One night, a friend sent me a message:
Zheng Da, ask a question. How to choose an offer.
One is an ordinary company and the other is a large factory. Ordinary company is my former boss pushed me to go, he used to be my direct leader, can give me the kind of performance. The offer from a large factory is more than 3K, but it is not a core department. How should I choose?
The question struck me as didactic, and I decided to talk to him.
Everybody needs little yellow ducks
Me: First, what about the people you work with directly in both companies, and what kind of development opportunities do they create for you
Friend: My former leader was very nice. I always got on well with him
Me: is the development opportunity, and he together can have very progress, technology, or vision
Friend: I could have gotten a raise even if I had gone to that mediocre company. If he makes progress, technically, I think nothing. He has been out of line for a long time. If he has vision, he should be able to do it. But big companies have a bigger platform, and that’s what I struggle with.
Me: Your current step should be preparation for the next step, so the key is how much you can improve and develop in your future job
Friend: I think like this: I mainly think the leader is good and his contacts will make it easier for me to live in Beijing. He liked me for my hard work. It was mutual. What I can learn from him is mainly in dealing with things, such as how to do project planning, how to communicate, how to promote and so on
Me: If you choose to follow him all the time, it is also a way
Friend: I am a person mix, difficult, hold on the thigh, feel good mix a point
I: see leg enough not enough thick
Friend: my boss’s boss has thick legs
I: so a chat, your own inclination has come out
Friend: Yeah, but I still feel torn. I don’t know if my idea is right. I don’t work very long. I’m afraid I’ll make the wrong choice
Me: if be the matter of difference several thousand dollars, say with your boss directly good
Friend: The main thing is not money, even a few thousand yuan is not enough to solve the problem of house and car
Me: If you want to brush resume, big factory is a choice, the key lies in your follow-up want to develop
Friend: I understand. In the future, I will probably follow him and his boss
I: rightness, choose to follow boss, still oneself dozen strange upgrade, way number is different
Friend: I’d better follow the boss. I feel I’m not the one to beat monsters and upgrade. Many people around me went to the big factory and left in a year
Me: You’ve figured it out
The dilemma of friends is a very common one. Everyone has this dilemma when facing choices in life.
Did I really give my friend any practical guidance in this conversation? Well, no. Like a straight man, I kept replying to his words. Has his problem been solved? It’s done. He’s figured out exactly what he wants.
In fact, this friend already has his own answer in his heart, but he needs a process of convincing himself. In fact, he is convincing himself through communication with me. In this process, my character is actually a little yellow duck.
The little yellow duck that “solves the problem”
Yellow duck is a solution to a problem mentioned in The Pragmatic Programmer.
When a programmer has a problem and can’t figure out why for a while, there is a very simple but extremely useful way to explain the problem to someone else. You get someone who looks at your screen and nods like a yellow duck bobbing up and down in a bathtub, doesn’t have to say a word, and it’s as simple as explaining, step by step, what the code is for, that often makes the problem jump off the screen and reveal itself.
This may sound simple, but when explaining a problem to someone, you need to explicitly state what you take for granted when reviewing the code. By putting these assumptions into words, you may gain a whole new perspective on the problem. If you can’t find anyone to listen to, you can use a real yellow duck instead, or if you have to, a plant.
Although the “little yellow duck” mentioned here is to solve problems encountered in the software development process, but it is essentially a way to help clarify their thinking, the scope of application is very broad.
Because human attention is limited, when you are so focused on one aspect, you often miss a lot of things. Once you get stuck on a problem, the more you think about it, the less you can solve it. The solution may be out of your current thinking, and you need to slow down.
When you give the duck a step-by-step explanation of what’s going on in words, your high-powered brain slows down, things that might have been overlooked finally have a chance to come to light, your brain has a chance to reconnect clues, and answers often come to light.
It doesn’t matter what the yellow duck says. It just slows down your high-speed brain and diverts your hyper-focused attention, so having a yellow duck is enough.
I’ve played the role of little yellow duck a lot in my career. Some of my colleagues came to me to solve their problems, and I asked him to explain them to me in a very serious way.
To show that I was serious, I nodded my head and used the appropriate “Mm, yes, yes” and other funny words. As a result, after some explaining to me, he suddenly realizes, “Oh, I get it,” thanks me, and goes back to working on his problem.
I can’t tell you how many of these gratuitous thank-yous I’ve received, but I still enjoy being a little yellow duck. If they had taken the time to read “How To Be a Programmer,” I might not have had the opportunity to receive this undeserved “thank you.”
Fyi: Little yellow duck floating
By this point, it was supposed to be over. Speaking of the yellow duck, however, I was reminded of a true anecdote.
In 1992, a cargo ship full of ducklings from China was caught in a severe storm in the Pacific Ocean, and the container carrying nearly 30,000 ducklings fell into the sea, setting off on a magical journey.
If the little yellow ducks fell into a pond, they would float as far as the other side of the pond, because the pond is closed, but the ocean is different, the global ocean is connected, and the little yellow ducks could float anywhere in the world.
In reality, nearly 20,000 ducklings drifted across the Pacific, passing Indonesia, Australia and South America. Another 10,000 or so headed north, to the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, into the Arctic Ocean, around the North Pole, through Greenland and Iceland, and finally into the North Atlantic.
If the ducklings can resist erosion, some may be able to float back to the site of the storm more than 3,000 years from now, because the ocean changes water about every 3,000 years, according to today’s understanding of ocean currents.
Well, that’s the story of the little yellow duck. Next time you have a problem, think of those little yellow ducks floating on the ocean!