Reviews & Endorsements

Experience

  • My wife says I should stop working overtime because we have enough money to live comfortably. But I've spent years trying to reach a senior position, and I feel like giving up now would waste...

    There is a question about feelings, here. There is a rule of thumb that you should have enough in savings so that you can go without any income for 6... months. I was out of work for 14 months. I had enough in savings to last 6 months, but I was brutal about economizing and went for 9 months before I started buying things on credit. So how much risk are you willing to take?
    On the other hand, she might be feeling that she wants more quality time with you. She might be feeling that you are not there for her. Noel and Daniel's comments are correct and I agree with them, but I wish they had gone into more detail. There are two kinds of the professionals you could talk to. One would be a marriage counselor, so you can explore your feelings that you need to work the overtime, and her feelings whatever those feelings might be. Another would be a financial planner who has experience dealing with how people feel about money. Suzi Orman is a terrific example.
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  • My wife says I should stop working overtime because we have enough money to live comfortably. But I've spent years trying to reach a senior position, and I feel like giving up now would waste...

    There is a question about feelings, here. There is a rule of thumb that you should have enough in savings so that you can go without any income for 6... months. I was out of work for 14 months. I had enough in savings to last 6 months, but I was brutal about economizing and went for 9 months before I started buying things on credit. So how much risk are you willing to take?
    On the other hand, she might be feeling that she wants more quality time with you. She might be feeling that you are not there for her. Noel and Daniel's comments are correct and I agree with them, but I wish they had gone into more detail. There are two kinds of the professionals you could talk to. One would be a marriage counselor, so you can explore your feelings that you need to work the overtime, and her feelings whatever those feelings might be. Another would be a financial planner who has experience dealing with how people feel about money. Suzi Orman is a terrific example of this kind of professional.
     more

  • I'm in my final year of my CS degree and I've started applying for internships, graduate programs, and junior roles. However, I have this lingering apprehension about going into corporate. I feel like...

    My experience is that life in corporate is nothing like life in academia. For one thing, the problems you are given as a student are problems that... have already been solved, and are usually simple enough that you can get them done relatively quickly. Or else they are research problems that nobody has ever solved and you might or might not solve them.
    By way of contrast, in the corporate world, frequently, they do not know what they want. I was on one assignment, and I was told that my user interface was hard to read. I asked if it would be easier to read if I color coded it. They didn't know that was possible, and once they did, they wanted color on EVERYTHING.
    You might want to spend a moment and read Frederick Brook's, "The Mythical Man-month". Your apprehension is well founded. The fastest way to make a late project even later is to add more people to it.. No matter what you know and what you do, you are going to be the new person on the project and you will make it later.
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