Humility

Every so often you get to thinking you are pretty smart, and fortunately, someone or something is waiting around the corner to snap you back to reality. I think the only way to get better is to realize that you aren't very good at something. I think that this is good for the soul. The problem is, what if what you need to get better at is something you don't want to get better at?

As a programmer the next step is to be a better programmer, right? But a lot of these high-paying programming jobs that are out there have these barriers in front of them. They are made of giant heaps of time complexities, big o notations, stacks, queues, data structures, algorithms, and all sorts of other terribleness. I don't know any of this stuff, and the only thing that makes me want to learn it is so that I can tell other people that I know it when they ask me. I should want to know it to know it.

In my last job I did a ton of interviewing people, and I didn't really bother to ask these types of questions - why not? Obviously a) because I don't even know the freakin answer, but also b) because I can't really fathom how it was honestly relevant to the position.

So the question is - should I bother to learn this stuff just so I can get a job and not use it, or should I not bother, and then only get jobs in the future that don't require the brainteaser quiz answers? I think I know the answer, but I really dread it. Sigh.