Indeed, the more strong the feeling, the less rational it can become, even though the feeling is there for good reasons. A pure rational solution won't help, pure empathy as well not.

Indeed, the more one knows about what it means to be a good listener, the more one becomes aware of not being such a good listener.

Being a good listener is one of the hardest jobs in the world.

And narcissists are soul sucking traps for good listeners.

Which is why you should not be an indiscriminate listener.

In fact being or feeling useful can be addictive. It goes beyond fixing technical problems. If I know someone is sad or in trouble for a longer period of time, I tend to check in regularly. I need to hold myself back, not to do it too often. The reason is probably the dopamine (or some happy neurotransmitter) effect that respectful or thankful people invoke on me. So it is the help<->dopamine transaction.

> it's more like requirements come in, and results come out.

Wow someone is very good at setting requirements. I have never seen that in 25 years of dev life.

I've seen it many many times, a few from myself.

It's not so hard if you're an expert in the field or concept they're asking the solution for, especially if you've already implemented it in the past, in some way, so know all the hidden requirements that they aren't even aware of. If you're in a senior position, in a small group, it's very possible you're the only one that can even reason about the solution, beyond some high level desires. I've worked in several teams with non-technical people/managers, where a good portion of the requirements must be ignored, with the biggest soft skill requirement being pretending they're ideas are reasonable.

It's also true if it's more technical than product based. I work in manufacturing R&D where a task might be "we need this robot, with this camera, to align to align to and touch this thing with this other thing within some um of error."

Software touches every industry of man. Your results may vary.

I've seen that plenty of times. I suspect that you haven't seen it because you live in a place with high cost of living, which induces a high turnover in personnel, or perhaps you've been working in very dynamic markets such as SaaS.

When I was starting my career in Europe as freelance sysadmin, I worked several times for small companies that were definitely not at the forefront of technology, were specialised in some small niche and pretty small (10-15 engineers), but all its engineers had been there for 10-20 years. They pretty well paid compared to the rest of the country, and within their niche (in one case microcontroller programming for industrial robots) they were world experts. They had no intention of moving to another city or another company, nor getting a promotion or learning a new trade. They were simply extremely good at what they were doing (which in the grand scheme of things was probably pretty obsolete technology), and whenever a new project came they could figure out the requirements and implement the product without much external input. The first time I met a "project manager" was when I started working for a US company.

>I worked several times for small companies that were definitely not at the forefront of technology, were specialised in some small niche and pretty small (10-15 engineers), but all its engineers had been there for 10-20 years. They pretty well paid compared to the rest of the country

This isn't possible in the USA. Companies like this (small, and not in tech hub cities) always try to take advantage of their location and pay peanuts, with the excuse "the cost of living is lower here!", even though it's not that much lower (and not as low as they think), and everything besides houses costs the same nationwide.

I agree that something like that is very unlikely in the US, which is why so many people in this thread (I presume Americans) were incredulous as to whether that was even possible, but elsewhere in Europe good software and electronic/electrical engineers can be making very good money for the local standards in stable jobs, while at the same time being paid a lot less than they would be in a similar job in one of the US major tech hubs.

Of course, sometimes people realize that what they asked for wasn't actually what was needed.

I mean... This "realization" is what triggered the advent of agile, 2 decades ago, right?

People almost never know what they want, so put SOMETHING in front of them, fast, and let's go from there

Meetings without any meaningful participation from most people? I guess too many people in the meetings?

That is likely referring to what has become known as the standup, where developers read off the commit log for the "manager" who hasn't yet figured out how to use a computer.

Or for the product manager too lazy to check Jira.

I know a lot of very old people who do charity work, and will continue until they fall over or until they just physically can't anymore.

Younger people are at school, a very social institution. After school they do sports or hobby, usually a very social activity. When it's their birthday, a party is organized.

When you are older, you have plenty of social interaction at work.

One of our colleagues is in a divorce. She's often miserable but gets a lot of support from her colleagues, she's invited at every activity, gets emotional support etc.

I do understand what you are trying to say though!

I'm not sure what country you live in, maybe people there are not very social... is there a possibility to move? Sometimes such event gives a totally different perspective on the world.

To add some meta to your edit: I would swear you are not an LLM... or maybe an LLM trained on a lot of comments on HN.

What I found after many years, is that women (people in general, really) are not attracted to people who try too hard to get attention from them. Going through great lengths tends to result in being labeled as desperate or creepy. Try just to be friendly and talk "with" them and not "to" them, almost as if you are one of them. By doing that often enough, it will feel less awkward. Practice makes perfect. And then one day you feel a click with someone. Just my few cents.

Oh you haven't gone anywhere near far enough with this.

You'll get laid the most when you adamantly pretend like you're not interested in getting laid. You actively have to act like you are "too good" for them. Play "hard to get". Learn what "negging" means.

Never, ever, show desperation for anything ever for any reason. It is the ultimate ick. Buddhists will even tell you that desire is ontologically/spiritually evil and icky.

Yeah that's the cliche saying, let them chase you or don't put on a pedestal. Idk not sure if it's because I was raised by women that I need their approval (no male figure). But I know other people who were in the same situation and aren't like me so it must be a personal choice/way you decide to overcome it.

The basic problem with this is that the ones that are trying too hard are doing so because the standard approach failed.

Maybe you get lucky, but it's not a general solution.

What is the standard approach?

I find that being genuine and vulnerable and having no hidden agenda works wonders.

For me it was the other way around. For many years I tried hard and I was wondering why it did not work.

Sorry to read about your wife's illness. It's such a pity that "having to work to maintain quality of life" has taken away the joy of work, even when your colleagues are comrades.

As for me, the principal reason for working is that camaraderie. I find 'establishing things together' more valuable and rewarding than the progress or productivity on itself. The for knowledge workers above-average paycheck feels like a luxury.

He could empty your bank account with just one pin? Was it not traced where the money went?