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0 points0823498723498722y ago0 comments

To be specific on the garden leave: "[run to the truck] for some nails" is easy to formulate yet takes effort to do. The majority of the effort for most coding tasks is the formulation, and by the time you've explained to the lame duck how to do what needs to be done, and checked that they actually did it, it would've been easier to have done it yourself.

(were one to have suitable lame duck tasks, how would wetware lame ducks compete in an LLM world?)

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economicalidea2y ago

This is where working at an actual construction site would be a good experience for you — or any developer really.

Run to the truck and get nails also requires explanation/experience to get right if you have never done it before — what nails?which truck?how many?etc.

It is completely the same thing. The first time around you might have to explain the menial tasks in detail - btw a good exercise anyway, since you need to be able to explain aka understand the task anyway, after all you need to review later. And the first time around there will be some mistakes or misunderstandings.

But it gets better over time. With everyone.

KineticLensman2y ago

> Run to the truck and get nails also requires explanation/experience to get right if you have never done it before

After retiring from IT I volunteered at a raptor conservation centre. My previous experience counted for nothing and I was given numerous menial tasks: clean that water bowl, chop down that overhanging branch, sweep out that pond, re-attach that broken perch, put a trailer on the ATV and take this rubbish to the dump area, clean that aviary back wall, operate the music for the 11.30 display, etc.

After doing this for a while I had great experience of how the place actually ran, where things were kept, when it was safe to do things without interrupting flying, etc. I knew I was getting somewhere when my tasks started being looking after work-experience students, inducting new volunteers, helping in the displays, etc. It was actually quite humbling being a complete newbie again and having to go up new learning curves. I wish I had done it sooner in terms of resetting my objectives of what work actually involved.

082349872349872OP2y ago

You've just described a "junior"; I had mistakenly thought your "lame duck" was referring to the "salt" in TFA, who, on a useful timescale, do not get better.

Remember, for us the machine already plays the gofer role: handling menial tasks.

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