All this introduction to get to this point, where I made this “looking for a new job” a public announcement and kindly asked for a share from my friends, if they believe I deserve that. To my surprise a lot of people backed me up with that, spreading the world and personally recommending me to potential future employers and to receive this amount of trust was amazing, it made me realize how we lack this kind of attitude in a daily basis with other people, how easy it is to give a word of incentive and to congratulate a coworker and how we underestimate the effects of a this attitude.
Obviously this doesn’t mean we’re all bad people that don’t want to cheer our friends up, we simply forget to do it more often because we’re always full of technical tasks and “don’t have time to chit-chat”, ignoring the fact that this “chit-chat” can raise the morale at your workplace and even make people more productive!
Many years ago the whole software industry used to put all its trust on heavy loads of documentation, employees back then had to spend a good part of their days writing how to use their software and the little Miguelito, barely knowing technology, believed that by working with computers he wouldn’t have to work with people, silly Miguelito.
Time passed by and the software industry got to know those “agile methodologies”, a couple of concepts that, surprise-surprise, put more value on communication than documentation and, as far as I can tell, apparently is working fine. These methodologies know the value of having a communicative team, of having everyone involved on the same page and with the same values, objectives, mindset.
I don’t intent at all to say how we should build software or (not?) manage teams but companies using agile methodologies are noticing the power of kindness on communication, open source software maintainers know that a good software is not all, people also expect some kindness when opening an issue, asking for help and even starting to contribute.
That’s even truer considering that our field of study/work has many people suffering from Impostor Syndrome in different degrees and lots of groups trying to make the tech industry more friendly to women and fulfill these sad minorities gaps we have.
Let us not underestimate the power of treating people nicer, software isn’t dealing only with computers anymore, it’s dealing with people and being kind.
]]>I have a dream. I dream that one day I will finish my graduation and then naturally enter and finish a master’s degree.
As far as I can remember, it was Martin Luther King who said that, or was it a bit different? Anyway, that was my dream. I had a bunch of great teachers in my life, that kind of professional that not only teaches you, but inspires your life in general, that cares about his/her students and tries to teach expecting you to be a better person (and most of the times accomplishing this). Considering this background and the way I (like to believe to) am, it isn’t surprising I wanted to get a master’s degree, to know a lot about a specific area and to be allowed to teach someone, to try to make a student’s life a bit better.
Well, things didn’t quite happen the way I’ve planned when I was 15 (and does it ever do?). Last year I found myself about to finish graduation and with an amazing master’s degree just around the corner. Without thinking too much, I took the qualification test, made it, and suddenly I had classes beginning in a couple of months. I was incredible happy, never thought I would pass the test or that any teacher there would support and help me, but I was in. Half (ok, maybe not that much) of the former dream was completed, I didn’t bother if the classes were in the morning or if this could affect my productivity at work (and believe me, it was a time when I really didn’t want to decrease productivity), I was in and I’d make everything for this to happen properly.
So it all began, and a couple of weeks later I decided to leave.
I went to the classes and I was amazed about how cool all that was, with a lot of great people of different areas willing to pass their knowledge to you. I used to go to classes in the morning, have a quick lunch and work until 9pm to accomplish the tasks I didn’t do in the morning. Despite that, I was seeing myself a bit closer to that initial dream, until the time I realized that maybe being a teacher does not necessarily mean getting a master’s degree. I realized that I was investing time and efforts in Academic area, which means that I’d need to do a lot of things almost meaningless to companies (I love to work with my buddies).
While I don’t really want to follow the Academic path (at least this is the way I think while I’m writing this, we never know), and my dream was/is mostly related to teach something nice and doing a little good to someone’s life, the point is: at that time, I put effort and time to follow a direction a lot farther than the one I wanted to reach and realized that I could achieve what’s needed to be a (good) teacher in other ways, learning different things and technologies by myself, studying at home, giving talks, workshops, attending to events. Don’t get me wrong, the environment there is outstanding, but my objectives now are a bit different than this path.
I believe the important here is that sometimes we don’t exactly know what we want, and to try things is probably the best way to stop and think with more information to, perhaps, change our current course. Let us not be afraid of changes or what other people will say, if even we don’t know our own objectives sometimes, how can other people do?
]]>Por essas razões e vontades pessoais de deixar de consumir qualquer tipo de pirataria que fiquei muito animado com a descoberta dessa incrível aplicação que trago pra você meu amigo dono de casa Linux user o gSharkDown, uma aplicação desenvolvida em Python (infelizmente só para Linux) cliente de GrooveShark com diversas funcionalidades (inclusive download das músicas, mas não esqueça do que falamos anteriormente). Ainda está na versão 0.7 (baixe o pacote direto, é mais novo que o ppa), mas está muito madura e é muito promissora, vá conferir e pense na possibilidade de, usando o tubarãozim, deixar que as propagandas paguem teu consumo de música, que tal?
E agora vem a melhor parte, o projeto do gSharkDown está no BitBucket deles, disponível para qualquer boa alma que acredita nas mesmas coisas que eu e os mentores do projeto ajudar no desenvolvimento! Parece-me muito interessante um futuro onde as pessoas possam colaborar para ajudar as outras pessoas a consumirem o estilo de cultura que preferirem (que tipo de música tu gosta?) sem infringir nenhuma lei e dando os créditos (e dinheiros) aos proprietários das obras que estão consumindo, não concorda?
Eu já ajudei na tradução para português e depois vou buscar melhorar meus conhecimentos em Python para ajudar esses caras a desenvolver o gSharkDown e disponibilizar para a galera, participar de uma melhoria para qualquer outro Miguel por aí que resolver mudar e deixar de piratear música já é um baita “pagamento”.
Bora ajudar?
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