Reading Time: < 1 minute Reasons for that: economy and layoffs – we have zero control on neither; at certain point, companies and organizations started to discriminate against older workers in terms of hiring and firing (layoffs), due to their potentially higher salary, higher healthcare expense, and so on. Surprising, at least for now, AI is the not main reason
Reading Time: 9 minutes As the old Chinese sayng goes, 下棋找高手，弄斧到班门 (baidu)。下棋找高手，弄斧到班门。—-中国科学院 || Basically one needs to get trained properly or work at a place that has some good technology and process so that he or she can really understand what’ the proper way to do the work, and work with people. Besides knowing the “what”, “why” and “how”, a
Reading Time: 2 minutes Thinking it may be helpful for me to explain all this, as I never heard about those coming from China to the USA in late 1990s. Maybe the employers are doing those in China nowadays too, but at my time, I never heard about it. Background Check There are background check, and sometimes there are
Reading Time: 2 minutes General Rule of Thumb on the length of work tenure A while ago, in year 2010, I got this rule from a friend. My friend spends most of time doing IT/software contractor work, long term contract though. I asked him “how long should I stay at this place because there is a senior guy seems
Reading Time: 3 minutes Using Spoken English the 1st time in the USA 97年夏天我第一次来美国，我的飞机航班是东航上海虹桥(SHA) 到洛杉矶 (LAX, China Eastern MU 583), 当时好像用的是麦道11(Btw, 93年好像有一次事故），再从洛杉矶坐TWA航班飞圣路易斯(STL)。我在洛杉矶机场犯了一个不大不小的错误。我当时很想上厕所，急着从机场（入境处和海关）出来，结果一出来就拿错了行李。等我发现我拿错了，我已经出了海关，我赶紧用我的英语跟美国机场的工作人员解释，还好他听懂了，让我进去跟东航的地勤人员说上话，交换了行李（取到了我自己的行李）。这个箱子是当时上海第一百货的牌子，估计我们都是在一百买的，这个箱子实用也较便宜。这一次是我的口语第一次在美国派到用场。 PS: 大概在2005/6年在圣村的机场，又碰到一件类似的事情，这一次是Diplomat的灰色硬壳箱。对方把我的箱子拿到家以后，没有多想，直接撬锁。后来她通过航空公司陪了我大概是五十还是一百块钱(USD)：她没有拿我的东西，就是赔我的坏掉的箱锁。那个箱子今年回国才退休。Also: I have other stories with the diplomat luggage (1 and 2) back in 2007 when I tried to replace a broken wheel. So this one really last for a long time: at least from 2007
Reading Time: 4 minutes Surviving as an IT, especially a software developer contractor is not easy, from my personal experience and observations. I have mostly been an employee (sometimes people call it full-time), with a few stints as a contractor (my LinkedIn profile here). I worked as a contractor mostly because I needed to bring bread (or bacon) home,
Reading Time: 3 minutes My wife who started working for a localization company since this past April, for the most part she was happy. But recently she started to talk about this exact issue of her leader (more a tech lead or project lead, not necessarily a manager). This reminds me of my own experience of dealing with micro
Reading Time: 2 minutes 今天我想说说politics on offices(or fights on better cubicles or offices, think bigger cubicles, corner offices and so on 就是大家都想要好的cubicle 或是office). Not the traditional good old office politics. 不是办公室政治，而是关于争抢办公室的故事。 抢办公室 Fight for office 这两天美国国内一个较大的新闻是众议院共和党的领袖麦卡锡被轰下了台。一个附带的结果是众议院民主党的前领袖Nancy Pelosi 丢掉了她的又大又好的办公室 – BBC: Interim House Speaker ‘evicts’ two senior Democrats from Capitol; (Daily Beast) McCarthy Fires Parting Shot: Stealing Nancy Pelosi’s Office.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Yesterday at a WeChat group, I wrote 昨天在一个微信群里我写到: 我（My LinkedIn Profile 我的领英链接）在美国工作23年迄今呆过十个庙。。。 话说完后我想起来十个庙，与多数码工相比，也真是不少了，平均2.3年（2年4个月）换一个工作。还好只是换工作😂 又想起在罗拉时，有一回是参加大公司招新的大学毕业生的介绍会（一般会有免费的比萨🍕饼，对我这样的穷学生来说诱惑力还可以）。有一次好像是听Honeywell公司的老总(possiably Michael Bonsignore)：你们这些年轻人（当时我还不是大叔），从大学毕业到退休，大概平均会有七个工作。这个与他们那一代人一辈子，大概三十四十年的打工生涯，大多为一家公司打工的情况大为不同。 我记得两年多之前在找我现在这份工作时，我现在的大老板（也就是老板的老板，manager’s manager) 说小徐啊，你好像换了不少工作啊。他是印度人，不会说小徐，但是听他口气，他不喜欢 Job Hopper 或者说是经常换工作的人（言下之意缺少长性，或是知难而退？）. Job Hopper这个词在这里是贬义词。但是这个也是有点意思的问题。因为在美国做码工，要涨工资的除了升职，一个主要的方法是跳槽，不管是内部跳，还是跳外部。我想大多数上班的人，尤其是年轻人是会追求这个的，所谓升官发财。当然我现在已过了这个年龄，我现在如果找工作，不再过于看重这些。这是后话。另外一方面，一个码工如果要进步，就要不断学习。从这个角度来说，其实适当在内外部跳跳也是不错的锻炼机会。我的理解是两三年可以跳跳，换换，用英文来说是找到新的challenge. 退一步来说，比如我从software engineer 换成architect，后来发现会议，office politics 太多，就再换回来。也挺好。所谓的树挪死人挪活，我觉得是有道理的。还有一种情况，虽然是被动地换工作，但是找准新的更适合自己的方向，也挺好。下面是一个反例。 10 Years of same old same old 就着上面这个跳槽的问题。说一个极端的例子：比如说一个人在一个公司，做同样的事，做了十年。那么他/她是十年的工作经验呢，还是一年（假如那些事一年就可以学会的话）。其实你可能猜到我想说的意思：他这个应该算一年的工作经验。其实我想说的意思是：工作中要不断学习。如果觉得缺乏挑战，应该自己想想，有什么办法可以改变现状。我的直觉有一次我见到的裁员有点这个味道。 我前调一下上面这个不完全是仅限于技术性的工作。从职业发展来说，一个人随着年龄和经验的增长，一般来说最好也提高一下自己的沟通交流，领导才能。其实在家里也是如此（如何引导小孩）。只是耕种好自己的一亩三分当然也不错，但是有时候还不够。当然跟人的性格也有关系，比如说有的人就是在家里听老婆的，那也不错。或者说在单位就想做Individual Contributor (IC), 听领导吩咐，屁颠屁颠地去做，只要自己愿意/开心，也挺好。没有一定的定式。 我的第一份工作 是在学校找的。我当时是博士生，但是我感觉我的基础太差，最主要我当时很想出去工作了（我觉得做很多事兴趣还是相当重要的）。2000年，正好也是美国纳斯达克的最高点 （“The dot-com bubble burst in March 2000, with the technology heavy NASDAQ
Reading Time: 9 minutes A touchy topic. I have been in the tech industry for almost 23 years, and I have seen my share of the layoffs. I saw the layoff very early in my career, and the most recent ones in last year or so amid the big tech post pandemic layoffs. Layoffs are usually not pleasant. But
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