> 8. You judge people

You know, I was actually hoping for a good listicle of things to watch out for in meetings. The author should take their own advice. Assuming bad faith immediately kills all productivity, so there's no point in finishing reading this.

I agree with the general notion that there are often knowledge gaps getting in the way of better planning and execution. I was hoping for techniques to overcome them, but (sigh) I guess that's just more "engineering" getting in the way.

I've been doing this for long enough to realize there's no substitute for experience. It's basically the opposite of all the popular advice. If you're serious about any successful long-term career, you can't avoid looking foolish and having lots of difficult discussions. There are no shortcuts. There is no "higher path" you're missing out on. If you're going to grind it out, at least save face by working at the "shitty places" with bad reviews on glassdoor where you can safely fail without damage to your ego or reputation. When you finally get hired somewhere nicer mid-career, you can just bury all that in your mind and pretend it never happened. Nobody cares anyway.

If we're going to be judgy, I gotta say some of the worst people I've ever worked with never got out of that phase. It's that simple.

Judging people doesn’t imply bad faith. We are all judging people all the time. It takes constant effort trying to be self-aware of it and trying to compensate for it.