Recent content in Lucas Pierce — BonnyCode on BonnyCode
Long, long ago, I was born at home in Southeast Los Angeles. Our milk and potatoes were too often powdered, cereal came in bags, and Del Taco was a night out. My heart dreamed of something more. My stomach deserved better. But where could I find better? An uncle who’d been stationed in Bremerton talked about the good coffee and fresh sushi. The lack of sun that drove others away seemed, to…
I don’t hate you. I’m not mad at you. I’m not angry. I’m not trying to make fun of you. I’m not being sarcastic. It’s not because of you. I’m sorry if my face makes you uncomfortable. When I’m content, my face doesn’t naturally give the expressions people expect. I have to deliberately put on the right face to match my emotions. It takes…
When I was young, old enough to drink coffee but not really an adult, I had a drip coffeemaker called Mr. Coffee. I scooped pre-ground coffee from a big red can while I’d sing “the best part of waking up… is Folgers in your cup”. I later graduated to a French press, then pourovers, and then a Nespresso – which honestly felt like a step backwards from the pourovers, but it…
I have a cabinet above my espresso maker where unused gifts go to sit. For each gift I said thank you, and it felt disrespectful to later throw them away, so they sit there for years. Acknowledged yet untouched; quietly accumulating. The cabinet is what we used to jokingly call write-only storage. A physical manifestation of gratitude and obligation, but really just a way of postponing honesty.…
I build little worlds full of adventurers, potions, and dragons. Students run potion shops where they manage magical supply chains for demanding fighters and wizards. They run media companies providing entertainment to dragons, frog-folk, and discerning gnomes. And in the process, they become curious about how the worlds themselves work and come alive. I worked in tech for a long time, most of it…
“If managers were angels, no upward management would be necessary. In a career administered by people over people, the great difficulty lies in this: a manager must be allowed to manage the managed; and in the next place, the managed must, in turn, also manage upwards.” — Jim Madison, ex-VP BigCo, 3x Founder, Board Director, Executive Coach, Author of Jim’s Federalist Newsletter…
A brilliant executive I worked with hired a team of PhDs to automate a critical process deep in his organization. After a year, they delivered plans that were as beautiful as they were unworkable. So the manual decisions continued. At most, the team only glanced at the optimal plans. The leader would check in, demanding progress. The team kept saying “any day now, the model doesn’t…
hus·tle cul·ture ˈhə-səl ˈkəl-chər noun the performance of results when actual results are missing; specif.: a workplace ethos where the appearance of extreme effort is rewarded more than the achievement of tangible outcomes. a management technique characterized by demanding longer work hours to compensate for a lack of strategic direction or a lack of management domain knowledge. archaic : the…
In the early 2000s, I worked for a digital video processing startup that Autodesk acquired. We were merged with another acquisition. Our team became the developers, their team (the “others”) became management. The others were clueless. They didn’t understand the technical domain, our customers, or the product. Naturally, I hated them. Their meetings were always pointless; I…
In the early 90s, I first discovered MUDs : amazing text-based, multiplayer roleplaying-games before the web or silly things like graphics. I was one of those cool kids who played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) and this was like that but you played with randos on the internet instead. You started at level 1 killing rats for experience points. After you gained enough experience points, you…