I had the following experience recently (hiding names and details because reasons):
- I came across a repository implementing something that I found interesting, from a decade ago
- The person had long abandoned this were now working at $BigCo at something completely unrelated
- I made assumptions about who they were, what they must’ve been doing earlier
- Turns out I couldn’t’ve been more wrong!
- This person started off with a film and language background
- This person worked for many years in various sorts of tech repair and maintenance
- This person worked in IT support roles at small businesses
- This person eventually joined some Bay Area company, and then joined $BigCo
- The innovative exploratory repository that I had come across was something they did in their early period
- This person found the time and motivation and interest to do this essentially on their own
- I was impressed AF
- I was embarrassed, firstly, to remember how frequently I’ve abandoned various lines of thinking or experimentation or making, with the excuse that “this is something that can happen after I do xyz“, or that “I need to learn xyz first, before trying this“
- I was embarrassed, secondly, to realize how frequently I had made unconscious assumptions about “the paths that people take“, and what should or shouldn’t be possible at a certain point in time.
All in all, a good learning experience 🙂
Abacus Noir 