Is there anything a common person can do to help reduce the likelihood of their phone being tracked via SS7? (other than not carrying a phone or disabling the mobile network)
It's actually moderately easy: get 3 phone numbers. One you make public (#1), the one that everybody knows. The third one (#3) you never make public and it's the one you take with you in your mobile phone. It's preferable to get this number illicit - not in your name.
Put #1 and #2 SIM cards in two WWAN modems in a device (laptop?) you always keep at home, or at work if you don't want your home location known. Cross-connect the two modems by software (Asterisk?) such that if a call comes in from #1, it's forwarded through #2 modem to #3 (your mobile phone) and if you dial #2 from your mobile phone, you get a dial tone on #1 modem.
Disadvantages:
- No call ID. You'll never know who calls you and can't immediately save their number without looking at the call logs at home.
- You must store all phone numbers with #2 as prefix, a pause, then the actual phone number as extension.
PS: It's possibly even simpler than that. Forget #2. Use a VoIP app to connect to laptop's PBX from the mobile phone. That way you can even block all calls in/out from your mobile phone (PIN2 required) and only allow internet.
I built a system like this, and loved it enough that I built an app to do what the author describes: http://parsnipapp.com/
Totally free, with no plans to monetize it. Having an easy system like this adds enough value to me and my friends who use it to continue to develop and maintain it.
I love the author's automation for sending an email digest, I think that's a great feature that I'll add to the roadmap. Up next for development I'd like to add reminders for specific days (eg., birthdays, trip reminders, w/e).
If anyone gives the app a shot, I'd love to hear from you. Feedback is appreciated!
Not a feedback on the app. But I clicked through the link on my mac (Monterey) and was pleasantly surprised I could install this iPhone app on my mac. Is this new? Can we install iPhone apps on mac now?
Kim Scott talks about this in her book "Radical Candor" [1], and I agree with her perspective. A well rounded team needs people who looking to take on big new projects, but also people who become deep domain experts. Sometimes called a "guru". People who don't want to progress are this latter group.
The key is to (1) make this arrangement explicit and regularly check in, and (2) find non-promotion ways of rewarding and recognizing good work. This will be dependent on the person, and isn't as clear cut as the promotions track.
I think it's great to just be happy with what you're doing, and focus on other things in life.
I did exactly this in my early career and it worked great in small organizations. Mid to late career, I worked for a tech megacorp and was essentially forced to ladder climb because it was up or out. Eventually, hit a grade level that was oversaturated and got offered a package to leave on the 13th round of layoffs in my time there. My seagull manager at the time had no idea of how much organizational tribal knowledge they lost, but everyone my grade or lower who worked with me did.
I postulate that the size of the larger organization is inverse to the applicability of the "guru" strategy.
I think the "up or out" dogma is garbage, and ends up hurting some of an organizations best people. Sorry to hear this happened to you.
I truly don't think it's that challenging to allow for an alternative path. But as a low level manager at a big corp there's only so much you can do, I get it.
"Up or out" is the best way to enable the Peter Principle and all the institutional mediocrity it brings. When you keep pushing your best performers to a level where they can't perform, what you're really doing is pushing the entire organization down instead. I wish more managers would recognize that.
Fortunately, I'm right now in a place where that doesn't happen, but at the same time there's not that much room for growth either. Fortunately, there's all sorts of personal and OSS projects for that.
I'm not sure what the idea is exactly but it seems people get promoted until they are just outside their comfort zone. There they quietly do their job without complaining hoping no one notices until a scapegoat is needed.
"[...] a management style wherein a manager only interacts with employees when they deem a problem has arisen. The perception is that such a management style involves hasty decisions about things of which they have little understanding, resulting in a messy situation with which others must deal."
Software Engineer with 30 years of experience here. I am the new guy in a team working on a critical app in a large company which also aspires to be tech company. The application that I am working on has been touched by many people. Mostly competent people, but you can see how there is a lack of coherence. Cleary a lot of the engineers only new pieces and no one knew the app deeply. Because every body left to new projects I became the domain expert in just a few months. I would like to stay and become the domain expert and work through the application with a continuous improvement mindset. It would be a big challenge and very valuable for the company, but I don't see the incentives aligned for me to do that.
This is the case where you may be empowered to layout the values of being the knowledge expert for this to your management and give them buy in to have you be the owner of the product from a tech perspective.
I think this continuous pressure of career progression is a managerial bullshit , that unwise managers (most are) apply to everyone without any thinking. This ends up unnecessarily hurting people who are otherwise perfectly good employees but just not interested in progressing in their career and ends up demoralizing them. People gotta understand that a job is just a job and the contract between employee and employer mandates certain compensation for certain hours of work or certain goals but not necessarily compensated for working towards a promotion.
I've probably worked on the same team as 100-150 people over my career so far. Maybe 200. I can count on one hand the number of people who:
1. Are happy in their current title, company, responsibilities, etc.
2. Don't want to get a big raise
3. Just want to "do their job and go home"
I'm thinking of exactly two. There may be one or two I'm forgetting. Coincidentally they were also two of the least skilled developers I've worked with, I think in part because they had very little interest in growing professionally.
There are plenty of important, fulfilling, well-compensated careers in which you don't need to grow, learn, and expand. Software development is not one of them.
Two of the five IC's I manage are prolific open source contributors on a project mentioned here often. By any measure these two IC's are outstanding engineers and mentors, but also have zero interest in "growing" or having more responsibility.
Well the only reason someone would not want a big raise is because they would be worried that it would put them higher up on the chopping block if/when layoffs come around. So that criteria kinda self selects for under performers.
But you can absolutely have folks who meet criteria 1 and 3 who are very skilled. Programming self selects for introverts, so it shouldn't be a surprise that not everyone wants to be a manager. And at some point in your career, you realize that taking on more responsibilities without the subsequent promotion results in more work and more stress for little benefit.
> There are plenty of important, fulfilling, well-compensated careers in which you don't need to grow, learn, and expand. Software development is not one of them.
This may have been true 5-10 years ago. But I think most devs now realize that constantly churning your tools in search of the newest shiny thing is a great way to add unnecessary work and stress to a project. It is entirely possible to get experience with 1-2 tech stacks and make a career out of it.
I love HR bs like this. Having to make up vacuous accolades to hand out to people doing a fantastic job for literally no reason. Presumably also making these highly productive employees jump through arbitrary hoops to validate their own existence.
I think the important thing to put on the table when having career & performance conversations with team members is to acknowledge that career progression via deep specialization is a perfectly valid path -- or that it isn't. This is often a business decision, and frequently the business is ok with just mediocre or competent SMEs, which will frustrate folks who want more, but at least you'll have created the "radical candor" you need to talk about it.
