Two Clicks

Today I’m going to paraphrase quite a bit, starting with the title from a great friend with whom we worked together and I’m sure we’ll meet again professionally, el chavito; I first heard the phrase from him and I think in this post I’ll talk a bit about it and about when motivation vanishes; can it be recovered?, is the challenge worth it? what did I learn along the way?

They eat away at my brain in bites, drinking the juice of my heart

  Yo caníbal, Indio Solari, Patricio rey y sus redonditos de ricota.

It’s worth clarifying so as not to cause confusion— I’m not talking about any particular company, I want to share conversations with friends where some anecdote always comes up.

If something moves you, I’m not talking to you and maybe instead of hating me, take the opportunity to ask yourself some questions.

Disclaimer made, why do I quote the phrase from “Los Redondos”?

There are companies that culturally disguise themselves as “cool” when in reality some people believe and openly say that the people who work in their company are “blood bags” that must be squeezed to the last drop and then when there’s nothing left, dispose of them.

When I heard that anecdote the first thing that came to me was deep rage, then with a bit of distance I asked myself the question, what’s wrong with all this?, in fact, is there anything wrong with all this?

To begin with, I thought about the lack of honesty, disguising yourself as a cool culture when in reality you’re the complete opposite has no justification whatsoever.

The second thing I reflected on is that we also make a serious mistake, leaving everything for the company and not stopping to detect the red flags, we have to learn to diversify our energies because it’s very likely that in companies of this caliber what comes back is a slap in the face and it’s harder to realize that the idealization we have of the company is not what it really is, and realizing that hurts more than the slap itself.

The idealization topic deserves more depth, but I’ll leave it for another time because I want to address other things next.

The other day talking with my ant brother, the crazy Vitor, he writes to me a bit worried, that all the hype of having to use AI no matter what caused him tremendous sadness; because employers assume that just because you use it you’re going to go faster, and what he liked most about the profession is sitting down to think about the solution and solve problems, approach different hypotheses, make designs and then in some cases through code see that all that planning works gives him tremendous pleasure; and if the default is AI first, all that is lost and with it “the juice of your heart”, as far as the profession is concerned.

And pay attention, am I saying not to use AI?, no not even close to thinking that way, I’d be shooting myself in the foot and giving a huge advantage in an increasingly complicated job market and would harm the company where I work; what I want to say is the following:

• If you’re good at solving problems you have a huge advantage because you can polish solutions to make them maintainable over time and at a speed that would be quite difficult without AI.
• If you’re so-so at solving problems you’ll continue to be the same but adding bugs to production faster.
• In the second case if on top of that you think you’re amazing because now you “solve problems” you can miss out on someone with previous experience in that problem giving you a hand or thinking together about possible solutions, because what you end up doing is arguing based on “a solution” that an LLM gave you, and there, nothing, what can I say; good luck.
• If you don’t have previous experience in what you’re trying to solve, what you send to production is a coin flip because when something fails you won’t know what to do other than ask an agent how to fix the bug, not even that; maybe you can’t even troubleshoot and I’d like to calculate the amount of time you invest in it to understand how fast you’re going.

Lastly, there’s something that worries me and on the other hand reassures me, which is that the models are feeding on solutions that don’t work and since people without experience mark them as good, they’ll continue to spread until at some point everything explodes; does it reassure me that everything explodes?, no, I don’t want everything to explode, what I mean is that I’ll continue learning, deepening the knowledge I’m acquiring and the day something explodes, I’ll have the tools to at least sit down and see what’s happening without needing an AI, just with the value of previous experiences and the beautiful challenge; the pleasure of having an unsolved problem in your head.

In short, they’re going to want to eat away at your brain in bites, but don’t let them drink the juice of your heart.

And a heart doesn’t harden just because,

  La hija del fletero, Indio Solari, Patricio rey y sus redonditos de ricota.

To wrap up I want to reflect a bit on the anxiety we live in and how AI has exacerbated this phenomenon; if with social media this anxiety issue had deepened, with AI it’s like taking 50 grams of crystal in one shot.

Be fair, be honest, and if it’s within your reach, help with the professional and personal development of the people around you, walk with humility because beyond any solution you’ve made, what’s important (at least for me) is that former and current coworkers remember you with a smile and choose you to share a drink and catch up on life.

Please—recapping the entire post—if you see someone who is discouraged don’t look in that discouraged person for the answer to the matter, maybe you have to stop the ball and honestly ask yourself what led that person to have their heart harden, did I contribute something to make them feel that way?

Finally, if they want you to do two clicks, do two clicks and that’s it; nothing personal is at stake there and thinking positively at least you know how the game board is set up; if they want to eat away at your brain in bites, don’t let them drink the juice of your heart, and a heart doesn’t harden just because, and if that happens.

More than once I heard myself say

that in resistance lies

all the noble valor of life