At my workplace, I could sense very readily who has travelled a lot and who has not. Even in those who have travelled, I am able to observe the differences between those who travelled a lot within urban spaces and those who have experienced significantly different cultures.
The one trait that stands out is they often turn up to learning situations with an empty cup. Well travelled people accept that there are multiple normals and multiple ways of living and doing things, this primes them to question status quo, accept new ideas and also handle new situations with a calmness that is infectious. They are also very comfortable about who they are and often found not wanting to impress others.
These are the common top traits that I have seen that makes them stand out
Learning mindset
Ability to read the room even when people are not speaking
Ready to experience a wide range of cuisines, they are not picky.
In general they become less polarised in almost all subjects
Conversation starters, often able to connect with anyone on any topic and build stories
Sense of calmness and composure even in very new situations
A bonus that amplifies the above traits are having worked in offices across different locations both within the country and outside. When working in a new location, you have to very quickly blend in to be part of the team by adapting to local culture of that place. Our work is a team sport, the more people you meet in individual or team setting the more you become a good team player who stands out at work.
Always look for the experience that is going to frequently put you into new people situations either as a form of leisure travel or official travel. See the magic of how fast are you able to grow as a person.
Demoes are always concepts, they are not a showcase of capability instead it is an artistic impression of what is possible in the end state. A frequent repeated pattern in the enterprise software I see is that – someone builds a something eye catching in a short turnaround time, it gets coverage and people are assigned to take it production and then it stalls like how the loading icon appears when you try to watch a hd movie with a poor connection.
I had been an advocate of rapid prototyping & development and XP practices all along my career. It is in my best interest to find increasingly faster and sound ways of developing software. The first problem to solve in software development is never programming, it is to figure out ‘are we building something that people would want it very badly?’ Building something was expensive so people had to be extra careful to understand if they are going down the right path. With advent of more and more easier programming tools, the building part became easier and easier to the point right now that we can do lots of work in an extremely short window.
This paved way for ‘Let us build first and check if it works’. This is where several people stumble and I am reminded of the infamous developer quote ‘It works on my machine’. ‘Works’ means different to different people. Productionising an application is far from development completion. It involves architecting, designing, testing, certifying, securing, scaling, monitoring and on and on. The UX has to be top notch, architecture should be easy to scale, design should be able to add more components with less effort, when scaled and distributed it should take advantage of economies of scale and bring more returns.
Another bigger problem I see with the current state of development is that zero to one has become an easy to solve problem but people are stuck at level one and very few have the capability and grit to move beyond the starting point. What has in fact happened is that the starting line has moved from zero to one, the difficulty of getting to the finish line still stays the same. I feel it is momentary that people are getting carried away and impressed by the quick turnaround time.
Only when all the parts of the cycle from start to finish are transformed to a rapid development pace, then demos will be an engineer’s showcase not like an artist’s impression of how the finished product will look like; which is easy to demo and hard to ship
For a long time, I felt wearing spectacles were cool. I went to the extent of buying zero power glasses just to look cool. I guess I was influenced by pop culture where glasses equated to curiosity and intelligence. Though I bought the glasses, I did not carry it around as it was not useful to me. When I eventually had to start using reading glasses, that is when it hit me that using glasses for refractive error is about losing something to gain something.
Reading glasses can’t be worn at all times, as the name suggest it is only for reading at a hand held distance. Rest of the times I had to remove them. This constant on and off was annoying, also very often I used to forget the reading glasses at home and struggle to read fine print. When I reached out to a doctor, I heard the term ‘Emmetropic presbyope’. It means someone who needs reading glasses but had perfect vision all along their life.
The doctor suggested to go for a progressive lens so that I do not need to take the glasses off and on. I was overjoyed when I figured out that it worked well. But the joy was short lived because the rule “You gain something, you lose something kicked in”. When using computers, which is my major activity in a day, progressives makes it harder for you see through a narrow portion of the lens, thereby creating posture problems in the neck and the back. If you use a single vision prescription then either the desktop or reading a mobile device becomes a problem.
I went to many of the optician chains in search of the right spectacle setup, my recommendation is to avoid them at all costs as they suggest only what is profitable for them and not what is right for you. One of the chains requires you to buy a membership and insurance, another one had only in house poor quality lenses. Many of these chains are also poorly staffed, so they do not assist you in figuring out the right lens, instead they are trained to sell not to treat.
After almost a year of searching for the right solution, I stepped into a non chain optician and explained them the problem. They asked me to demonstrate my working position and took measurements for nearly 10-15 minutes to give an exact prescription that works. I was given an office degressive lens with a maximum viewing distance of 200 cm. It solved my desk usage and handheld device problem in one go, no unnatural tilting and squinting. The only reason I was able to figure out a solution was that I was not willing to go for a one size fits all approach, where I need to adapt to the glasses to do all my day to day work.
Here is my setup for emmetropic presbyopes
Reading a book, browsing mobile phones, fine print – Best is a single vision glass, if you read at bed time keep a cheap pair next to the bed handy. Degressive office lens and progressive also works well but with blurring at the edges and they are expensive to replace if they are carelessly handled. I bought regular off the shelf ones for less than 500 a pair.
Working at a desk with computer – Best is a degressive office lens as you need to alternate between writing, reading print and computer usage. These are occupational lenses and always get it done from a good optician and very reputed lens brands. Using regular progressive lenses will cause a lot of neck strain, go for zoom in of the fonts and many other hacks to make the narrow intermediate zone work for you. I bought Zeiss office lens with individual customisation option and max viewing distance of 200 cm.
Driving and outdoors – You don’t need glasses for distance vision, but if you find yourself outdoors too often and have to use mobile phones a lot then a good mid range wide corridor progressive lens suited for driving is the best choice. Entry level progressive will cause a massive swim effect which can disorient and make you fall. I bought Essilor varilux comfort max with photochromic option to double up as sunglasses.
Cost – Always go for a mid range solution, you will need to replace your glasses every 2-3 years due to increase in reading power and multiple pairs will add up significantly to the cost. The difference between a mid range and top range is typically 3x-4x and you get the benefit of top range only if your distance vision has a complex prescription.
Let me know what works for you, let us share notes
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