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@sweetnothings Yeah my handle is bittersweet for a reason.
I've always played the role of the chaotic evil villain which allows others to develop their character and backstory.
That results in a bittersweet reality where I feel validated and needed because people value my role, but it's simultaneously impossible for me to escape it.
I've committed several "white collar crimes" in my life just for the purpose of showing people they suck at their job (changed my own birth certificate to a date in the future, temporarily stole €6 million from my employer, broke into a government building to hang a poster of my genitals on the wall).
I'm too good at being evil... The villain's toolkit is much more effective and interesting. But I try using my evil powers for good... If that makes sense. -
@bittersweet We seem to have some similarities, but you're the more loose evil version. 😄
It's OK to behave as kind of an asshole.
May I recommend you a podcast from devmode.fm?
https://devmode.fm/episodes/... -
I actually enjoyed reading that. Like a terribly written story. You may be a strange person (not sure if it's good or bad but it really doesn't matter) but I think you will be fine. I read this book about the German invasion of the Russian city, Leningrad by David Benioff. You remind me of Kolya (a man in the book) he was a severe ass hole Russian soldier who wrote(or rather was writing) a shitty book about a dog and thought himself an intellectual god or an enlightened prick either way, he wasn't easy to be around. Even if shit hits the fan, I think you will be fine. P. S, kolya died by getting shot in the ass by his own men (the Russians) but his mouth never shut up although his direct ballsy words should have gotten him killed in the first chapter.
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@witchDev
"I think you'll be fine"
"PS he died getting shot in the ass"
😆
If I could choose, I'd prefer to die at 85 from exhaustion while having gross old people sex with my wife.
Or instantly vaporised in a nuclear blast, doesn't sound bad either. -
I ask you to consider the possibility, that if you're not good at interviews and don't have a lot to show, just talk about the problems that you *enjoy* solving and how you solve them.
Or, like dating, apply to *lots* of places, and take what fits your preferences. You don't know who needs you. You don't know when they'll need you. You don't know what the reasons are. You shouldn't care...and when you apply to lots of places, you don't have to. The reasons sort themselves out.
Like fishing, you don't always know why the fish are biting, could be the bait, or time of day, or they're hungry, or simply curious. The only thing that matters is that they bite.
I also like my dates the same way but thats a story for another time! -
@bittersweet I really hope we see some of those “white collar crimes” in rant sometime soon :P. I’m especially interested in the government one
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@Jifuna Dutch government departments had ISO15693 cards for building entrance, which accepted the card ID as auth — which was also printed visibly as a barcode on said card, which employees wore on their chest as a badge.
So, take a picture, replicate the card. I went into the lobby during office hours in a suit with my fake badge, from which point I could get passed locked doors held open by friendly "coworkers", glance at some 4-digit door locks, etc.
After that, a return at night for graffiti artwork in the secretary's office, defaced computer wallpapers using linux USB boot keys. Photo of my ballsack in a nice frame next to the Queen's portrait, my real name & phone number stenciled in pink paint on the wall with "call me"... I'm a true gentleman.
I was called by the AIVD (Dutch FBI), and worked out a deal where I explained the weaknesses, signed some forms agreeing not to leak docs, in exchange for a case dismissal and a €1000 donation to the EFF from their side. -
@Jifuna Did a similar thing with our national phone provider where I used an employee computer in their service store to order the construction of nearly 200km of underground copper cable — with the cable drawing out a giant penis all over Schiphol Airport property, with the cable starting and ending at my own home.
Their system generated construction orders for unconnected houses from the closest DSL multiplexer to house facade, but the API accepted unvalidated geojson input.
Got paid a nice bug hunting bounty. 😄 -
@bittersweet Wtf hahaha, that’s amazing. You have some balls
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@bittersweet literally a living legend.
Insecure... My laptop disk is encrypted, but I'm using a fairly weak password. 🤔
Oh, you mean psychological.
Working at a startup in crisis time. Might lose my job if the company goes under.
I'm a Tech lead, Senior Backender, DB admin, Debugger, Solutions Architect, PR reviewer.
In practice, that means zero portfolio. Truth be told, I can sniff out issues with your code, but can't code features for shit. I really just don't have the patience to actually BUILD things.
I'm pretty much the town fool who angrily yells at managers for being dumb, rolls his eyes when he finds hacky code, then disappears into his cave to repair and refactor the mess other people made.
I totally suck at interviews, unless the interviewer really loves comparing Haskell's & Rust's type systems, or something equally useless.
I'm grumpy, hedonistic and brutally straight forward. Some coworkers call me "refreshing" and "direct but reasonable", others "barely tolerable" or even "fundamentally unlikable".
I'm not sure if they actually mean it, or are just messing with me, but by noon I'm either too deep into code, or too much under influence of cognac & LSD, wearing too little clothing, having interesting conversations WITH instead of AT the coffee machine, to still care about what other humans think.
There have been moments where I coded for 72 hours straight to fix a severe issue, and I would take a bullet to save this company from going under... But there have also been days where I called my boss a "A malicious tumor, slowly infecting all departments and draining the life out of the company with his cancerous ideas" — to his face.
I count myself lucky to still have a very well paying job, where many others are struggling to pay bills or have lost their income completely.
But I realize I'm really not that easy to work with... Over time, I've recruited a team of compatible psychopaths and misfits, from a Ukranian ex-military explosives expert & brilliant DB admin to a Nigerian crossfitting gay autist devops weeb, to a tiny alcoholic French machine learning fanatic, to the paranoid "how much keef is there in my beard" architecture lead who is convinced covid-19 is linked to the disappearance of MH370 and looks like he bathes in pig manure.
So... I would really hate to ever have to look for a new employer.
I would really hate to ever lose my protective human meat shield... I mean, my "team".
I feel like, despite having worked to get my Karma deep into the red by calling people all kinds of rude things, things are really quite sweet for me.
I'm fucking terrified that this peak could be temporary, that there's a giant ravine waiting for me, to remind me that life is a ruthless bitch and that all the good things were totally undeserved.
Ah well, might as well stay in character...
*taunts fate with a raised middlefinger*
rant
wk207