Notices by Heather Buchel (hbuchel@hachyderm.io), page 2

Landlords will whine about how this is their business, their income, they're offering a service, etc. But then you're never treated like a customer or someone who should be able to demand adequate service for your payments.

I was just thinking about the first apartment we rented in LA and when we were signing the lease on it, the landlord made sure to tell us that he was a lawyer who worked for the DoD so if we didn't pay our rent he could basically make our life hell or whatever.

I can't think of any other service where part of the business is to make sure you feel like shit for using their business.

Now more than ever, if you ever had an idea or desire to make something and you thought it was stupid, you should just do it. Please do it. It will probably never be as stupid as the people making these decisions with AI tools. You're probably good in that regard.

AI generated cooking recipes are great because one thing I want when I'm making something that I don't know how to make is a recipe with no verified measurements or even ingredients.

Who at Instacart thought this was a really great idea? They really thought that and were like "yeah, put some people/energy/time on that. People will love recipes that are wrong."

@thomasfuchs I hope they also add the four simultaneous meetings I can hear going on around me.

I love going into the office and hearing everyone coughing. Highlight of my week. Really just fantastic.

Every so often I'm reminded that React hasn't released even a new minor version in 1.5 years. Usually when I'm looking up a normal web thing that should just work but doesn't and am frustrated that I found a bug report about it still open. Other times when reading articles like this!

https://begin.com/blog/posts/2024-01-26-removing-react-is-just-weakness-leaving-your-codebase

@thomasfuchs I experienced this today. It said my two friends were discussing "PC Shutdown Issue." (they weren't, at all). So, it works exactly as I expect it to (badly).

There are so many bright and shinies for those folks to chase. And they're even further detached from building healthy engineering teams. So many of those hires could be put to use. But people don't want to maintain. They want to chase new features. Constantly.

See also why it generally feels like a lot of "big tech" products suck a LOT right now? Nobody is maintaining. They're all chasing. And they're all trying to do it with less people. I feel like this is true everywhere in tech right now: from big tech backed products even to gaming. Leadership at these places don't want to shore up their teams or existing work.

@thomasfuchs THIS. None of them are thinking long term. And, like, intentionally. They are intentionally not thinking long term.

I see a lot of folks making the argument that yeah, a lot of layoffs are happening, but it's due to irresponsible hiring. And yeah, it's true that you shouldn't hire a bunch of engineers that aren't doing anything; which usually isn't the case.

I think people don't understand just how unbelievably BAD the tech grift is right now for people in leadership positions. It's not just that they hired a lot of people, it's that they also tasked them with working on the wrong things.

The worst part about this AI bubble is that we have to wait for it to get so bad first before VPs and CEOs understand when they should and shouldn't restructure their entire business model on it. Like, I feel like there is still MORE BAD for it to get, first. I'm not sure we're even there yet.

This is how it always works. "I have a bright idea" - says the detached VP with little understanding of the real world side effects of their idea.

@thomasfuchs it's exhausting!

Really appreciate my partner who understands the absolute excruciating anxiety I get when having to call people and/or deal with financial institutions:

Me: Hey I called XYZ to cancel that account today since they wouldn't let me do it online
Him: ill take care of everything else today

This is basically what happens when I need to call someone:

- I've exhausted all resources for NOT having to call
- I've probably put it off to the point that now it's a problem
- Everyone has to leave the room leading up to and during the call
- I probably have some notes written down depending on the complexity of the call so I don't neglect mentioning something
- I have practiced it in my head over and over
- Sometimes I feel like crying when it's over even though nothing bad happened!

You know what we were also right about? People learning web development now are shuffled past learning how to actually build websites that humans can use and it's making all of our shit worse. We were right about that happening. Pat all of yourselves on the back.

Throughout my career my experience of working with recent grads or junior developers went from people having a pretty good grip on how to build a web interface to people, hired for the same role as a front-end developer, having no idea how to format CSS properly or what HTML elements to use where. This is not a gross exaggeration. A lot of folks warned about this happening and it was all hand waved away as us not being able to let go or adapt.

I want to write a blog post about "all the things we were right about in the front-end space but spent 10 years being gaslit about by assholes" but I legitimately hurt my back and even thinking about all this shit is making me tense up lol

Every so often I get a follow request on Mastodon and I have no idea why. It doesn't seem to tell me why I need to approve the person that is attempting to follow me. Like, are they a creep, have they been blocked a lot, what's the deal.