Why did you get that laptop?
On (not) having an opinion
Last week I started work at a shiny new startup and was of course given the chance to basically pick whatever equipment I wanted. I had been plugging away for the last two years on an Asus running a new enough Linux distro. So while functional I was never really wowed. So I asked around and the consensus seemed to be that a 13" Mac Pro Retina was the way to go. And why not - a unix shell mixed with all the polish and a community of people who value quality over all else seemed like a very reasonable choice. I sent in my request and thought no more of it.
Then one day at work one of my coworkers asked me a very simple question:
Why did you get the 13" MacBook Pro? It seems a bit small and heavy for my tastes.
Now this wasn’t a question that completely blindsided me and left me staggering for hours to come. I mumbled something about having a Thunderbolt for the size and not having to worry about specs for the weight and that was that. But it was something that contributed to a growing fear I have - I often find myself at a loss when people ask me to back up my opinion on something.
I am not an alien who simply takes the middle road on everything. When someone asks me what my favorite food is I rightly respond filet mignon as any steak loving person would. But once I have to have an actual reason to back up what I internally believe in, it all goes to hell. I might try to say that I love filet mignon because it’s tender and delicious and well what the hell do YOU know about filet mignon anyway, but give me a flank steak cooked medium-rare and I wouldn’t bat an eye. And it’s like that everywhere.
At the brewery:
Man I really love that Double IPA! Why? Well it’s hoppy and has a nice bitter taste and golden looking color. What about this other IPA? Well I like that one too! So which one do you like better? Ummm…
At the store:
I think I’m gonna buy this shirt. Why? It doesn’t look that bad, I like the color. But don’t you think it washes you out a bit? And what else do you have that it will go with? Umm…
And of course while coding:
Ill start this next project in Rails. Why? Well I know it really well and I’m comfortable in it.
And so far those have been good enough reasons for mostly everything I’ve done up until now. Half finished side projects are half finished no matter what framework they’re written in and at the worst I can say I learned something. Honestly this article would be of no concern if I could stay a slightly improving college student my whole life, drinking beers with my friends at night while coasting along at my own pace. But as they say the future is now, and the future won’t stand for this kind of logic.
As I said earlier I am a new employee at a small startup surrounded by people who have been in this game much longer than I have. But I have also been told in no uncertain terms that my decisions will be just as important as all the others. I will pick the technologies that will allow us to scale gracefully as we reach for greater heights - and I will still be around to see if my choices helped us succeed or were obstacles that only narrowly escaped consuming us. And when I’m asked why we will uses LESS or SASS or whether to stick with Backbone or move onto something a little more full featured I want to be able to provide more of an answer than half-reasoned generalities papered over by comforting sounding buzzwords.
It is easy to ask thought provoking rhetoricals (Is it really like this for everyone? What have you done to overcome this issue) but it mostly offloads the hard answers to someone else. And while it is almost assured someone else will find a better solution than you will, your own opinion is always worth being heard. So this is what I think: I am probably overthinking all of this a bit but I definitely need to work harder than ever to evaluate all the options. Weighing many options that all have millions of variables to evaluate between them is daunting and being crippled with indecision is often worse than making the second best decision. So as tv shows have always taught me it is probably as simple as being confident. Confidence that you have done your best to weigh the options the best you can and have made a decision that at worst allows you to fail fast. If everyone had to explain why they loved their favorite food each time they ate it, the world would be a very exasperating place.
