From Dishwasher to Engineering Manager

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Matt: We've all had summer jobs before or jobs that were during college or part-time during high school and things like that, and we think of them when we, when we pick them up originally, when we're there, and then also w- when we kinda like look back in hindsight. We kinda think about them as something that was, you know, kinda quick, just a quick year or two part of our life, maybe five years at most, and then you're out, you're done, and, you know, never to think about it again.

But there's actually important lessons that are embedded in those experiences. I mean, I took many valuable lessons from my factory job, and Mike, which is gonna be sort of the focus of this episode, took many valuable experiences that he applies to his current job as an engineering manager when he was a dishwasher.

So some dishwasher stuff seems completely unrelated, and maybe from a technical perspective it is, but there's gonna be some similarities and some lessons learned that can be applied across even a boundary such as that. That just seems like such a totally different, different thing. Like even like driving instructor to like dishwasher, it's like, where does [00:01:00] dishwasher go?

Maybe to cook? Who knows? But we'll dive into the story as we get there. So if this sounds interesting to you and you wanna support the show, you can go and check us out on that Patreon. Leave a review or rating on your podcast app, join us in our Discord server, or share this with your friends. And if you wanna learn how to code, you can do so on Scrimba.

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And in the show notes, there's a description on how that link works. You can go and check that out. Mike, why don't you take us into the world of a dishwasher?

Mikhail: Oh God, I, I kinda hope that I don't have to take you into the world of a dishwasher, uh, to get my point across, but maybe I will. Um, essentially I've been looking back a little bit, uh, you know, the industry's in a little bit of n- I wouldn't say turmoil, but like it's, you know, it's, it's going [00:02:00] through a transitionary period.

Not the dishwasher industry, the development industry, I wanna be clear. I don't know what's going on in the dishwasher industry. Um, but in the development industry we're going through a little bit of turmoil. So I've been reflecting a little bit back on my pr- past experiences, and I've realized, like I've come to realize that My earliest job experiences are probably the things that have propelled me the furthest, and it doesn't sound intuitive because like what-- again, like Matt said, what does a dishwasher have to do with an engineering manager?

And th- like from a technical perspective, very little, but from like a tangible, uh, s- life skill perspective, actually a lot, right? So my, my career trajectory was high school, I, I, like at 16 years old, or maybe 15, I can't remember, I got a job as a dishwasher in, in a local restaurant, uh, re- like chain restaurant, and like just began working after school and stuff like that.

And the job sucked. Like, uh, like I wanna be very clear, the [00:03:00] dishwasher job was the worst, but I was pretty happy because I was a high school student ge-getting money, uh, from that perspective. And then it dragged on for a little while, and, you know, like even in early university or I, I... Yeah, in early university, like first year university, I was still a dishwasher, and then I transitioned to become a line cook.

And that job was different and sucked for different reasons, but it also wasn't the greatest job ever. I liked it slightly more for sure than dishwashing. And the both of those jobs individually taught me a hell of a lot, and I do think back on them a little bit fondly from like a, "Holy crap," like I did that perspective.

Um, and I almost kind of am tr- starting to think like I think I recommend that kind of hard labor, uh, for almost anyone. Because without that, I feel like I would have lost some edge in my career. Like I would've been, I would've been a different developer for sure. I don't even know if I would've become a developer, I'll be honest, if I did not do those jobs.

And I, and I'll explain that as, as I go throughout the episode. [00:04:00] But overall, like I do thank the, those opportunities at this point, even though I would never wanna go back there. Um, and I, I kinda hope like that people currently, let, let's say you're listening to this episode and you're trying to get in to become a developer, but you're, you know, stuck as a, as a line cook in the back or like a server, whatever, like whatever job that's not what you're trying to get to.

Um, I hope that you'll look at what you're doing now as the foundation, 'cause it will become the foundation regardless of what it is, right? And try to get some positive away from that, right? Like you're not like I, I remember thinking back, like I was always thinking about the next thing, and that's good.

I was always thinking as a dishwasher about how I wanted to become a line cook, and then as a line cook, I was thinking, "Okay, I, I'm not doing this again. I'm going to university and I'm gonna become an engineer of some sorts." I didn't know I was gonna be a developer at that time, but I wanted an office job.

Um, and I never really thought about the current situation as much, and I feel like it, [00:05:00] uh, like look, going back there, I, I feel like I would a little bit. I would probably get even more out of it.

Matt: I, I mean, I worked in a factory myself, um, during college. I worked in like a factory bakery, so it was just like a d- literally an industrial-sized bakery that just makes like thousands and thousands and thousands of muffins and English muffins and everything else, bagels and the whole, the whole shebang.

And, you know, it's, it's hot work. That sucks. It's very physically demanding, depending on your position on the line, meaning assembly line. Very, very sort of demanding. We were working in ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, in some cases, uh, for twelve hours a day, and then you're back the next day for another twelve hours. People were doing overtime and stuff. It's, you know, not the greatest pay, although they did pay above minimum, which was something, but not the greatest pay. Uh, and then in Canada, you can pay students less 'cause there's students' wage, or at least you could back then, so I was getting less than... I was getting less than minimal- minimum, but the people around me were getting above minimum. But anyway, moving on from that. [00:06:00] it definitely kinda teaches you that you wanna get out of that situation. I mean, the thing is, though, is like some people love it. Like, there were people in there that were just absolutely, like, in love with it. They wanted to work with their hands. They liked the heat. And they absolutely loved it, whereas I learned very quickly that I did not want to do that. And it's not even necessarily the labor so much as it's just the shifts suck. They were, uh, I think they're called continental shifts. But I-- the reason why I say I think they were is because they were kind of all over the place.

We used to work some eights, then we would go twelves, and we would do like, it was eights, it would be, you know, your day, your afternoon, then your night shift. And then sometimes you would then be on twelves, and then you would do day, night, day, night. You'd get shifted to other departments, so, like, you'd be working with strangers once again 'cause this facility is really large. of a, like a, kind of a, like a smorgasbord of a disaster, um, in terms of organization. Not... But I, like it, the work got done. What I mean is, is like, you know, if people are calling in sick and stuff like that, and you're trying to manage like [00:07:00] hundreds of people, and you need p- people in certain positions on an assembly line in, like, not due to mismanagement, was, it would be a disaster.

The place was actually quite well managed. Um, like I didn't see many, like, major or anything short of mechanical failures. Which is interesting 'cause, like, I feel like I learned a little bit about logistics or something when I was there. Like, it's just, you know, you kinda have to like learn on the job a little bit. But learned very quickly that I didn't wanna be in that sort of environment o- over the long term

Mikhail: And, and I think like most people listening to this podcast are probably in, in those shoes. 'Cause obviously, yes, there's tons of people working factory jobs, dishwasher jobs even, uh, like cook jobs obviously for their entire lives. And most likely they're not going to be the ones that are trying to get out, so they're not gonna be the ones that are listening to a web development podcast.

So I, I think we're speaking to the right crowd. I think we're, we're on the, we're, we're in the right basis of like you're probably in the same boat if you're listening to this. You're, you're in the same [00:08:00] boat that Matt just said. You're probably looking for a way out of that kind of work. Um, and development is a path there, like right?

Like a, a development and, you know, management, whatever, like office work is a path out. But the lessons you learned from that previous experience are going to be useful. So I'm gonna dive kind of right into that with the first one here being thriving in chaos. So I've kind of the, the, this has been kind of my superpower I think, mostly coming directly from being a dishwasher and a line cook.

Uh, a lot of times even in a development environment stuff can get chaotic, especially in, you know, some sort of incident response situation. You know, servers go down, there's a bug in production or something like that. And I see a lot of developers out there that just start to like freeze up and, you know, they're, they're not sure what to do.

They start to poke around too much. They start to like, you know, take down prod for whatever reason. Like they're like, "Oh, [00:09:00] we gotta just rip it all down, just shut it off." The reality is like you need to be able to accept the chaos a little bit. Like yes, stuff's gonna happen, and what, stuff would happen in the kitchen, and what we had to do was we had to, you know, wash that next dish.

That's gonna happen. Like you know, your, your sink's broken. Okay. You have to figure out how to still wash that next dish. That's still part of your process. So while you're fixing the sink you have to, you know, get a secondary sink going, you have to get a secondary whatever hose going, and you're washing that next, that next dish.

It's going slower, but you're still, you're, you're, you're multitasking a little bit, but you're still washing that next dish, and that's the reality of the situation. And I saw a lot of people, and I mean a lot, like I have a lot of stories, but the one that stands out very vividly as a dish wa- like when someone came in, a new dishwasher that came in.

Something went down. It started, they, you know, something broke. The, the, the server started piling up dishes, and they broke. Like this person just broke down. [00:10:00] And they were gone. So like I looked over to the dish pit, this was when, when I was a line cook, and there was no one there, and I was like, "Where's the dishwasher?"

They're like, "Well, I, I don't know." Like and I'm like, "Okay. Well, we have to find him. Like we can't just, we can't just not have one." And I went to go look, and they were crying in the closet And that's, that's part of it. Like, you're, you're gonna get to, you're gonna get to those states sometimes, and if you can get through it, it's going to make you stronger.

And so I've been there before. I haven't fully broken, but, like, I've been close to breaking before in a, in a dish pit, as a line cook, and honestly, none of what I've experienced as a developer even comes close to those experiences. Like, prod can be down right now for me. Like, even right now, everything could be down, people could be losing money, millions of dollars, and I would just be like, "Okay, whatever, like, let's, let's try to fix it."

Because tho- for what, for whatever reason, those experiences in the k- in, in the kitchen just kind of [00:11:00] ground me down to the point where I can, I can do it. I can just continue on and wash that next dish

Matt: I, I agree with that. Like, you-- I think you should be exposed to controlled chaos to some extent. Obviously, if things are chaotic 'cause they're dangerous or something like that, that, that shouldn't be the case. But like I was saying is, like, the factory that I was in was chaotic just due to the nature of things had to be constantly produced.

There was hundreds of people. People are calling in sick. There's different shifts. Like, it's just the nature of the beast. Um, and I saw the value of, like, good management, of them figuring out where to put people and where they could spare people and where they had too many people and things like that. But then I also saw the, the, the chaos of if the line went down, if something broke mechanically, sometimes, like, a machine would deliver boxes to you or something, and humans would have to do that at the same pace of the machine. Or it would set off all the sensors, and there would be literally muffins and, like, pastries literally flying everywhere because the machines are, like, throwing [00:12:00] them because they don't have, like, a target, and there's, like, all this chaos.

Like, people are screaming, all right? I have a distinct memory of, like, a conveyor belt that used to bring boxes to us. It kept breaking, and the mechanic that was on our line, like, kept fixing it, and it just kept breaking and breaking and breaking, and every time it broke, people would scream 'cause it would just become this absolute chaotic thing of, like stacks and stacks and stacks of pastries are gonna be continually sent to you, and there's no boxes you to put it in. And, and when I say like, oh, it-- when people think, "Oh, it's a bakery," like, it's just a bit of muffins. Like, or just a bit of, like, bagels or something. I'm talking hundreds and hundreds every thirty second. Every thirty seconds. So you, like, legitimately, like, better be ready. And we had an issue where we had, we had a, like, a big freezer.

That broke. There were issues where, like, certain alarms would go off. Um, we, we had a problem once where, like, the oven had to, like, eject all of its [00:13:00] pastry 'cause something went, like, dangerously awry, uh, as far as I understood it. And, there's a bunch of safety stuff obviously kind of plugged in, and so the oven can't just keep a bunch of pastry inside of it 'cause they'll catch fire.

So it has to, like, eject a bunch of stuff, and then humans have to step in to, like, empty garbage bins at the pace of, like, a machine pumping out at full speed, trying to, like, eject stuff so it's not caught on fire. So the garbage is hot. You have to remember that, like, the rest of the plant is trying to also put their garbage in, like, their regular garbage in, so now you have, like, traffic jams that you can't afford the time of.

Like, like, absolute unadulterated chaos. And, uh- I mean, it was a good experience in that way. Like in the moment it was like, "What are we doing?" But every single time it, like, every single time it happened, taught me to be like, okay, like if I hear this noise, like we gotta snap to, or I know that people aren't going to 'cause I was new and I was just a temporary there for...

Not temporary, but a student. So I knew that [00:14:00] people wouldn't have the time to explain to me what was going on, so I knew to like, okay, this alarm goes off. I know that something's down. I have to look what's down. Okay, where are all the full-timers going? What lines and, and what procedures are they forming?

Where can I move in to help them? Are, are, like, are they doing two boxes a minute and we need three? Okay, I'll bring that third box. Like, you have to kinda quickly look, adapt, and overcome kinda thing, and just kinda go with it. But like, oh yeah, like I've jumped into garbage cans filled with muffins and like mulched them with my hands to like, to like push down garbage so that it, like, saved time because we, like, didn't have enough containers because there was another line that was also having issues, and they were taking up...

Like, like total disaster. Like complete, complete and utter disaster. But like the, you know, the first couple times it's a panic. The next couple times it's calculated. It becomes a calculation. But I would like to say something. Coming from IT, Mike, you were talking about somebody being cr- crying in the closet. Have seen similar situations in IT 'cause people are, like, so scared of things being [00:15:00] down, they don't know what to do, especially if they're the only ones on call and things like this. People, like, freak out. And I will, like, say this, some people are not gonna be able to take the experience of the chaos, apply sort of like a framework to it, and then just be able to almost be stoic or be very objective going through it. Some people are just gonna lose their, their marbles, and there were people that I worked with, and they were not doing well, like in my IT job. They were not doing well every time something went awry. And there was a guy on the team that would always come to me and say, "I think that guy needs to get a different job. He, he should choose a different position. He's good at this part of the job. He should choose a position in IT where there aren't really incidents or the incidents are minor," because he's like, "This guy's gonna have, like, a full-on heart attack." Like he's, he's having a meltdown every single time something goes down.

He's like, "That's why we're here."

Mikhail: That's,

Matt: but,

Mikhail: that's our whole job.

Matt: well, yeah, but this is the thing is like, I think that's like a, that's a lesson too. Sometimes you're not learning [00:16:00] how to deal with something. Sometimes you're de- you're, you're learning what I, you know, can't deal with, what I don't want to deal with. If you do not wanna deal with chaotic situations, then you're learning that.

I don't wanna learn chaotic situations. So then you, that, that'll kinda steer your career. 'Cause if you're having like an im- an immediate panic, you're gonna have to work on that. And if it's gonna take everyone's individual tolerance level or whatever, it's gonna take you a while potentially to work on yourself to like figure out how to like be stoic or be objective in a chaotic situation. Unfortunately, some people are not going to either want to do that, or they're never gonna really master it. And then so they need to steer in a, in, a direction that, you know, won't, that will mitigate them being exposed to that. And that's good 'cause you do not want a team member, you know, to bring that back, you do not want a team member that collapses under pressure because now you're putting additional pressure in a high-pressure situation on the other [00:17:00] people.

'Cause now they're like checking on in on you as a human sometimes, or they're like, they're taking on the work 'cause they know that you'll freak out more, and it just doesn't work

Mikhail: I agree. The, so like, I, I think there's definitely that. One thing I will say is that, like, if they, if that person had a stressful job as they were growing up, they might not be in the same boat, right? Like, if they did go through a factory job or dishwasher job, whatever, they might have developed that resilience, and they might be in a better spot as an I- uh, in IT at that point.

But being thrown in, like I, for myself, I think that if I was thrown into an IT environment without the previous experience as a dishwasher, I would be more freaking-- Like, I would be freaking out way more. Now, maybe I could get through it, I don't know, whatever. It was, like, you know, hindsight's 20/20. But, uh, realistically, I know that after all the shit that went down, and you're right, after, like, you know, the first round of chaos is always gonna be the worst because you don't know what to expect.

Noth-nothing, no one's trained you for this. [00:18:00] It's just chaos. And then as you re- as you go through the chaos more and more, there is a pattern to it. No matter how crazy stuff is, there is certain things you can do step by step to get to a fi- a, like, you know, to get to the end. Like, it's not like all of a sudden, you know, the, the dishwasher explodes and you can no longer wash dishes and then the entire world ends.

Like, and then, and it's the same thing with IT. It's like the server explodes and that's it, the, the people can't work anymore and that's it, the world ends. Like no, you eventually figure it out and sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow and it takes some time. And that, if you have that, like, end goal at the end and you know that that's the, the result, then starting, you know, s-step by step going through the steps isn't chaos anymore.

It's now part of procedure. So I totally get it. I totally get the, like, some people just can't do it. Hundred-- I've met those people, I've worked with those people and I've recommended the same thing that that person recommended directly to people's faces because you just, you know, you can't have a team member that's in that [00:19:00] situation when you're all, when you all need to be on point, when you're, when you have those kinds of explosions.

Matt: It, it points to like, like, like strengths and weaknesses too, right? Because here's the thing, oftentimes, at least in my experience, those people that can't handle like the burst of chaos the best people you want to do a mundane, boring, long-term task. Something that I have trouble sitting still for,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: it's like, "We need to check in with these clients every day, call them every day, do this every day."

They're like, "Yeah, cool." And I'm sitting there like, "I can't, like, I don't wanna freaking do this." Even though it's not chaotic or like scary or something high risk, it's just I do not wanna do these things. And those people are the best at that. Fantastic. Like, that's how you learn that those are the people.

'Cause your next point here, Mike, you'll get into it, is leadership. Think about the people that... Like, I've, I've absolutely known people being on a team where will go awry and it's sort of a more management level decision, you'll be on the team and, and I'll be like, "Oh, like what, what's happening?"

And it's like, "Oh, like the lead hand has to figure this [00:20:00] out, or the supervisor has to figure this out. I wouldn't want that job." That person knows that they don't want the, don't want the promotion. They don't want the promotion. They don't wanna make the decision. They want to stay where they're at.

All right. Like, cool. 'Cause... And, and maybe it's due to fear and maybe they would be able to rise to it, fine. Like, granted, like try things and see, you know, see what happens. In an ideal world, you would try things to see what happens. But that person might be coming from a place of, "I don't make good decisions under pressure, and so now I'm just gonna make terrible decisions and then steer my team right into more chaos and more disaster," and so they don't want that job. And like, that's fair enough. Like, good. That's good. Like, you-- sometimes you're where you need to be. Sometimes not, but sometimes you are

Mikhail: Yeah, like you're right, you're right. You should always try to push yourself, but at some point you have to kind of figure out what you want and what you don't wanna do. And, uh, that's gonna help your team, that's gonna help, you know, the g- the manager above you to, if you know your limits, play within them.

Um, [00:21:00] but, uh,

Matt: Fricking

Mikhail: yeah. Yeah,

Matt: on now.

Mikhail: a little, a little, little gambling, like Ontario gambling les- uh, reference there. But, um, yeah, you're right. So moving right on to leadership, right? So that's the next thing that I was taught in those positions. Now, obviously not in the dish pit, but when I was- became a line cook, I-- In the last two years or so, I was the one leading the line, so I was the one that was calling the chits, and I was the one that had to manage the plates and stuff like that, and make sure that everything was on time.

Matt: Calling the, calling the what? The

Mikhail: the chits. Chits are like the little receipts that pop up when you're-- w- when a new order comes in. So like on, on the line there's a little receipt printer. The tickets, yeah, exactly. Now, I think there's all, it's all digital now, but this is like, you know, well over 10 years ago.

Matt: I mean, to be honest, people are gonna definitely still have paper stuff,

Mikhail: I'm assuming so. Uh, yeah, in the kitchens, I'm sure there's plenty of kitchens that still have that ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- like chip machines.

Um, so yeah, so I was the one calling the chips and I had to put everything together. So that taught me a ton, uh, about like [00:22:00] coordination, about what you're saying, like putting the pe- putting the right people in the right place. And then also Like, get it moving them through because on a, in a, in a kitchen, what, like when, when someone starts in the kitchen, you put them on like fryers, for example, as their first job, and then they learn fryers, and then you're supposed to move them to something else, and you're supposed to move them around the line so that they learn every single position so that they can lead, right?

Like, that's the whole point. Like, that's, that's how the transition goes. And eventually you'll learn that, like, this guy is just, you know, once they go through all the pos- the stations, this guy's better on fryers, this guy's better on s- steaks and stuff like that. So if you have no new people, you put people on the s- on the right spots to have, like, a smooth experience.

So that lesson was golden for me because I kind of apply a very similar thing to my teams that I manage i- in, as a web developer, right? So, you know, this person's better at back-end, this person's better at front-end, this person's better at in- infrastructure. I put them all into the same spots. But another thing that it taught me was, like, move them around, right?

Like, you want people to, if they want, to experience the other positions, because [00:23:00] sometimes you'll get a gem. Like, sometimes you'll have someone that was super good on back-end actually have a really good attention to detail on front-end that you needed for that position. So if you don't move people around, uh, you don't have that experience.

And I see a lot of teams, like a lot of static teams, that are just, like, complacent in the fact that everyone is just in their positions and they don't want to have any sort of cross-training or cro- or cross-team learning. I'm very much a, I guess I'm, I'm very much a full stack person, where I, I think everyone on the team should learn every, a little bit of every part of the stack so that they can communicate better.

And that, in turn, has led me to have a couple experiences where I had a very front-end person, like a super front-end person that only knew, uh, specifically, like, React front-end stuff, nothing to do with back-end. They barely had an understanding of APIs. I had them, for a good four to six-month period, be a back-end dev for a while.

And they succeeded. Like, they, you know, it took them a little bit, but they were great. And then they moved back to the front [00:24:00] end, but they understood the, the, the full stack, and they were great to work with after that. Like, I think they're literally probably 5X the engineer that they were when they first started because I tried to get them out of their bubble.

Um, and right now, if you look at the positions open, it's really difficult to find, like, a position for a specific thing, like only back-end. I'm sure there are. There, um, there definitely are. But a lot of positions require you to have good concepts about both, and then sometimes they're leaning one way, right?

Like, it's a, it's more of a back-end position with some front-end experience or something like that, or it's more of a front-end position with some back-end experience. But a lot of times it's really important to have that kind of cross-training and to be able to at least comprehend the entire stack. So I do kind of credit that to, to my, uh, management in, in the, uh, in the kitchen experience, is being able to kind of move stuff around.

Matt: I think,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: too is a, a good point. When you're, you mentioned a couple of times having new people or training new

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: training new skills, um, [00:25:00] on sort of existing experienced staff. it's important to know who's a good teacher as well. I know that in my IT, uh, one of my IT experiences, there were three or four other people.

Three were there most of the time. One was sort of an occasional worker, and one guy was always busy. One, one guy, one guy was always out, and the other guy was more or less the teacher, and it was because they didn't have, they didn't have the, um if, if, if I was being taught by the person that's freaking out, when something went awr- went awry, that person would just stop talking or they would just be complaining.

They would just... And so to me it's like I'm not learning anything. I'm not learning anything about dealing with an incident. I'm not learning what has gone technically wrong. I don't know what's going on, right? It's just chaos. And so the per- and then the other person was too busy. Phone's constantly ringing.

They're doing too many things, and so that person's clearly vital and they need to pick up the phone, and I can't be, you know, doing a lesson in [00:26:00] 19 parts when it could've been done in three parts because this person had to pick up the phone a bunch of times. And so this other g- this other guy was more like he would, he just had materials already.

He would like show you what to do. He knew where newbies would get stuck and stuff, and like, you know who's a good teacher, and that's, that's crucial to know as well

Mikhail: Absolutely. I, I think learning, again, it's one of those things where you, you kind of pick up on that as you start interacting with them and as you start putting them in different positions. Like putting, putting people in the position to be the leader, right? Like I did that many times as well in, in the kitchen where like it was my turn to lead, but I'm like, "You know what?

This person has worked here for a long time. They learned the entire all, the entire kitchen." I was like, "Let's switch. It's your, it's your turn." I knew it was gonna be like a slow day or something like that. And I would put them in that position and yeah, it like sometimes it's stressful, right? Sometimes it's a stressful put, place to put them, but as long as you're there to back them up, and that's another part of it is like being that servant leader.

In a, in a l- in a kitchen, there's no option to not be a servant leader. You can't just sit back 'cause there's just [00:27:00] no time. Um, so that is always my mindset, and sometimes you're supposed to sit back, but I'm constantly being a servant leader in terms of like I will, I will definitely be in the trenches.

Like I will be writing the code, uh, a lot of times. Like I, I, obviously you write less as you become a manager, but still writing code, still reviewing a ton, uh, still understand the full technical positions and still jumping in. Like because sometimes again, if there, if there is a problem, I need to be able to jump in and fix it.

If I'm not aware of what's going on and if not, I'm not aware of what, what code's been written, I start to lose that ability and then I start to like, you know, have to give up more, uh, responsibilities and make it, put more pressure on my team that's working on a bi- a million other things as well. So it's, it's part of the process, um, to try to figure out where everyone fits and to try to make sure everyone has the chance to succeed, and it's also part of the process to help them, right?

Like to be able to back them up when they are [00:28:00] starting to slow down and fail. And then if they are doing that on a more consistent basis, you have to be the one that actually pushes them, um, to succeed or, you know, tells them that it might not be the right path for them. That's, you know, like I, I had to do that a few times as a, in a, in, in a kitchen as well.

Like it wa- it wasn't my favorite part. It was probably my most hated part, but being like, "Hey, you know, you can't do salads right now. Like we have to put you on fryer," and then eventually like, "Okay, you can't do fryer. We're, we're at the point where we might have to look at, you know, removing you, like put you on a, a pip or whatever," whatever it's called.

In the kitchen, I can't remember now. There's a, there's a word for it. Um,

Matt: I will,

Mikhail: but yeah s-

Matt: one, one thing I am, like, very against is I really don't like the trial by fire with no backup.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: people have to sorta, like, learn the chaos and things like that, but I really hate the idea of being like, "Okay, you're the, you're the cook today, and then your only assistance is not really assistance, it's just gonna be me screaming at you as to why things aren't perfect, and just screaming to get better."[00:29:00]

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: Like, Mike, you could yell at me to become a better developer right now. Cool. Cool, man. What's the next step? You know? Like,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: Like, I, I just, I really am against that, for sure. I understand the stressful situation. You're not trying to insulate the job from everybody. They have to experience what's gonna happen. Sometimes jobs are kind of bad. Sometimes there's, like, rough times, sure. But just screaming, "Do a better job," to a person that doesn't have the experience to do a better job, I, I understand it'll work for some. It doesn't work for me. It d- it doesn't work for me 'cause now, now I just see you as an enemy.

Now I know you're basically a prick, and I'm gonna t- I'm, and I'm not gonna treat you all that well. Like, I'm just gonna be like, "Oh yeah, that guy's just a jerk," so now, like, that's how I treat you now. You're just a jerk

Mikhail: The, the reason that people do that is it's the easy path, right? Like, you just throw someone in. If they succeed, great, then they're like, "You're-- I'm a genius. Like, I did this." And if they fail, then you're just [00:30:00] like, "Then you're an idiot, then you're-- get out." Like that... It's the easy path. That's the reality.

The, the, the harder, the much harder path is to figure out when to put that pressure on someone when they're ready, and to push them towards that pressure, and then to p- be the backup, be the one that can f- they can fall back on, and have that kind of balance, right? Like again, back to the kitchen, like when I would put someone in the position of leading the line, I would usually do that on a slow day.

And I've had several times where I-- that assumption was wrong, where it would turn-- a slow day turned into a really hectic and crazy day. You know, a couple big parties came in all of a sudden. And what I had to do was I, like, sometimes I would let them go through it and struggle a little bit, but I would jump in at the, like at the point where I saw them, like, freezing up or I saw them having a lot of troubles, I would jump in and switch with them.

And I had to do that several times where like, "Okay, go back, go back here. I'll, I'll help you get through this rush, and then you can go-- you can-- we can switch back." And I've done that several times, and eventually they would get it, [00:31:00] and sometimes they didn't. And that's, again, you know, you give them as much leeway as you can.

You give them as much backup as you can, but then at some point you have to... It's not throwing them into the fire. It's just like, "We've given you all the training we can. You have to succeed now."

But yeah,

Matt: accept

Mikhail: yeah.

Matt: like, off the hop more or

Mikhail: No, exactly. You can't

Matt: and, and some people, like you're saying, the people that are like trial by fire, oftentimes they just expect per- like perfection right off the hop. And it's like, cool man

Mikhail: It's just the lazy way of doing it, that's all. Like, it's just, it's just the, the way that, like, has least amount of effort for that person because it's either they succeed or they don't, and then there's no in between and that's it. Like,

Matt: Yeah

Mikhail: you know, you don't have to coach them or anything like that. It's, it's easy.

Like, it's really easy to throw you into a bad position, really easy The next thing here is attention to detail. So again, in the kitchen, small details really start to matter. Like, if you have something that's a couple degrees below temperature, it [00:32:00] could make someone sick, right? If you have a dirty plate, that could make someone sick.

If you miss an order, that can make someone mad. So like, there's little details all the time that you're constantly having to double-check, triple-check, and go through and go one by one, and there's a lot of processes in place to kind of f- uh, make sure that you're following those details. Like, there's a lot of processes, and I think that, like, following those processes and paying attention to those really minute details that don't seem to matter, right?

Like checking the temperatures of all of your, uh, cold, like I-i-- not your ice, but like your, your refrigerated materials every morning and every night. Doesn't-- Like it, it seems tedious, right? Like it's kind of annoying. You have to go in and you have to write it down. You have to put a thermometer in, write it down, put a thermometer...

Like it, it takes time. It takes a lot of time. But the reality is that if you don't do that and something slips and all of a sudden there is like, you know, a bucket of eggs that's above temperature and they've all gotten rotten because they were sitting out for a couple hours, [00:33:00] that's, that could be, you know, s- poison, food poisoning for a bunch of people.

Bad time. Not only that, they'll never come back again. So that's, you know, loss for the company. And it's the same thing with, with development at, at a lesser scale, depending on where you're working. Like obviously if you're working in healthcare, then this really becomes important. But if you're working in, you know, a SaaS business, then it's not as important.

But using, like having processes in place that do checks and like, for example, a deployment, right? Before a deployment, you have a list of things that you need to check, and a lot of it seems redundant. And a lot of times people will be like, "Well, why don't we just remove that? Why don't you remove that?

Why don't we have a longer, you know, a, a faster deployment cycle?" But then you're like, "Well, wait, what happens if we do remove it and then ten days from now or a year from now, that one thing does flag? Like, why don't we just leave it in and do that manual check?" Right? Like it's, it's not gonna take us that much time and just having that balance between the procedural checks, the procedure and the small details and being able to ship takes some time to get used to.

But I definitely [00:34:00] credit my experience in that structured environment, like that kitchen environment, with my ability to kind of transfer over to like this less structure. Because like a kitchen, if you go from one kitchen to another kitchen, there's definitely different processes, but a lot of it is very repeatable.

Like, again, everyone's probably checking the temperatures, right? Whereas in, in development it's a little bit more ad hoc, like one deployment environment is very different from another. Like I've been at several companies and pretty much all of them have been very, very different. Um, all the way down from like pretty much no deployment checks to like way too many deployment checks.

So it's not exactly correlating, but like having that at least experience of doing the meticulous stuff has definitely helped me kinda maintain that throughout my career.

Matt: I think attention to detail also teaches you jobs or surrounding jobs well, uh, oc- occasionally as well. What I mean by that is if you really pay attention to what's going on, you, you might pick up on, [00:35:00] like, the extrapolation. So like, like, I'll give you an example. So if working at that, that industrial bakery, if you pay attention to, okay, things are going from here into the proofer, and then these things are coming out of the proofer, and they're going onto, like, this part of the line. It's like, oh, okay, so by association, there's gonna be empty carts because, uh, the product has left the cart and gone onto the, the, the line. And so if you get assigned the job of gather all the empty carts, you don't even need to ask if there's any by the, by the exit of the proofer because there's-- you know there's going to be, just 'cause you've paid attention to how the line works, generally speaking, and you're able to say, "Okay, there's likely gonna be empty carts over there." And you can take that idea and kind of extrapolate even that out, right, to other jobs. Or just kind of understanding where you are in the company. Uh, one of my biggest complaints during one of my IT jobs, uh, 'cause they asked for feedback, and it wasn't even that scathing, was I don't [00:36:00] know my position in the company.

It took me about a month or two to figure out where I'm at. Reason being, we don't wanna step on other IT teams' toes, and I don't know where my toes are supposed to be, and I don't know where their toes are. Kind of a weird thing to say, but it, it, it's exactly true. 'Cause I would go in and be, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll provision you a battery, battery pack as you're traveling for work." And then I would show up, and sure enough, you'd get the, the person that's actually supposed to be doing it, the provisioning officer, staff would give you the, the look, like, "What are you doing? Why are you the one provisioning that?" So you're-- I don't really-- I didn't know my position in the company. But by watching that and seeing their reactions, I would literally just go over to him and say, "Hey, this. This is what happened. Like, is that the right way to handle it?" And oftentimes, like, the scowl would turn into, like, "Okay, he just doesn't know." And they'd be like, "Oh, no, no, next time, o- tell them to open a ticket here."

Okay, fair enough. Jot that down. I'll remember it, whatever, for the future, and away you go. And I feel like learning [00:37:00] that attention to detail, like noticing that scowl, knowing that, hey, this might be someone else's territory, like, uh, having those, like, paying attention is really important. However, I will say that, and I do this, is I get too detailed.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: will sometimes spend too, too much time trying to, like, figure out, trying to crack the code as to what team and stuff like that. And that was re- one of the reasons why when they asked about Any feedback about the job is I, I did state that, hey, I think that there should be training material that teaches us the hierarchy the, the silos really of IT.

These people deal with printers. These guys deal with batteries. These guys deal with provisioning. These guys deal with th- with personal devices or what have you. And you don't overstep, or if you do, you do this, or you, you contact this person to say, "Hey, there was an incident and I had to overstep," or whatever the procedure is. It allows you to not cause problems. Because I, I [00:38:00] remember being in one position where I was always told, "Oh, just contact this guy, just contact this guy," and, and I would, I would just do that all the time for a specific issue, and then one day he'd be like, "Well, I'm pretty busy. Like, why are you guys always contacting me?" So I just asked him straight up, I was like, "Oh, like I've actually been instructed to do this. Like I'm, I'm a little confused, like are you on our, our team or not?" And he's like, "No, no. Like I run my own environment, and I do this and that." I'm like, "Oh, like there- here's my s- here's, here's my situation. Like here's why I've been told to contact you.

Like would you mind, when you have a sec," 'cause he's busy, "would you mind just laying out should I be contacting you? Should I not be contacting you? Like is there someone else I'm supposed to be contacting?" Then you get a positive response and you're able, at least in my case, to reach out to that person in an emergency.

There's an incident, the person I'm supposed to contact, which I've been told by that original person, is not there. Now I'm gonna go and contact that person that I'm, quote-unquote, not supposed to contact and just say, "Hey man, I know, you know, there's an incident going on. Can I have a quick bit of help here?

Like I can't get into the server or something." [00:39:00] Th- it, it allows you to like extrapolate the job and learn the jobs around you because if you were to get promoted or moved around, like I said in the assembly line ex- example, or if you get moved around in IT, moved to a different position, you understand like, "Oh, I'm like starting to dabble in these labs.

I know some of the, the, the lab admins of these labs, so I understand how the territory works a little bit here." And then you can continue to learn from there

Mikhail: I, I think, yeah, exactly. Like just, just figuring out which details matter and which don't is a whole other science to it. Um, that's definitely-- and it definitely comes with experience. Like I don't think you can learn that without having experience on the job. Like that's not something like you just inherently know.

Like if you're thrown into that position that you're, that you were thrown into, Matt, like it's almost impossible to know who to talk to and who not to talk to unless you're specifically told, which you weren't.

Matt: is, is, like, you can pay attention to, okay, this person is actually, like,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: scowling all the time,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: me short responses. Maybe they're just an angry person and that's

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: be. But if I see that continually, that's a detail, right? Just, just a little bit of that attention to detail, then [00:40:00] I can go and ask them, "Hey..." 'Cause I learned that in the factory, where I would notice people would get kind of pissed off with me, and I'd be like, "What the heck?" So I'd go and ask. I'd be like, "Hey, like, what's going on?" And they'd be like, "Well, you didn't put the date on these packages." I'd be like, "Oh, how do I do that? I didn't know I had to do that." Immediately that person's not angry anymore. It solved the issue, right? And that's an attention to detail thing that I learned while I was there because I, I started to realize, like, my supervisors and my training materials are not gonna be able to teach me everything be- especially since it's a chaotic, you know, manufacturing environment

Mikhail: Yeah, absolutely. I, I think even, even learning that, that lesson of, like, your onboarding is not going to be super smooth

Matt: Yeah,

Mikhail: another, is another takeaway, honestly. Like, like just knowing that... I, I, and I've seen this before where, like, someone will come onto a job, and they'll go through onboarding, and they think they've, they should be told every step of the process, of every step of every process.

And you're just like, "Sorry," like, first of all, some of it's not documented. That's, that's the [00:41:00] reality of the situation. Some of it you're gonna have to figure out on the, on the, on the fly. Most of what you see here is your, the tools you'll need to figure that stuff out, if that makes sense. Like, you, your onboarding should give you enough knowledge to obviously do the first task that you need to do, and also figure out how to figure out the stuff that you don't know.

That's-- I think that's the goal of the onboarding, honestly. And a lot of times it doesn't even do that, so you have to, you have to just make, make it up on, on the go and ask people and be okay with being told no and stuff like that. So that's another good, like, whole lesson that you can learn on top of the attention to detail, for sure.

Um, last thing here, motivation. So I mentioned this early on. Having worked as a dishwasher for two years and then a line cook for five years, I really don't wanna have to go back to doing that kind of work, right? Like, I know that that's not something that I want to do forever, right? And that, in [00:42:00] turn, drives me to continue to grind at my job and make sure that I keep getting better and make sure that I always have options, and to do this podcast, right?

And to, to create content of some sorts, and to connect with people even when I'm tired sometimes, and just to always be ready for catastrophe. Because for me, catastrophe would be if I was complacent in a job, I got laid off, and I had nothing to fall back on, because then, you know what I would do? Because this is the reality.

I would go back to being, like, a cook or something like that, 'cause that's what I knew what to do, how to do. 'Cause obviously, like, I'm not gonna let my family starve. But I want to do everything in my power to not have to do that. So it kinda drives my imposter syndrome a little bit, like, to kick me in the butt all the time to make sure that I'm, I don't put myself in that position.

Matt: I, I look at [00:43:00] motivation from a different angle. I look at it from, I was never motivated to do stuff on the line at the

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: job. It doesn't mean I didn't do it, like my work ethic kinda dictates that, and I wanted a good employment record and things. So I mean, fair enough. But I was never-- I never went home and thought, "Man, I, you know, I, I think there's a, a more efficient way to be doing this," or like, you know,

Mikhail: Yeah

Matt: But I would say in IT, this like kinda goes hand-in-hand with the attention to detail, but I, I moved to an R&D position at one point, and my first couple weeks was just looking at networking diagrams and messing around with servers and I thought, "Man, like, is this all this is?" But then I started to realize, I was like, what I'm actually starting to, obsess over, but to think about is the infrastructure side.

Like, I take a bit of pride in, okay, if I set this up, this up, this up, and I get these networking, I'm gonna call them lanes, that's not what you call them, but these networking lanes set up and these, these pieces of software working together in tandem, I take [00:44:00] pride in it being like, yeah, like, that's my, my infrastructure that's working.

Like y- like these, these workers are doing R&D on these devices. They're testing the, I'll just make this up, they're testing the batteries. They need to see the percentage of the batteries, and I made a little web console that goes through the network and like checks the little chip that they had, and it pulls up that it's 30%.

I made all that. I put all that together. And so I'm touching like every little bit of it, a little bit of the application side, the networking side certainly, a bunch of other different things like that. The human side, 'cause I'm talking to people what they needed and what, and like what, what stats that were available on the, the chip as well and things. And so it's like my infrastructure, right? So that, that's a little bit of that attention to detail that I found out like, okay, like having good infrastructure motivates me. Having a good like system that works that I like put together, whether it's taking existing pieces like Lego blocks and putting them together or even constructing that Lego block in this example, constructing that Lego block and then putting, you know, connecting it to the other Lego blocks that already [00:45:00] exist Like I kind of take pride in that, and so I, I've noticed that. Funny enough, like if we, if we play survival video games, I'm always the guy that's like, "I'm sick and tired of walking through this stupid forest. That's it." And then I just like build a bridge. Like I just like cut a path, or if it's dangerous at night, I'll be the guy that builds the tower, builds a second tower, and then like builds this huge bridge, like this huge like sort of bridge between them, and it's like, like I'm sick of this.

Like I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to see it. Like I'm sick of this. Or it's like, I mean, like I guess a funny little tiny story. We, we played Grounded years ago, and we could get to every zone to get anything via zip lines and bridges. Like we had a huge bridge across the pond. We upgraded to zip lines like eventually, and we like figured out the heights of the different thing.

'Cause I was like I'm, I'm not trekking through the woods, getting attacked by stupid spiders to get this berry leather. Like it's over. If I'm at home, I'm frigging climbing the tower. I'm being like east, and you get to the east, [00:46:00] the east zip, and you're there. You're at the berry leather. And then I'm climbing an even taller tower and going back home.

I'm not, you know, schlepping through this stupid woods where there's a bunch of bugs and crap trying to kill me. It's not gonna happen. And so like again, it's like it's weird, but it's like I found out through my work that I'm motivated by good infrastructure, and then I go, I apply that to video games. Very bizarre. But again, that's kind of that attention to detail and motivation, you know, coming together

Mikhail: For sure, yeah. There's different, th- there's 100% different ways to be motivated by any, any s- sort of stage at the job, right? Like, it could be the fact that you liked one thing. Like Matt said, he found the thing that he liked, and that's what keeps him motivated. So I, I, I just-- Like, th- this episode really is about me looking back a little bit and being thankful for the experience that I had, and not, you know, only thinking the doom and gloom scenarios of back then, like how, how, how difficult it was.

There was, there was some good moments even in the tough jobs. [00:47:00] Um, and I hope that people out there can find those lessons. Like, if you, if you aren't using those lessons that you did gain from those jobs, you should be. Like, you shouldn't be, like, looking down on them just because they were the previous jobs.

There's plenty of really, really good information you can gather from pe- from those kinds of, from, from, from those kinds of experiences, right? Like, it's, it's important to build yourself up with the experiences that you've had, and if you had one that y- you know actually impacts you to th- to this day, I would love to hear about it as well on our socials, right?

Like, m- ping us on our socials @htmlthethings on everywhere and @htmleverything on X or Twitter, whatever you wanna call it. Um, would love to hear from you guys about your own previous work experiences and how they made you the person you are today as a developer

Matt: Absolutely. It's, uh, everyone's gonna have a unique path, and some of the luckiest people probably people that were like, "I just wanna be a developer," and they just did it.

Mikhail: Mm-hmm.

Matt: They already [00:48:00] knew. But like other people took like a, you know, a bit of a winding path due to either financial stress or just money or various other reasons.

Like they just took a bit of a winding path, and the winding path led you to where you are now, and we'd love to hear about that. But I think that's it. That's the episode. If you wanna support episodes like this, you can do so on Patreon just like these fine people did for $3. from The Web Hacker on thewebhacker.com, Jason from Geek Life Radio via geekliferadio.com, Garrett Segall, Level Up Financial Planning via www.levelupfinancialplanning.com, Magnus from YesWeb via yesweb.se, Syntaxify from the HTML All The Things Discord server, and Stacy Musler from the website swoonworthydesigns.com. And remember that we have a contributing author, that is Michael LaRocca. He's a contributing author on htmlallthethings.com, but he's also the author of Self-Taught: The X Generation Blog at selftaughttxg.com. And if you wanna learn how to code, you can do so on Scrimba and get up to 20% off their pro plan. [00:49:00] Again, link for that is in the description and in the show notes with full details on how it works in the show notes on htmlallthethings.com. And that's it. Feel free to leave a comment or review on the platform you're listening to this on, and we signing off