work -
I just had a meeting with a newish hire to go over a thing I built in 2019 and early 2020 when I had recently started at my current job
and like.. I couldn't remember most of what I did, or why, or explain any of the choices I made, or answer basic questions about why I didn't do x or y instead
I'm freaking out a little because now I think I would never be able to get my own job if I applied for it now, and there's nowhere to go but down, and I'm so burnt out but I can't ever leave
work -
@prehensile It can be really hard to explain something you worked on for a long time. Any particular part of it might be a result of many independent decisions layered on top of each other. There might also be some important things that you haven't considered because you happened to get it right the first time by force of habit, while someone else (or you in future) might want to focus on the various possibilities there. I'm sometimes flabbergasted by some things I've written even like a month ago, and it can take a whole day to figure out what it's all about, so rather than explaining the past, I think it's more important to give them a general idea of you overall style and approach, and support them in the long term.
