J. Timothy King’s Blog

What Chocolate Says About Entrepreneurship

“Once upon a time, there was a quiet, little village in the French countryside whose people believed in tranquilite. If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you. You knew your place in the scheme of things. And if you happened to forget, someone would help remind you. In this village, if you saw something you weren’t supposed to see, you learned to look the other way. If by chance your hopes had been disappointed, you learned never to ask for more. So, through good times and bad, famine and feast, the villagers held fast to their traditions. Until one winter day, a sly wind blew in from the north…”

This past week I rented one of the best films of the last decade. It’s not a film I usually would have watched. Despite its awards and nominations, the movie got a mediocre rating on IMDB. And there was nothing I read to make me think I would find it any different. But I remembered some old friends talking about it years ago, about how in the movie they put ground chili pepper in hot chocolate. (Tastes good, by the way.) And then I learned that this was how the Mayans used to make it. And I love chocolate, and I love chilies, and history intrigues me. And I figured, “What the hey?” But I was unaware of what I was getting myself into. This is one of those films you have to watch over and over again, each time gaining some new insight. Most surprising, and most painful, and most inspiring, as I watched the film, I found myself identifying more and more with Vianne, the main character, in a way I never expected.

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Does Bad Writing Reflect Poor Programming Skills?

Writing is a communication skill. And they say that communication skills and the other soft skills are what programmers need today. Effective developers don’t work alone. They work with others in a team. And a team member needs to communicate with the other team members to be effective.

It’s like playing football. No one person can win the game on his own. Each player does his part to determine whether the team moves forward. The center snaps the ball to the quarterback, who hands it off to the half-back, who runs through a hole the offensive line has created in the the other team’s defenses. Or maybe the quarterback passes the ball to a receiver. Occasionally, the receiver is on a different page than the quarterback, and when the ball is thrown, there’s no one there to catch it. The play falls apart. Players either work together, or they lose the game. In football speak, this is called “not executing well.”

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Ten Things That Are Different Now That I’m Self-Employed

My first day as an entrepreneur, I got sick. Seriously. It was Thanksgiving. And I got a virus, which grew steadily worse through that day and the next. Immediately, I got to experience two differences about working for yourself: No paid holidays, and no paid sick leave.

By Friday evening, I was completely incapacitated and coughing up big wads of… Well, suffice it to say I was feeling awful, and starting to worry a little. My cash-flow plan depended on me being able to bill enough hours for November in order not to starve the first couple weeks of January. So, I went to the emergency room. (And my first executive decision, to opt for COBRA coverage, turned out to be the right one.) And the doctor gave me some really nice drugs. And I slept straight through Saturday and most of Sunday.

Now that I’ve been doing it for a week, here are 10 more things I’ve noticed that are different since I started working for myself.

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