Ask HN: What's your working day like?

Unfortunately I live in a climate where the weather is subjectively "bad" 8 months out of the year, so on one hand I'm not "out there" most of the time, but on the other hand when the weather is unusually good I certainly am out there all day sometimes. Sort of like is the glass half empty or half full argument?

My open office is really, really open. It can be distracting when deer or raccoon wants my lunch. Raccoons are kinda scary, they are alpha scavengers and they know the local gun laws as well as a hunter or police.

Strange but true facts: I travel everywhere with trash bags because I need a way to get my gear home dry when there's a downpour. Also I dress up to go to the park, so rangers won't think I'm homeless.

Can confirm. Not fun.

With seniority in the industry comes flexibility, so many of the VPs are able to take 6-9 PM off to be with their family, but even they'll come back online after that for a couple of hours.

My level of enjoyment varies based on the cases I'm on. It's generally interesting, it's certainly fast-paced, and I very rarely count down the hours before I can leave work (there's no face-time policies). But after almost four years here, it can definitely get monotonous. Still, I've learned more than I would at almost any other job, and it's taught me a great work ethic, so I'm grateful for that.

That's what we do. Especially for inside sales.

Outside sales is mostly the same thing, unless you have great accounts. Only difference is you sit at your house and not your desk.

And you also do fake travel and bill it to your credit card for points, and wait to be reimbursed by your company, who think you are out like actually visiting customers lol

Some people do great work and are very skilled but the rest of us are benchwarmers

One of my first stories was with some local firefighters that responded to a car wreck.

When they got there, there was a woman trapped in the wreck.

Then it caught fire. There was nothing they could do but watch the woman burn to death.

Decided then and there that firefighting wasn't in the cards for me.

In this case I think "flag down" just means "no responsibilities other than responding to calls."

If you are at a busy station that typically is the time you get the snot kicked out of you. That is, every time you put your head down the "tones" go off and you get back into the truck to handle a problem for the citizens of your community. Some problems are real, some are perceived, and most just need a firefighter/EMS person to tell them what they should do.

Flag down was captured perfectly by @throwanem.

1) Usually each fire engine is staffed with 3-5 firefighters. A minimum of four is really idea, but due to staffing/budget issues, many departments only have 3 people on each engine. The crew on each engine is usually one chauffeur/engineer/driver (who drives the fire engine and operates the water pumps), one officer (in-charge of the crew), and one or more general firefighters.

In most departments, each crew of 3-5 works for 24 hours and then has 48 hours off (or 24/72, or something similar), there are multiple groups of firefighters that all work on the same physical fire engine. Today, the "A shift" crew of Engine 1 might be staffing the fire engine numbered 1, but tomorrow, a different "B shift" crew will staff the same engine and operating under the name "Engine 1"

On a somewhat related note, the organizational/command structure of the fire department depends largely on size. My department/county had several on-duty battalion chiefs who each oversaw a handful of engines/trucks. FDNY, on the other hand, has ~50 battalion chiefs, each overseeing ~6-10 fire crews, and has higher organization into ~10 divisions and 5 borough commands.

2) It depends on the type of fire/call. If it's an automatic fire alarm or medical call that comes in 20 minutes before shift change, the out-going crew is expected to run the call to completion. However, if there's a large fire/major incident, the command staff usually coordinates shuttling of crews on and off scene to maintain adequate staff on scene, but get tired crews home and fresh crews there.

3) For any large fire, multiple fire engines/trucks from our department will be dispatched. There are standard protocols that determine how many and what types of units are dispatched for each incident. If the needs of the call overwhelm our department, or if the incident is close to our jurisdictional line, the command staff on the scene can call for mutual aid for neighboring departments. Most fire departments have automatic aid agreements with neighboring cities/counties so that the dispatch centers can talk to each other send the needed units

2. The oncoming crew waits until everyone for that shift is at the station, he/she notifies the Incident Commander who will arrange for pickup and change over. These are typically large defensive fires that just take a lot of water and time... not super taxing physically until it's over.

3. We call additional resources from surrounding stations. Our dispatch system is actually really good, coupled with super professional dispatchers.

4. We do have flexibility. I posted the ideal day... at busy stations you generally don't eat much and don't sleep at all. If you are running 20 calls a shift and each one takes 30 minutes minimum... well, your day is long.

5. Yeah, we try to improve all the time. However, change can introduce cataclysmic push back from "seasoned" fire/ems guys and gals. Ideas are constantly evaluated and judged. You need to have thick skin if you put forth a new idea... it is somewhat of a game to give each other a very hard time.

I cannot speak to the volunteer tier of the fire service, I am simply ignorant to the demands of that side. I can speak to the west coast professional model. To be clear, there are lots of professional options on the east coast too. I just don't know them.

In my humble opinion, this job is not for everyone. This job like any other has lots of cool shit and tons of horrible shit too. The ageism that may or may not exist in software is real in firefighting. Not due to politics or opinion or the SV stuff.... NO, It has do with the physical stress the body takes in this profession. It isn't commercial fishing, but sleep deprivation and picking up patients that weigh 500lbs, fighting brush fires all day, stress from seeing bad situations, etc. is real for most Fire/EMS folks today.

The academies are tough and the competition to get in is really high. For each class in my department, there are generally about 3K applicants. We select 30 or 40 and of those 15-25% will wash out of the academy before it's over.

If none of that makes you change your mind, go get EMT certified, Firefighter I and II certified, then take and pass the CPAT test... After that, start testing at every department that has open applications. You could probably script the app process :)

Four things to keep in mind: first, in most US jurisdictions these days, firefighting is coupled with EMS. So if you're squeamish around trauma, it's probably not going to be a good fit. Second, it's pretty physically demanding. Even if the academic side comes naturally to you, it's a very physical job. Third, it can literally kill you. If you don't handle stress well, it's not going to be a good fit. Fourth, it's a team effort. Even on extremely understaffed departments, you're always dependent upon other people, and they are always dependent on you -- sometimes, in both cases, for survival.

Out of my academy class, roughly 1/3 the class struggled with the academic portion, roughly 1/3 struggled with the physical portion, and the last 1/3 had to work at it, but didn't really struggle.

For reference, these are some of the kinds of things we needed to do:

+ Simulated rescue of 165-pound dummy

+ Move hose lines, both charged (with water) and uncharged (no water)

+ Climb ladders until you suck the bottle dry

+ Crawl through a wire entanglement tunnel in full gear (I think we also went through one round with "blindfold" inserts in our SCBA masks)

+ Drills with time limits on almost everything (donning gear, doffing gear, bottle changes, on-air, off-air...)

And so on. My advice would be, get in shape first, and manage your expectations. Many departments will be pretty hesitant hiring someone who's 20 years more senior than all of the rest of the recruits. Volunteer would probably be a better fit, but less of a career change and more of a side project.

I personally work in radiotherapy, making simplified (faster) Monte Carlo particle transport algorithms for use in treatment planning, and also finding more "modern" optimisation techniques to handle the many degrees of freedom available on radiotherapy linear accelerators to produce higher quality treatment plans compared to what we can do right now. It's hard to define what a high quality treatment plan is without a lot of background, but basically we try to find ways to put more radiation in tumours while sparing the healthy tissue all around the tumour. My "research" is like 95% programming.

Is your cow-orker also a software engineer (or "engineer" if you prefer, esp. in their case)?

I'm starting to think that a large majority of software developers actually like open-plan work environments with lots of interruptions, however they also don't browse forums like this very much. They do well (or well enough to keep their jobs) in these environments, enjoy them, but they don't hang out on places like this online either at work or after-hours, and go home to play with their kids or watch sports or hang out at bars.

These days I can work from home when I want, but I don't because it stresses me out not to have a clear separation between home and work.

For example, I've become known as "the regex guy" at the office. I know regex really well as well as the ins and outs of the regex engines of languages we use. I don't mind when I get called over to help with a tough regex, or optimizing something. But way too often whatever I get interrupted and cross the building just to replace ".*" with ".+" or something equally simple.

I usually just type the solution and tell them my copy of Mastering Regular Expressions is on the office bookshelf if they'd like to borrow it, the first chapter should cover all the basics. I'm also very happy to explain the basics of regex to someone in my down time, but very few people have taken me up on that offer.

When the office slows down and things get quieter is when I find myself finally able to get completely focused in on things that require all of my attention.

I enjoy meetings, business talk, planning and miscellaneous conversations with coworkers more than (I think) most software developers, but to get any sizable software project done I do best with chunks of a few hours at a time to get into a focused state, get all of the moving parts loaded into my head, then actually write the code/fix the bug etc.

My solution to this–in an office that I share with people who talk on the phone–is to show up in the late morning after they've made their morning calls, and leave in the evening a few hours after they leave. This way we overlap in the afternoon, but I get some time with a quiet office where I can really think.

Just while writing this comment several conversations happened around me that drew my attention away from what I was writing. When I focused my attention back to the comment, I had to skim what I'd just written to 'reload' my thoughts. At least for me, this 'reloading' process takes a long time when it comes to writing software, despite various tricks I've come up with over the years to help speed it up.

Helping others is fun but I've been on both sides. There are plenty of people who always need help and never put effort in, and are extremely distracting and lower morale.

And interactions are not always of the "Hey can you explain this" variety. Sometimes it's your manager worrying about a project and nitpicking every detail and still managing to not know what's going on. Sometimes it's your manager trying to prove he is "technical" despite not being technical at all, and just downplays your work. Yes, I deal with this daily. Sometimes people are just assholes, and HR/management doesn't deal with it because they produce or are too afraid. Something else I deal with daily. And on top of that, sometimes I just don't want to talk to someone about something. I just want to focus and get done what I need to get done.

Building systems. Adding features to software. Debugging it. Anything more trivial than generating and wiring classes that someone else designed for you.

I guess a lot depends on the kind of work you're doing. In all of the projects I worked on, 90% of work time would be spend on actually doing it, and only 10% on talking about it (and most of that at the beginning, and then at some critical moments in the project). After the design discussions had been concluded and we've settled on appropriate division of labour (critical aspect: modularity, so that people can work in isolation and have to agree only on interfaces), it was mostly individual work.

Now don't get me wrong, I love helping others and answering their questions, or sitting with them and figuring stuff out. Just not all the time, and not in the very moment I'm trying to do something cognitively demanding (like redesigning half a dozen subsystems, or carefully weaving in new features requested by the client in a way that doesn't disrupt the rest of the application).

I think it's hard to separate the questions of productivity and satisfaction. It's satisfying because you're being productive, but conversely it's easy to dodge the urge to procrastinate because the results are satisfying. So the two go hand in hand.

(And yes, I entirely recognise that for some people the satisfying+productive mode does involve intense, fine-grained collaboration, while for others it doesn't. I've seen both modes work, and don't really see why they shouldn't coexist -- although ideally with walls and doors to keep the noise of the collaborative types at bay!)

Would you prefer if a) the environment was quiet and no one was interrupting you. Or b) the environment was noisy and you were constantly interrupted by people talking about how they spent their weekend.

To many developers, productive work is like taking a math exam. Therefore we want the same kind of environment (a distraction free one) to do our best work.

Serious question: How does this work? Do you work out for exactly 30 minutes and jump straight on transport / in the car / etc? 20 minutes plus a quick shower? Is there no time factored in for cleaning yourself up after working out, to be presentable at work?

you can write software any where you can take your cpu, pixel grid and network thing me bob