Random internet manager here 👋🏽 I have so many thoughts here and if you don’t know me, I’m known for building psychologically safe and efficient teams. Some of my favorite compliments I’ve received about my management are: 1- “your team would run through brick walls for you”. 2- “your team doesn’t play about you, even when you’re not around” 3- many of my engineers saying they’d following me “anywhere” I know it’s not common but I LOVE trying to be the best manager I can be to each person on my team. However, I understand that mode of thinking isn’t for everyone. But no matter what your mindset is on management, I truly believe a few ways of working will help you build an effective and stable team that’s built to last. First, the quoted post is right. Some managers intentionally don’t grow engineers to keep the team “stable”. But if an engineer feels they don’t have room to grow and/or are unhappy, they’re not going to do their best work. Potentially creating a drag on the team until they finally find their exit. If you have motivated people, do your best to align them with what makes them tick and let them soar. Quality people will always be able to leave, help them see the value in staying. And when it does come time for them to leave, don’t take it personal. It’s a job 💜 Second, if onboarding people is a grueling task, dig into why. Yes, people take time to get organizational context, but are there other onboarding changes you could make to make things more smooth? Outdated documentation? Breaking down knowledge siloes? Engineers who don’t want to help their team? Whatever it is, lessen the impact of the onboarding drag. Third, great employees are hard to find. If you find a few, do you really want to lose them because you’re scared they’ll leave? IMHO, I prefer to give these phenomenal employees a work environment that’s hard to find elsewhere. Giving a crap puts you ahead of majority of managers. Fourth, I want to acknowledge that the industry is in a tight spot right now. If you lose someone, you may not get the backfill. Which can feel scary when the workload isn’t decreasing. But even with the potential of losing the headcount, I still stand by the fact that limiting your people’s growth isn’t the fix here. If anything, managers should lean into coaching and aligning their people with high impact work in case the team’s value ever comes into question. Lastly, remember that your best people can always leave. If they’re good enough, there’s likely always another company that wants them. Refusing to nurture their career will only expedite their exit. My approach is to make sure they enjoy their time under my management so I can slowly but surely build my “forever team” of people I’d hire anywhere I work.

Hocus Pocus is on TV. I am happy.

This week I learned that there are people who love 1st floor rentals. I thought literally everyone hated them and only took them as a last resort.

I love that our tax payer dollars are being used for political ads to praise this man. nytimes.com/2026/10/02/us/po…

Where are people buying quality rugs nowadays?

We’re shopping for appliances and I’m buying the Bosch 800 dishwasher solely because @VicVijayakumar gave it such a rave review as a household with kids.

Hate it. complex.com/music/a/will-lav…

A piece of positive history that I didn’t know.

Is the Lovesac truly worth the price? Any alternatives folks truly adore?

I had gotten in the habit of kicking off an agent to do a quick task then hopping over to do my own quick task while it worked. The other week I started opting instead to just wait while the agent works and it has helped with my context switching fatigue. These quick tasks usually only take the agent ~30 seconds max and while I thought I was leaning into peak efficiency by doing my own task simultaneously, I realized I was not. I'd often times forget about the previous task completely while on some other rabbit hole then I'd need to get myself mentally back into the initial task. Simply waiting is so much nicer.

RT @IAmPeterDarker: Black people make up 13.6% of the population in the U.S. and account for 69% of all exonerations. That’s what systemi…

I hate that I have to google to see which channel I need to tap into to watch the NFL game that day.

The other week a mortgage lender told me they didn’t want to rush to lock in my rate because they “watch the market very closely”. Implying they thought rates would drop. I got tired of waiting and went with someone else to lock in a rate under 7%. I had to trust my gut even though I’m not an expert in mortgage rates. The original lender seemed to think I was unnecessarily rushing at the time but I’m so glad I did it.

The man who invented the operation that saves babies born with blue-baby syndrome had no medical degree, no college degree, and was listed on the payroll as a JANITOR. He guided the first operation from a stool behind the surgeon's shoulder, telling him where to cut. Vivien Thomas. He had been saving to study medicine when the 1929 crash wiped out his savings and the bank holding them. He took a job as a lab assistant at Vanderbilt for a janitor's wage, because that was the classification available. Within a couple of years he was running experimental surgery — developing techniques, performing operations on his own, training surgeons. He moved to Johns Hopkins with Alfred Blalock in 1941, where he was still paid as a janitor and had to enter through a back door. He was the only Black man in that building not carrying a mop. He worked out the surgical fix for tetralogy of Fallot — the condition killing infants who turned blue and died — and built the instruments for it. The first operation on a child was in 1944. Blalock, who had never done the procedure, asked Thomas to stand behind him and talk him through it. The surgeons on the paper became world famous. Thomas was not credited. Hopkins hung his portrait in 1971 and gave him an honorary doctorate in 1976. Generations of surgeons he personally trained insisted on it. He was paid as a cleaner while inventing heart surgery.