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Reblog via ssweeny

“My husband plays the trumpet, which is a sort of loud pretzel originally invented to blow down the walls of fucking Jericho and, later, to let Civil War soldiers know it was time to kill each other in a river while you chilled eating pigeon in your officer’s tent twenty miles away, yet somehow, in modern times, it has become socially acceptable to toot the bad cone inside your house before 10:00 a.m. because it’s “your job” and your wife should “get up.” What a world! If one was feeling uncharitable, one might describe the trumpet as a machine where you put in compressed air and divorce comes out, but despite this—despite operating a piece of biblical demolition equipment inside the home every bright, cold morning of his wife’s one and only life—the trumpet is not the most annoying thing about my husband.”

— Lindy West: The Witches Are Coming, p. 122

I saw this quote floating around the internets a while back and as a husband and former trumpet player I knew I had to read this book.

I’m nearly done with it and so glad I picked it up.

Reblog via ssweeny

“Every single person with whom you work has a vastly different set of needs. They are chaotic beautiful snowflakes. Fulfilling these needs is one way to make them content and productive. It is your full-time job to listen to these people and mentally document how they are built. This is your most important job. I know the senior VP of engineering is telling you that hitting the date for the project is job number one, but you are not going to write the code, test the product, or document the features. The team is going to do these things, and your job is managing the team.”

— “Managing Humans”, page 6