Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic.
Let me add a couple to this list.
1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept.
2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to your experience, beliefs, and worldview. Judging people is often a self protection mechanism; which means you will almost never listen to someone.
3. Listening often means not jumping to a solution; but absorbing and processing someone’s pain. Product managers for example are quick to jump to a solution, a new feature, or they’ll push the request off as “oh, ok, we’ll make a ticket for that ”
When in actuality, they should be listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points. As opposed to trying to understand what feature the user wants to request.
More than that, sometimes one side doesn’t want to accept something because everything they know about it says it’s wrong. Then they’re faced with evidence and reason prevails.
I usually have very strong opinions but try to hold on to them very loosely. It happened that I was convinced with evidence that I am right and refused to accept any alternative until new evidence slapped me in the face. At that point knowledge and discussion made me accept something I had previously thought preposterous, sometimes to the point of outright dismissing any conversation, this is how preposterous the proposition sounded at first sight.
What I want to say is that if you don’t know your audience, if you don’t know for sure your attempts are fruitless, it’s always worth a shot to use your knowledge in a discussion and let the other party digest that and see if it that moves the needle.
Still a good thing to mention as lots of people think they can continue arguing and convince someone else. That always ends up in a fight.
Though one strategy I've learned is I'll explicitly tell people what will change my mind. I think this has a few benefits.
1) it helps *me* avoid being too stubborn and ensure my mind *can* be changed [0]
2) it helps the other person know what to focus on and direct their arguments [1]
3) it signals to the other person that I'm making a good effort and encourages them to do the same
It's not bulletproof, nothing is, but I find it helpful. When it's not helpful I find it is informative about the type of conversation I'm having. It's far more likely to fail on the internet than in person, which I think says something...
[0] were always, to some degree, wrong. So your mind should always be able to be changed. You're not omniscient
[1] often we talk past one another rather than against. Because we have different base assumptions that have been... assumed... and so we assume this assumption is shared. That's often a point of breakdown
I believe you’re right, it’s not great to assume this beforehand. Many things are negotiable, but there are a whole lot of things that aren’t.
When you’re faced with convincing someone of $TruthA or $FactA and one of those two collides with a persons worldview, makes them uncomfortable, or causes them pain. Sometimes that truth or fact will be thrown out because of its ramifications.
For example, if we’re in Iowa, and you prove to me that plastic straws don’t kill turtles.. but as a kid my first trip to the ocean resulted in seeing a dead turtle die to a straw. It’s going to be very difficult for me to believe otherwise.
My statement about a person not accepting something because they won’t want too… is less about them.. and more about the person trying to argue/explain/etc.
It’s important to identify when a topic won’t be accepted by an individual and to move on. It’s something I’ve struggled with in life. If you don’t identify it, you can risk overstaying your welcome. Which can lead to losing a trusted advisor status. It’s far better to keep the trusted advisor status and tackle the issue another time.
>For example, if we’re in Iowa, and you prove to me that plastic straws don’t kill turtles..
Black swans.
Quite often the they are telling a correct truth, but failing to give it proper scope. For example no turtle in Iowa falls victim to straws because of these species. It's the difference between "There are no black swans in ______" and "There are no black swans"
"To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state."
If you can guarantuee me this will not be abused in every situation ever and/or come back to haunt me, i will gladly always give up as much time as i can to actually listen. :)
Id guess by your smile there is an element of humor in your response, so this isn't a rebuttal, but rather i identified a lot with your point, and I was thinking that this is such a human response to vulnerability.
If it was guaranteed that it will not be abused or that I would regret it, it would not _be_ vulnerable. Just like its not bravery if I am not afraid or I am assured of my safety. Such a paradox. Being vulnerable for me is acknowledging that it might have an increased probability of a more negative outcome, but still trying to be vulnerable because of the huge connection unlocks that (often) occur in my experience.
On balance intellectually i am coming to see the expected value from being vulnerable in communications is high, but my little lizard brain keeps saying to me "what if you get hurt though" and being closed off haha. its an exercise to shut it up.
I've had the privilege to have been more than half a century on this planet and my experience has not been super great regarding being vulnerable. It takes great skill to not have it mentally affect you. Even if you get ten thousand positive results, a mere two bad results will affect you even more. Nevertheless i agreee it is always better to start with empathy.
Yeah. As phrased it is bad advice - nobody actually needs to be "vulnerable". Everyone should be in a headspace where they might actually change their mind rather than persuade the counterparty, which feels like vulnerability to people who define themselves by their own beliefs. The trick is not to do that; a person isn't their beliefs. People have beliefs, but those can change. They're still a person both before and after the change (which sounds a bit ridiculous to have to say, but by observation some people don't seem to believe it to be true).
Some people are just too stubborn, especially if they come from a place of authority and seniority. I'm doing house repair work right now with an older relative. He learned how to do repairs and renovations by himself, things like working laminate floors, mortar, laying tiles etc. The things is, he has his own reasoning and rhythym of doing things and doesn't like to be challenged, but I feel his ways don't always make sense, esp when I feel he is rushing and improvising (a programmer can tell). I haven't done much handy work myself in the past, but I'm a millennial, so I google things, watch youtube videos, and I read instructions. I also know that it isn't rocket science, my parents built our own home brick by brick. And now, every step of the way I have to be pushy to get my way, and make it sound like I'm not imposing or too nitpicky or challenging his "expertise", it's very taxing, I made a big scene once already and the whole relationship is now strained.
That's kind of it though, isn't it? If you're going to convince him there has to be a reasonable chance that the opposite will happen and that he'll convince you that he's too old to learn new tricks or whatever and he's going to have to do it his way because he isn't up to the challenge of doing a better job.
If your range of outcomes is [He'll do things my way, There'll be a scene and a strained relationship] then sometimes there'll be a scene and a strained relationship. If the range of outcomes is [we do things my way and he hates it, we do things his way and I hate it] then that's at least softer on the relationship. If you're lucky maybe you don't even care and you can just live with some parts of the work being bad.
One of those awkward things is that being good at negotiating means that other people are more likely to get what they want. It is actually a bit counter-intuitive.
There is no guarantee of this. The only guarantee is that if you put yourself in a vulnerable state, and someone abuses that, you now know their true intentions and can adjust accordingly.
I am biased in this answer on vulnerability, and I know it. I’ve lived a full life. I’ve nearly died multiple times, one instance was on my knees with a SWAT Team standing behind me with rifles pointed at back.
When you’ve lived through such events your risk calculus changes. Things that seemed terrible like being fired or laid off, tend to feel not as insurmountable or scary.
I say this to outline my bias, but also add evidence to my view on vulnerability. I’ve seen both sides, and while being concerned about abuse when vulnerable is a concern that should be seriously considered.. often people who are forced to make that decision miss the other part. The audience.
Vulnerability will almost always grant you the favor of the audience. If you work a job with half decent people, being vulnerable and abused when exposed will cause leadership to side with you. In my experience, most people are decent and want to cause the least harm to others in personal and intimate settings. So being vulnerable is almost always a win, even if it’s not the win you want.
And the place/scenario in which you’re purposefully vulnerable results in abuse/neglect without recourse for action… well.. then unfortunately you’ll know that situation is untenable and unlikely to change. So you can react accordingly.
Without effort there is rarely a big effort. You have to listen to achieve better results. If you don't listen, your results will be misaligned. Unfortunately no one can guarantee that you won't be abused. You have to ask yourself if the risk of being abused is worth the result (typical result: bigger money for a better program).
I was the yielding type, not speaking up, letting others take charge. In my experience, it's not always worth it, especially if you care about the thing you are working on. I went so far as to just dissociate from everything and distance myself from others. The problem is that people deserve your honest opinion if you care about them, even if it's not what they want to hear. But it's so hard to spend mental energy to listen, correct, try to prove your point... even if you succeed, they will resent you for it.
They'll resent you insofar as it was confrontational vs. collaborative. If you can incept your conclusion into others they will not resent you. It's the whole raison d'etre of the Socratic method.
I had someone tell me, earnestly, that they hated me because it turned out that I was alright right. Not in the stubborn sense either.
> No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept.
I think this is what causes many people (software or otherwise" to shut down. Listening is important but a 2-way street. Someone choosing not to listen to you turns a discussion into a demand.
And "demands" are where the technical/Non-technical split get tricky . Does a doctor listen to some executive to do a thing that betrays their parient and oath? Less seriously, does a programmer listen to a product manager to prioritize B over A (A in which turns into a showstopper in a few weeks' time), or try to go around them to emphasize A needs work now (remember, PM is assumedly not accepting it anymore)?
Discussions devolving into demands into your craft is the worst.
> 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to your experience, beliefs, and worldview. Judging people is often a self protection mechanism; which means you will almost never listen to someone.
A gem, thanks.
This can be especially rough for fans of early pg essays. You might find out that you didn't actually keep your identity so small after all. A double whammy!
it's my son. he's young, bright, but puts up defenses to protect his perceived vulnerabilities. I try to explain to him that exposing your vulnerabilities humanizes you... at least it does to the type of people I admire.
What a privilige it must be to be able to have a job where you can stand up and leave when your psyche can't handle it. Ever done tech support for ten hours a day? :)
Your assumptions are also very wrong, my psyche could kill you, I simply know what I want on my side and you on your side, we have to meet somewhere in the middle, otherwise it's not listening, it's abuse.
If you don't stand up for yourself, nobody will.
Your view is US centric, I live in Europe, we have rights, we can't be fired for having opinions. We don't work 10 hours a day, we have rights.
You have this strange stance where employees are slaves, living in a one man dictatorship.
Yes this clearly illustrates the difference in labour laws and basic human rights between US and Europe.
"to have a job where you can stand up and leave when your psyche can't handle it."
This just sounds nuts to me, not being able to have the right for sick days/leave when your mentally unwell...
It's also counter-productive, people that are unwell won't be very efficient. Happy and healthy people work better.
For a while now, the US has been on a position where they do not care about "better work", because better work is not making the line go up as fast anymore. That's pretty much the core factor that will lead to the next major financial crash when reality eventually catches up.
Unless you are literally in manacles chained to an oar on a slave ship, you have the option to stand up for yourself. Everyone has to navigate the needs of life somehow. The simple universal requirement to find food somewhere somehow in no way translates to "what a privilege it must be". You have exactly that same luxury because it's not a luxury it's simply existing.
Either leave or make your psyche able to handle it. If your psyche won't be able to handle it, you will have a mental breakdown and leave anyway. Which outcome would you like more, leaving before or after mental breakdown?
When I lost my faith I was frequently engaged in debate by my friends and family. I was eager and willing to try and argue for the logical and moral necessity of atheism. It was never productive.
Eventually, when someone would ask me to engage in debate I would start by saying, "Is there anything you can think of that I could say that would possible make you lose your faith or decide I was right?"
The answer to this question was always "no, it is impossible for me to lose my faith". My next question was always "then what would be the point of debating?"
This was also never productive. But it was efficient.
ive listened my fair share . sometimes ppl get stuck in cogitation . especially around their pain points . having someone throw them off by implementing a solution helps reframe their thoughts . we discuss the solution instead . on the other hand, my empathy may come off as lacking .
> You must be in a position to be convinced yourself, in order to be convincing.
This claim is demonstrably untrue.
Do you believe that a written argument cannot be convincing? Or do you believe that when you read a written argument, your beliefs can somehow be transmitted back to the author, even if the author is long dead, and be convincing in that author’s mind?
> listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points. As opposed to trying to understand what feature the user wants to request.
... What is the distinction you're drawing here? How is "the feature the user wants to request" (note: not necessarily the feature the user actually requests) different from "the solution to the pain point"? Why would the user want a feature that doesn't alleviate the pain?
What OP said is true. You’re forgetting that health insurers are just one organization in the corporate chart. They often work to own the providers as well to funnel money to parent corporations.
So if United is the insurer they’re owned by an umbrella, that umbrella takes 20% or less. However United makes special deals and steers people to providers owned by the Umbrella. So that the Umbrella makes more money as well. This is true for medicine as well. For example Cigna requires all maintenance medication be purchased through express scripts as a means to retain or increase profit.
United has a history of also squeezing organizations by forcing them into pre-payment review when they’re high volume. This causes the providers to basically not have no revenue for months on end until it gets sorted. Then they might get a chunk or settle out of court. Often they go bankrupt and are purchased by the umbrella.
In terms of Medicare/Medicaid another catch-22 is that insurance handles the claims for providers. The insurance can recode claims and pocket the difference without telling the provider. It’s on the provider to catch it.
There is a tremendous amount of dark money, shadow games, hidden corporate structures, Wyoming and NM LLCs with Anonymous owners, etc.
Insurance as a whole tries to own the entire feedback loop for healthcare. They don’t like you going out of their feedback loop.
>For example Cigna requires all maintenance medication be purchased through express scripts
Important note: Cigna owns Express Scripts. Today the biggest "insurance" companies are actually massive conglomerates that own the clinics, the doctors and the pharmacies. United = Optum. Aetna = CVS + Caremark. Humana = CenterWell. Elevance/Blue Cross/Anthem/Carelon. Centene = Envolve
Once a giant like United gets big enough in a city, say ~40% of the population, they lower the reimbursement rates for independent doctors and if the doctor refuses the contract, they are kicked out of network and lose 40% of their patients. Go bankrupt or sell to Optum.
Digi is also right about Medicare upcoding. It is a well-documented $$billions scam where Medicare Advantage insurers comb through patient records to add diagnostic codes making the patient look sicker on paper than they actually are so the government pays the insurer a higher flat rate for that patient.
Why wasn't it set up so the government is the insurer. Rather than 3rd partying it. It is akin to federal reserve using wells fargo to store their money.
Pharmaceuticals are a small component of overall US health spending. Upcoding is endemic across the entire system; it's endemic across the whole system. Ironically, the complaint you'd be making with upcoding under Advantage is that Medicare should be denying coverage to people; Advantage upcoding involves altering risk scores to authorize more care.
I’m well aware of the vertically integrated systems. But that’s not the entire market - just getting to slowly be more and more common.
Insurance as standalone entities are not much better or worse for total cost than these giant vertical monopolies. At least yet, thy are only recently becoming large enough to truly put the screws to people. Because insurance was not all that profitable made it prime targets for these sorts of shell game shenanigans.
It’s basically the point I was making. Fixing “insurance” isn’t a fix at all because the problem is far greater than just that layer of the onion. Costs are hidden and embedded and cross-subsidied to the point no one can unwind it without burning the entire thing to the ground. It’s grift from bottom to top. Aside from a few poor souls actually at the ground level who are still true believers trying to provide service to patients. And a lot of those are burning out. I think out of the 5 or 6 medical doctors I met while they were in medical school, only one is still practicing. They would now be late 30s to early 40s and in theory at the prime of their careers. Instead they got out as soon as medical school debt was paid off and moved onto other less stressful things. Another hidden cost in the shit-tier system rarely talked about.
I’m simply pushing back on the idea that the 20% medical loss ratio is the source of all (or even most) issues for the cost of healthcare or why insurance sucks so much to deal with. It’s nearly irrelevant.
FWIW - A whole host of the pre-IPO GitLab folks went to Chainguard. A lot of them, many in leadership roles. Most importantly, In Sales Leadership. These are people whom don’t really believe in high-pressure sales. Rather they aim to show the value and not squeeze customers for profit or making a number on a chart go up.
That second paragraph is what scares me the most about pure public healthcare options. The following isn’t to compare/contrast systems.. it’s just a viewpoint.
My cardiologist went “tests look fine, heart looks fine, there’s no reason for you to take colchicine. No clue why you have issues, everything is fine. Just take this brand new beta blocker to manage your heart rate.”
Meanwhile, there’s no answer why my heart rate rises 30-40BPM randomly when I stand. Why my heart rate drops to a very difficult detectable rate when I sleep. No answers as to why two sips of wine causes my body to go into shock. - All resulting post-Covid.
That same doctor told me to discontinue colchicine; yet without colchicine most medications, inc. ADHD, are maybe half as effective.
These are items which deserve answers. Not an answer of “just take another pill”. Some of those “unnecessary” tests can provide inclusion/exclusion information. Yet just refusing that knowledge denies answers.
In the US I can just find new doctors. But in other systems it’s either difficult or impossible.
Provided someone told GitLab Support. This was likely fine. GitLab can handle this much load. The platform as a whole has increased and improved over the years as new customers are added.
Think about this… every CI/CD Job runs a clone. That’s a lot..
They’ll know because in the US and abroad the banks send the balances and transactions to the IRS. I get letters every year/6 months that I’m subject to additional withholding because they haven’t gotten any $$ but they show I have.
This is entirely jurisdiction specific, so I can't say for certain, but in almost every country I've looked into it for, there is a set of paperwork that an individual can use to independently invoice for work, without the effort of setting up an incorporated company. You will definitely need to record the income you received, and declare it on the relevant tax forms.
There is often a scale variance too - in Australia, "hobby" income is treated differently from "business" income. [0]
In Germany, there is the concept of the "Freien Berufen" ("liberal professions"), in which you can freelance without a company. [1]
> ... the client also will demand...
The client may also demand these things of you.
They are certainly capable of dealing with sole traders, and will have some services provided by people who do not have those things. (Your boss does not check if the receipt you submit for the new bookshelf for the office comes from a registered company or a sole trader carpenter.)
Depending on the scale of the services you are providing, they may prefer to deal with a registered entity, but for small one-off things, that may not be necessary.
If you are regularly working with large businesses who are funding your work, it's worth looking into the most effective tax and legal structures for you. But if you just need to send the occasional invoice off to someone who wants something quick done, it's useful to know what your options are.
One final thought - even when dealing with organisations who prefer to deal with registered businesses, you have options. You can choose to be employed by a company which does that on your behalf. Either a business which you have a good relationship with, and is willing to enter into a casual employment contract with you and bill for your services, or a dedicated contractor management company. Either way, you give up a percentage of what you bill, but in exchange, they take the paperwork and liability overhead.
> There is often a scale variance too - in Australia, "hobby" income is treated differently from "business" income. [0]
I have an ABN and I am registered for GST for side hustles beyond the hobbyist income threshold. This costs me about 10 minutes of extra admin per year when I do my tax return.
All I need to do is give the tax office three figures: How much money I earned, how much GST I charged, and how much I paid (ie how much they need to give back to me.)
You don't seem to understand the power balance here. The client is in no position to demand anything, since the article author can just tell them to scram, and they can solve their own problems.
Working with corps is not a problem. Unless you have a slave mentality that is, and let them bully you and stomp all over you. If they have their wits with them, they will fully understand what negotiating position they are in, and not make unnecessary demands on the software creator.
I have a company in Estonia for cases like this. The amount of paperwork is nearly zero, the corps are happy they’re working with an actual company, and you can do things like holding money there (for business purchases) and paying no taxes in your home country (unless they have a CFC rule, notably US and Japan, in which case eh good luck).
It depends. Sibling thread has some horror stories about Germany, for example.
Estonia has been trying to get foreigners to open their businesses there for a while now: https://e-estonia.com/ But I don’t think that helps US residents too much (ask your tax advisor about CFC rules; I have only a vague understanding that it’s a PITA).
It also mostly doesn't help EU residents. If you live in another EU country, your tax office will treat your Estonian company as a local one since that's where the business takes place in truth.
I love those visits. I've occasionally had sharp chest pains which go away after a number of seconds. They've never been accompanied by typical heart attack symptoms, so I usually ignore it (not smart, I get it).
After one such episode, I decided to schedule an appointment with my general practitioner. They refused to see me if I didn't go to the ER first. I was pretty certain I didn't need an ER visit, but went anyway.
I waited hours, a doctor eventually saw me in the waiting room, and was never admitted. I think it cost $2500 or so, with insurance covering only part.
Huh, that's interesting. That matches something that I get sometimes, usually after I've been driving a long distance or sitting at my desk doing mouse-heavy stuff for a long time. I put it down to poor posture.
It hasn't happened quite so much since adjusting the steering to track and centre properly so I'm not constantly pulling the car left away from the middle of the road, and raising my seat a bit by unscrewing the seat from its base, putting in about 8cm worth of wooden spacers, and screwing it back down with long studs and nuts instead of the daft wee screws, so it's not sitting at its "most extended" height.
My BP pressure has slowly creeped up over the years to 155/95 range, despite being quite fit with no real lifestyle issues. Was told to monitor it. Did a reading a few weeks ago: 190 over something. Not good. Went to A&E where they confirmed the reading with their cuff. Sat there for several hours. BP kept climbing until it reached something like 235 over something (probably partly due from a feedback effect of knowing my BP was high). Felt fine, apart from the anxiety related to the BP reading. Did a few tests, but no-one seems to know why it spiked. They gave me some meds and it slowly dropped. They let me go when it dropped below 180. Now taking a calcium channel blocker and it is very slowly trending down. Now about 160 over 100.
Commenting to add - Insurance negotiated rate may actually be 1500$. If it is and they charge insurance 1500$. They legally cannot charge an individual a different or lower rate. Even if that person doesn’t have insurance and offers to pay cash.
This is one of those weird horrible traps health insurance puts you into. OP may charge insurance 1500$, insurance may only pay 20%. But that now means they have to charge individuals the full 1500$ price.
So honestly, Cudos to the OP for identifying this trap and then moving to just charging a reasonable flat rate.
Let me add a couple to this list.
1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept.
2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to your experience, beliefs, and worldview. Judging people is often a self protection mechanism; which means you will almost never listen to someone.
3. Listening often means not jumping to a solution; but absorbing and processing someone’s pain. Product managers for example are quick to jump to a solution, a new feature, or they’ll push the request off as “oh, ok, we’ll make a ticket for that ”
When in actuality, they should be listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points. As opposed to trying to understand what feature the user wants to request.
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