR as I make my Factoria arrival. Told ya.

**Edit: Like the above correction, this may have been to signal I was clear to enter Renton's delta airspace. My foot is in my mouth a little bit right now, but you can believe me that with my knowledge at the time it made no sense.

I do a few Victory Laps in the Renton pattern. I hit the tail end of the air traffic as I enter the pattern and extend my first downwind for an inbound Piper Warrior on a long final for a straight-in. It's a fairly normal touch-and-go from there: flaps 10, 85 KIAS, 500 FPM descent, turn base way before 800' AGL because of the extended downwind, flaps 20, 75 KIAS, turn final, flaps 30, establish glide path, 65 KIAS, power idle when crossing the threshold, flare, hold it, hold it, hold it, gentle landing, flaps up, full throttle, add rudder, 55 KIAS, rotate, climb at Vy, 100', 200', 300', 40----BIRDS! BIRDS OVER THE RUNWAY! BIG FLOCK OF THEM!

So I turned left. I doubt the birds established 2-way communication with KRNT, but I wasn't going to be self-righteous about how that space over the runway was mine. I was going to turn left. I had little faith that the birds would obey right-of-way rules and break right and there was more space on that side. It's all about see-and-avoid. I'm now at 38.7 hours in my log book and I can't wait to finish. There's no finer hobby, if you can afford it (thanks, software industry!).