Comment by mollusc-engine

Comment by mollusc-engine 3 days ago

23 replies

I became a USPS mail carrier instead.

Certainly less pay but I love being outside and walking.

And no Jira, changing the color of that button, or steeping myself in Frank’s eldritch horror code.

protocolture 3 days ago

>No Jira

If I was trying to attract intelligent applicants looking for work outside of software engineering, that would be in the headline.

  • wmeredith 2 days ago

    Genuinely curious: How else would you coordinate a large software project? We have 7 teams of 5 working on the same platform and Jira is fine for what we're doing, but I've been at this almost two decades and I haven't used any of the alternatives.

    • BergAndCo 2 days ago

      Besides like trello asana redmine or the millions of less-complicated competitors? You literally have developers work on their own modules directly from the spec or work directly with the product owner. You track their work by looking at their commits. You check their progress by looking at how the preview build / staging looks. No overhead of having developers flesh out an entire issue/story (plus sub-issues) and then move it column-to-column across the entire Kanban board. Tracking sub-issues is like counting half-pennies instead of rounding up.

  • mancerayder 2 days ago

    What about also excluding "Scrum Masters" and then "Fibonacci Numbers" and two week "sprints"?

    • staticautomatic a day ago

      Just dropping by to say how much I passionately hate documentation that uses fib() as an example.

  • ta12653421 2 days ago

    Tried that here in EU - no chance so far: Even things I could do easily like office administration/management or whatever projectmanagement - no luck.

JLO64 3 days ago

As someone who is currently delivering Amazon packages with their own vehicle (Amazon Flex), what’s the process like to become a mail carrier? The miles are starting to take a toll on my car, so delivering for USPS is tempting for me…

  • mollusc-engine 2 days ago

    It’s a 1 hour application online.

    Fingerprints, background checks, references, and drug testing.

    It’s the CIA. But good benefits.

clumsysmurf 3 days ago

I would definitely try this if the vehicles in Phoenix ran cleaner. The old ones have such bad smelling exhaust and you are always breathing it because of the semi-open cab.

  • fragmede 3 days ago

    electric vehicles are on the way! no clue when Phoenix will get them though

rootusrootus 3 days ago

My wife and I have a running joke about her giving up accounting and working for USPS instead. Some days I think she’s serious.

  • pyuser583 2 days ago

    Are they even hiring?

    • rootusrootus 2 days ago

      Periodically we get a postcard in our junk mail that says they are. So I guess the answer is yes, at least sometimes.

dehrmann 2 days ago

> And no Jira

Not officially, but once you remove the skills required for the tasks, it's not all that different.

guywithahat 2 days ago

It's funny how everyone wants to get into deliveries as they get older, my dad who's been an engineer for decades talks about it a lot. Something about walking around and doing things really appeals to people as they reach the end of their engineering career

  • johnea 16 hours ago

    You mean how people want to start walking around and doing things after sitting on their ass in front of a computer for 40 years?

    Yea, I'm there with your dad...

fHr 2 days ago

Yeah but isn't the pay shit? like making 1/3th is not a win in my books.

  • mollusc-engine 2 days ago

    I have hella money.

    • noitpmeder 2 days ago

      You'll have to give some context. What did hella mean? How many months of your current spend rate do you have in the bank?

      • mollusc-engine 2 days ago

        First off, the pay for a tenured mail carrier is plenty for me, and I feel like I have a full life.

        I take martial arts classes, yoga classes, have nice apartment, eat what I want, have a decent car, etc.

        I really don’t want anything, except ridiculous things no one can afford, like sure I’d be up for buying a Cathedral and converting it to a $20m house.

        ——

        Liquid 3 years (savings plus liquid investments). 2 years in IRA. Set to inherit somewhere between 20-40 years worth.

        I just have to work to make ends meet, let my investments mature, and eventually inherit.

        It feels weird because I love my parents, but it’s something to plan around nonetheless.

    • fHr 2 days ago

      I continue a tech career making 200k+ a year and you try to sell me making 100k or less probably for the next 20 years as a win? Nah I love money to much and hella money is like 10m+ where I would chose something that in the next decades would make me so much less. Also no trajectory in career path. I'm happy it works for you but I wouldn't like that. On the other hand I have my big corpo wageslave job and my little own company and almost no free time sadly. I hope to have made enough money and can retire early at some point until then I grind.

      • mollusc-engine 2 days ago

        I’m on track to retire at 45. I don’t have to do a job I hate until then.

        I walk around all the time anyway, to any destination within the city. I have a car and still do this.

        To each their own.