Transcript: Growing Old Gracefully as a Programmer
Hi, and welcome to another episode of Django Chat.
I'm Carlton Gibson, joined as ever by Will Vincent.
Hello, Will.
Hi, Carlton.
Hi.
This week I don't know what we're going to talk about.
We're going to talk about some talk I gave at DjangoCorn Europe a couple of years ago.
Yes, so last year.
So this is the talk that I first became acquainted with who you are, uh, though m most people haven't watched the talk, which is outrageous.
We'll link to it.
But it was a talk on growing old gracefully and as a career programmer, which really resonated with me in my 30s when I saw it.
And we wanted to sort of talk about some of the themes in there because I think they'll resonate with a lot of people, regardless of where you are in your career.
Because stereotypically, programming is a young person's career.
You come out of school, you can jump right into potentially a high-paying job, you get a lot of authority, but you will find that as you continue, uh experience is not always appreciated, and there is quite a bit of ageism.
And so I thought you had a lot of good perspective on that, that we could kind of dive into some of the themes on the podcast.
So I'd been like, so when I gave that talk, I'd been um programming I don't know a decade, say, and like professional freelance, you know, I'd done the London agency thing, I'd done this, I'd done that.
And what would I say?
What was the the the issue?
It was like, yeah, how
I mean it's almost a defense of programming, I would say, on the one hand.
You're sort of saying it's I mean it's saying gracefully, right?
It's it's not you're not put out to pasture when you hit 35.
Yeah, but exactly.
Yeah, there was this, there was this um, so one of the hooks was like this this headline that I saw on Hacker News that um programmers by the time you're 40 get a plan B.
Because it's like you can't carry on programming.
You can't carry on programming because you can't get hired um for a start.
Why?
Because you're expensive, because you're experienced, because you you've got a family, you need more money than some junior developer who's fresh out of school.
But the hiring manager, well, they don't know you, they don't know what they you know, they've all they've got is your CV.
Like, so how are they gonna how are they gonna justify that that quite sometimes quite a big multiple of of of remuneration?
How and so it's really it can be increasingly hard to get hired, but also if you're in a job, like so you know, I gave an example IBM constructively dismissing all the old hands.
They've got these consultants that um go around and um help design um systems in in IBM's client companies.
You know, this is the the man the the tech consulting that they do, and they would be sending these these people who had families to far remote offices and all the rest, doing everything they could to get rid of them, and in the end they were you know prosecuted for constructive dismissal.
Yeah, I mean it's always a slap on the wrist,
but yeah.
Yeah, I mean it doesn't put off the behavior, but the point is that you know that it was like there's this picture that programming is something that you do for 10 years and then get out of.
But I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
Like programming is you know, is it's like my my lifeblood.
It's it's it's something that really deeply stimulates me and that I want to carry on doing forever.
Right.
But I think it's and this is you know, your talk, you talk about what does that path look like?
Because I recall being in San Francisco at a startup in my twenties and sort of going, I don't see any 30-something programmers.
Now again, I was like in the heart of startup land, but I remember thinking, where do where do they go?
Uh and because I think that the paths diverge, right?
I mean, so I'll give you the stereotypes, then you can disabuse them.
I mean, so the stereotypes would be, you know, if you're a man, you grow a neckbeard and you go work for some huge company in the peninsula, and you just you're an individual contributor, so you're pegged as an individual individual contributor, which is a little bit of a ooh, they don't work well with others, and you better be really good and you could be fired quickly, but you have a niche that you become an expert in, or you become a manager, and then you're losing your technical skills, but you know, you're in charge of stuff, you have to do hiring.
But to there's no kind of I didn't I wasn't aware back then, I'm still always a little bit surprised of what is that happy path from your 20s to your thirties to your forties, because there is this stigma that you can't just be a developer.
That's a waste of skills.
And unless, especially if you're in a larger organization, there's only a tiny number of spots for you to be an architect or whatever title they call it.
You know, they do, you know, the turnover, even at Facebook, Google, these companies, the average age is something like 27.
Yeah.
It's in it, you know, this it's very young.
A lot of people go and do two, two, three years, and then they go where, right?
And that's sort of the question.
Okay, so right.
So they there's this image of uh, I don't know if you I sort of got these images, maybe a Charlton Heston films back from the day, like being a rook a slave on a Roman galleon, right?
And they're beating the drums and whipping them if they stop, you know, and they till they till they literally fall over in their at their oars, and then they get them out from the chains, throw them into the sea, and chain in the next slave onto the thing.
And it's like that's the the start-up thing, right?
You get these youngsters in who are all keen and you you flog them till they they till they fall over, and then you get it.
Very typically, yes.
Right?
That's well, okay, but there are companies which aren't like that, right?
So my first sort of thing is hey, look outside of tech, because in the do you know what in the real world, um, you know, these these these ideas that um software is eating the world.
Well, it really is.
And if you can, if you've got Django type skills, if you can code up a block and then you can take those to a real company, yeah, you can do stuff in that will just be massively productivity boosting.
So you're in a department of uh you're you're you're in a normal office, a clerical department doing something in some company that makes you know actual physical widgets in the real world.
If you can write some software that will just smooth a process or whatever, as part of your your your real world job, you're adding massive value.
And that's software that probably can't get written by an outside consultant.
Because well, too expensive, and they don't have the domain expertise to do it.
So that is that is one thing, is it's I mean, especially in San Francisco, there's a feeling like if you didn't spend your weekend you know writing a compiler in C, you're you're slacking off.
And then the real world, people can't use PowerPoint.
Yeah, and people can't people can't use Python, for instance, at all.
No, they
can't even install it.
By the way, install python3.com.
I finally have that live with if you want a working, opinionated way to just get it working, go check that out.
I finally have that up.
Super well done.
But yeah, but exactly this is the thing.
Outside of the tech bubble, it's not this there are companies that will, and millions of companies that will be desperate for your technical expertise because we're kind of like at the cusp.
The the image I gave was um off the base of one of the keynotes there um on the industrial revolution, was that we're in a kind of a second industrial revolution now.
We're at the point where if you imagine in a Dickens novel where people are paying scribes to to read and write for them because they can't read and write themselves.
Well, that's kind of like where we're at with with programming, is that it's it's just literacy now.
In 50 years' time, uh like all my kids already, they're already learning Python at school.
They're just you know coding away and you know, scripting things up, and they're just yeah, no,
well, they're not in the US then if they're learning it at school.
Okay, but maybe it's another 10 years, maybe it's another 20 years, but it's coming.
It's coming.
And basic scripting skills will be, you know, say there will always be professional programmers writing compilers and all the rest of it, as there are always, there there are still professional writers.
But that basic kind of, yeah.
I do know what I can script up something to automate a boring bit of my, you know, the automate the boring parts bit of the Python book, right?
The that sort of stuff, if you can take that into the real world, you are phenomenally valuable these days.
You so you can you can do that and you can code and you can program and you can do it in a world where you're not, you know, spending all your creative passion and energy on finding more, ever more creative ways to get people to click on a link.
Well, right, and that's the thing is it it is hard to break into tech, and you know, especially when you're new, you just accept and want to jump through whatever hoops are thrown your way.
But there are bad companies, there are abusive bosses.
Um I've been there, it's hard, it's hard when you feel trapped, but it there is a bigger world.
And as you said, I think looking beyond just straight tech is a good idea at any stage of your career.
But also, as well, you find you like there's a kind of um market value thing.
Like young programmers, they don't realize how quite how what they should be asking for for their salary, and so they they sort of take a much lower salary than they're really worth.
Whereas in the real world, you can get out there and you can negotiate a much better remuneration.
And actually, do you know what you've got paid vacation and you've got holiday, you know, healthcare, and you've got you know a pension fund and you've got um job security, and they've got a career path for you where they're actually trying to invest in you because you're a valuable asset, and that is so far removed from this tech tech startup world that
one I would say uh as some advice to my younger self, if you want to know what a company is gonna be like, look at look at the top person or persons and see what their background is.
Is it in tech?
If it's not in tech, they're always gonna undervalue tech.
That's just how it is.
It's either tech or sales, and see what their life is like.
Uh, I mean, I made a vow to myself after coming out of a startup that I will I wouldn't work for another startup unless there was at least a parent who was an executive who was a high-level person.
Because as a parent myself, it's just no way that a non-parent is gonna understand.
And you know, you could say that limits my scope, but it also I have an awareness that, you know, if I wasn't a parent, I wouldn't get it.
But if someone, you know, so look to people in power and see what behaviors they are modeling.
Because whatever the company says, they're gonna it all trickles down from the top people.
Yeah, like unlimited leave, but you're not really allowed to take any and you know, all these other people.
I mean, I think that's
and even things like a free lunch like, you know, they do a free lunch so but that that's kind of dangerous.
Like why is it that they're trapping you in with your workmates?
Well aren't you allowed to take that hour's lunch break and go off and do something different and get a change of energy and you know recuperate your mental space before you come.
No, you have to be hot housed in the canteen together.
Like now that's not always evil but hang on a second what these after these after work drinks that we have to go to like hang on should after work shouldn't I be going home and spending time with my family?
Why am I why am I still here?
I mean I would say a a great company I mean this is what I tried to do when I was managing a team is set people down and say here's the path we see for you.
So you know this is what success one two five years out looks like and be clear about it.
I wouldn't expect a company to do that for you.
You have to have that in in your head because ultimately no one cares about you as much as you care about yourself.
But you should have a plan for and sort of say well this is what I want to get and then know that unfortunately in a lot of companies basically the only time you can negotiate properly is when you're hired.
And once you're in the queue you're just on whatever you know two percent a year whatever it is and that's just how it is and you know your manager I was a manager they don't have the power to control this they are given a budget and they're a bit confined by the realities of the system.
So it depends on the place but when I was a manager I always told employees tell me when you get a better offer because I may not know if what we're paying isn't market rate.
I want the chance to to match it but what often happens is that junior developers or developers they're in a place a year or two it starts being less new they hear that a friend's somewhere else getting paid more money they kind of grouse about it to their manager.
The manager's like well what do you want me to do about it?
I've got my budget and then they start interviewing they get an offer and it's you know 30% more 20% more and then they just kind of drop the bomb in the manager saying I'm going when if they'd had the conversation with the manager, you know the manager wants to know uh generally speaking I wanted to know it doesn't mean I can match it but I want the chance to match it.
Because if you just drop a bomb and leave that's not always the best way to do it.
Yeah but that's a lot of times how especially you know someone newer in their career they feel kind of bad about having other offers.
I mean I always told employees you should you should know what the market is and you should tell me what it is.
You know, don't feel bad about talking to competitors.
I want people who are wanted by other companies and I want them to be here for the right reasons not not someone who feels trapped.
Yeah and this is particularly difficult in startups because they've got the normally burning through capital and they've got a budget and it's plotted out over the months and they can't just sort of double the programming budget.
You know because that's that doesn't fit in.
So they might that they'll let go of the the person with all the knowledge and the the year and a half of experience and they'll hire a new junior in and they'll you know and this this horrible startup thing but I think real companies like established companies who've got an actual revenue stream and are profitable they they have much more flexibility in you know giving realistic um raises.
I think so yeah and I think it's I mean it's uh you know it it's hard being the in charge of a startup where you're sitting there going how am I going to pay the bills this month how I need to raise around and at the same time rally the troops and be like yep everything's fine you know you don't um you don't want to lie to them but you also don't want to burden them with the anxieties that you feel as a small business owner or a startup owner.
No I have some I have quite quite a lot of empathy for the position but you know be aware that startups are high risk by design but you know what we sort of slagged on startups I would say startups can be great for your career because you'll have a chance to spread your wings you'll take on responsibility you can manage people within a year or two they can be really great uh but there's a risk involved there.
So and you've got to go into them open-minded and like the the big danger is burnout here.
The big danger is that they do you're you're tied to that ore and that they're not they haven't they don't care about you and they don't look after you and they're only expecting you to be there a year, 18 months.
And so you've got to look after yourself at that point and you've got to be careful and you've got to say that I set these limits for myself and I won't be Stockholm syndromed into um you know working the late nights or the weekends or what all those things that just aren't conducive to a healthy life.
Well and that's why I said look at the behavior at the top you know I I think you know look at like Elon Musk who allegedly works a hundred hours a week you know how's he doing?
Mixed bag he'd probably be doing better if he worked less.
Yeah maybe I don't follow the news who
knows but again I think I think part of it though is you know with experience you sort of realize things you can change and things you can't change.
So companies often kind of are how they are and you may not be able to have this kind of frank conversation with your manager in which case leave.
Uh I mean tech right now is there's a lot of jobs out there and you are not trapped and it is easy to get this Stockholm Syndrome approach especially because you spend all this time with folks and you know it's fun to do but you do have to look out for yourself as you point out.
And I you know in your talk you you know the thing is you want to look out for yourself without being like crabby and just saying no to your colleagues all the time.
Well no right no but it's self-care
it's how you
self-care is the number one priority.
So it's a marathon not a sprint you you we're working on the assumption that you're gonna do this career indefinitely that you want to be a a career programmer because programming fulfills you and it it's a deeply rewarding activity and it's well remunerated and it's it's secure in terms of there being massive market demand for it.
So you're gonna keep going for it.
So you can't do you can't work in a way that means in six months time or eight 12 months time or 18 months time you're gonna hit the floor and need you know nine months in rehab that's like you just can't work that hard.
It's not sustainable.
So self-care is your number one priority so okay well having said that how then do you build a career?
And how then do you find the companies that aren't because if you just you know type in tech job the only thing you're gonna find is you know these kind of startups or digital agencies which they all kind of have the same model.
They're all rapidly hiring they're all desperate so how do you how do you find companies that are not like that well I say in the talk be prolific you know do do you know I I give the example of contributing to open source but you know do that if you've got an hour a week do an hour a week but that adds up if you've been doing that for three you know for six months oh hang on that person's been active and they've got something to show for it.
If you've been doing it for three years wow it's actually quite impressive and it wasn't that you killed yourself to do that you just gave a little bit of time.
Give that time limited be prolific be diligent get on with it don't don't be on Facebook don't be on Twitter don't be on Slack all the time just get on and do your work so that we so that when you're not working you can relax because you know you take the time when you are relaxing don't be on Facebook don't be on Twitter be on me on Slack because you're relaxing.
And then the secret is to be social get out and put yourself out there don't just be a the ghost who coach don't just sit there behind the keyboard going oh you know I've done my thing and then I never say anything else because if you can reach out the opportunities will appear.
It's true that it's all about your networking connections and even though we're staring at a computer all how the best jobs, the best opportunities come from knowing people, from going to a meetup, from being involved in a conference, from volunteering for something.
And as you say too programmers need to think about their brand you need to think about it's worth having a blog it's worth having contributions to open source you can point to because generally you can't uh talk about or show the code that you worked on at work.
It's proprietary.
So even if you come out of some amazing place I would want to see some of your code and if you have no if I'm hiring you if you have no code to speak of you know and and again I especially as you get older you don't have to be coding after work.
You don't have to have infinite side projects but you should have something public facing you should have something available because again even if you come out of I don't know the best Django place in the world I would want to see some real code before I hired you.
And I would rather you know see code and have a conversation about that code rather than give you some whiteboard or give you some project to do that will blow up time.
I would much rather talk about well tell me about this contribution you made to Django small as it may be tell me about that talk you gave tell me about this blog post.
You know that's a much better conversation but you're gonna have to have that conversation you're gonna have to prove it.
And as you say you can't just be head down getting attaboys from your colleagues I mean uh nobody you know nobody knows what you're doing.
Yeah no no no no exactly and so can you you know if you're at a company can you open source something?
Maybe not maybe you can maybe you can't you can't but if you can that will count can you get your company to give you an amount of time to say work on Django or work on Django Rest framework or work on you know to just to contribute and then if you can get that time then that makes it that makes it that gives you an opportunity to then build something to point at and say look hey, I did this.
I did that.
You know, also what you said about burnout and you know stepping away from the computer.
I mean, this is something we all struggle with.
I still struggle with.
I think especially, I mean, personally, I struggle with this in the context of having a busy personal life with a lot of responsibilities.
Sometimes uh distractions feel nice, right?
It's a little bit of an escapism.
And yet, you know, if I come in on a Monday and I'm not feeling great, it's probably because I, you know, I spent an hour or two doing this or that.
I really didn't let myself disconnect from technology.
And then, you know, I come in with these feelings of burnout of it doesn't matter, it's meaningless, you know, what's the point?
Okay, but let's take face, let's take Facebook or Twitter or whatever, like one of these things where they're on your mobile phone.
And yeah, five minutes, fine, it's no problem.
Ten minutes, no fine.
But then it gets that point where you put your phone down and you're sat there, and then you pick it up again.
And then you look at it again, and then you think, oh, I've looked at it, it's really dull, and I've scrolled past the same 50 updates 50 times.
You put it down, and then all of a sudden it's back in your hand and you're looking at it again.
And this is on Saturday evening when you're meant to be, you know, relaxing and spending time with your wife or your partner or whoever whoever it is.
And it's like, what are you doing?
And it's not your fault, it's like your brain is hardwired.
There's this Yeah, our monkey brain is, yeah.
But it's rat brain, actually.
It's um
oh it's rat brain, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like uh it's this like a positive reinforcement cycle where that like there's this really tiny dopamine hit from the information that you take in.
And it's like because it's variable, because you never know when the new update will come, there's this kind of if if it was so they did this experiment when they got rats in a cage, right?
And if they give them a button where that gives out food and it reliably gives out food, the rat will press the button when it's hungry, it'll eat the food, and it will go away and do its thing, and it'll come back when it wants some more and press the button again.
It's all you know quite healthy.
But if the button is random, where they the the rat never knows whether it will give food if they press it, the rat will sit there and it will just end up pressing the button all the time, and it will get really fat and overweight.
And it's because there's this kind of variable reinforcement, and that's exactly what it's like with email, exactly what it's like with social media, and it's it's it's it's an addiction, and it's nothing that you've done wrong.
It's your brain, it's the way your mammalian brain is wired to keep you alive in a situation of scarcity.
But what's that doing is it's destroying your ability to rest and your ability to concentrate and your ability to be uh peaceful in your mind when you're not at work, and even when you're at work, right?
Sometimes analogies to other things are helpful here.
I mean, if you're if anyone's been an athlete or focused on well, you know, what any discipline, a lot of times it's the rest part that is the challenging part, but the most important part because it is hard to rest, it is hard to disconnect, it is hard to have that space, and yet you have to have that to let your to recover, to let your subconscious work, to have things, you know, pull in.
And you know, especially a lot of programmers, I think we're sort of you know knowledge addicts.
We just want more, more, more, more, more.
There's always more to learn, there's always more news, there's more programming things, you know.
I mean, I I have a bookshelf of programming books.
I certainly sometimes on a weekend will sit there and think, yeah, I should dip into you know that algorithms book.
And it's fine sometimes, but it just means I can never disconnect.
So it's uh yeah, as you said, the awareness that that's how we're wired.
But I think I think if that the algorithms book is is an order of magnitude better than the mobile phone.
Right.
In the at least then you're sat down and concentrating on something and getting into it.
It's not like this cookie, cookie of content, cookie of information, cookie of information.
You're snacking.
It's this this sort of intellectual snacking which is exhausting.
Um anyway, I talk about this lots in the talk, right?
And I I I talk about some software that I use to uh to block distractions.
I delete everything from my mobile phone, so I can't get on that.
I um there are various techniques.
And what do you think about career path, right?
I mean, so you've never you haven't, you're not a manager, I'm not a manager right now.
What what's sort of what's your take on that tension?
Because it is a little bit the Peter principle.
If you're a great programmer, you're very much pulled toward managing.
Um and there is a I think there definitely is a stigma towards you know individual contributors of a certain age.
Yeah, okay, but well, okay, so I've deliberately avoided corporate structure.
I like being freelance, I like working remotely, I like, you know, it doesn't mean I don't work in a team, but I don't want to be in an office environment.
I I don't want that.
But I you know, as I get older now, I think, oh, you know, if I could establish something that I might take on some youngsters, I might build a team, but it would be, I keep it a small team and it would be a um very much a craft-based team.
It would be like about building software.
I would never I don't want to be in a a um a kind of office environment where uh it's so big that it ceases to be a workshop, a software workshop, if that makes sense.
Yeah, well, if you see these diagrams of after like five or six people on a team, you look at the web of connections, it just becomes like exponential.
Yeah.
And that is kind of why, yeah, a three-person team can move faster than a 10-person team.
Um, and that's kind of where good managers come in because it is hard to organize large teams and you do need them for some projects, but it's a big jump from yeah, two or three folks to a full team.
I think um is it uh Fred Brooks, the Mythical Man Month.
He uh in there, he's got a um a team structure which is like um a programming team should be structured a bit like a surgical team.
So you've got a a an experienced surgeon um with perhaps uh an assistant who is sort of what you call a senior, and then perhaps a couple of juniors with them, but also then someone along the side who's doing tooling and you know that that works like the the auxiliary um in a operating theater who's doing other bits and bobs.
I can't remember the exact structure that he outlines there, but it it it's a way of trying to structure a software team maintaining the that expertise.
And when you're talking about someone who's got 15, 20 years of programming experience, to move them sideways into management is to really lose an opportunity to create something powerful.
Yeah, I think that book he also has the phrase what one engineer can do in one month, two can do in two months.
Um yeah, because you've got that communication problem.
But the so it's this the this idea of how you structure a team is about solving that communication props um problem.
Well, and that's why places like like Basecamp uh famously only have three-person teams uh for any new project.
I mean they're not standard, but I think can learn a lot from how they do things where they have two developers and one designer for any new project, and they work in six-week um increments.
So they kind of they don't you know spend six months or a year on something without revising, can we just toss it?
Yeah, no, I mean that's that's important because it's the this idea that they have of a bet, you place a bet.
And one thing that you know is a curse of software is software estimation because you you want to plan this giant, you know, space shuttled the um navigation system size piece of software, you can't plan that in front, up front.
And so their way of round getting around that is to do six-week bets, and the worst they've lost is six weeks.
Right, and there is that you know, the the sunk cost fallacy.
Certainly no one likes to throw out old code.
Um, but I think you know, so what's the appeal of being a manager?
I mean, I I I've been a manager, I mean I totally get it in terms of I think if if you have had bad managers or great managers, you sit there and go, well, what's really holding back the team?
If you have a good team, a lot of times it's the management, it's it's the goal setting, and and it also is a new challenge, which if you're five, ten years into your career, you know, sometimes do you want to just sling straight code?
You know, maybe not.
Um so I think that the difference is when you want that challenge versus you're forced into that challenge.
Um so it's a it's a hard thing in tech.
Uh I mean there are people who say you should you know bounce back and forth every two years, you know, coding, managing.
Um I think you know, in a large organization, there's much more of a managerial class, and that sort of makes sense.
That probably has to be.
But in smaller companies, yeah, I don't know.
It's attention.
I'm not sure of the answer.
I mean, basically, you know, there is a nice career path as a programmer in your 20s, and then it's a little bit like choose your own adventure.
There isn't, it's not like careers where it's just mapped
out for you.
As you get, I mean, as you get older, you have to, you have to be, if you want to stay at the keyboard, if you want to keep developing, you have to be um very deliberate about making sure that you remain competitive.
You know, you've got you've got to imagine yourself going to a company where you've got a hiring manager who's trying to recruit in tech and you're up against some 20-year-old, and they have to be able to see the value in you.
They have you have to be able to demonstrate that.
Otherwise, they can't hire you.
Right.
Like yeah.
Right.
And so being pointing to open source contributions, talking about things you've worked on.
Um and again, yeah, and and you know, I guess with concluding thoughts, a lot of it is you can't make someone see something they don't see.
If they don't value experienced programmers, they just don't.
Yeah, and yeah, and you you can't sell, you can't sell um experienced programmers to the the kind of um, for want of a better word, sweatshop environment that a lot of tech companies are.
So you've got to you've got to look at that company and you've got to are they are they even in the market for something which isn't the junior developer who's gonna work the long hours and you know burn themselves out and then they'll get a new one.
I some of the very best programmers I know uh probably almost exclusively work a pretty limited number of work hours.
Take that for what it is.
But they they found a way to have the discipline to, you know, do 30, 40 hours a week and that's it.
And they I mean David Hennermeyer Hansen, he wrote Rails 10 hours a week.
He still works 40 less hours a week.
He's fairly productive.
You know, lots of Django people I could point to who also, you know, not just you, but don't do crazy hours and they're massively prolific because as you talk about in the talk they don't have distractions they don't do this they don't do that they're focused and that's how it is.
But you yeah the human body isn't built to do hundred hours a week every week for months a month you can do it a week but where's the recovery?
Like you know even going to a conference it you know it it takes a massive road out of you so where's the recovery afterwards?
You know if you okay that maybe there's a deadline a drop dead date where if this software doesn't ship on this date then this company's going under.
We've got to make a ship okay maybe maybe that deserves extra hours but where's the recovery afterwards and what you find in a lot of agency environments or startup environments is it's drop down drop dead deadline followed by immediately by another one followed by immediately by another one until you fall over on the floor and that that the human body is just isn't built that way.
Yeah they're not all like that but
yeah no not all that look there are loads of great companies out there but the the stereotype is this and it's it's more than the stereotype it exists and it's it's prevalent.
Okay well growing old gracefully Carlton's talk
is really good well I enjoyed
it um yeah and I guess the last thing is I'm I'm aware that this is what we're saying is probably in one ear out the other for maybe folks who haven't experienced this experienced this yet but uh there is some truth in it so I hope it resonates.
We'll be back to our normal technical podcasts in the near future.
As ever we're at DjangoChat com and Chatjango on Twitter.
We'll see you all next week.
Take care join us next time bye bye