Altoids by the Fistful

Work, Meaning, and “Cat Turds”

• Thread latches onto the essay’s metaphor of work as “eating cat turds”: the problem isn’t hard work but meaningless, unnecessary, or self-inflicted work.
• Several contrast miserable “turd” work with rare jobs that feel like play due to good leadership, culture, and reasonable constraints.
• People map the metaphor onto job types: white‑collar as “cat turd dispenser,” retail as errand-running, blue‑collar as slow, steady chewing.

Reactions to the Essay (Style, Tone, Length)

• Many describe it as beautifully written, cathartic, and eerily relatable, “putting into prose” long‑held but unarticulated feelings about their careers.
• Others find the worldview “poisonous” or too grumpy, worrying that wallowing in this perspective is unhealthy.
• Length is divisive: some skim or quit early and say it goes where they expected; others insist it subverts the initial setup and reward a full read.
• A side debate erupts around “time value” (e.g., $/hr framing) versus reading purely for enjoyment and reflection.

Burnout, Identity, and the “Idealized Image”

• The quoted passage about losing ambition and despising one’s own profession resonates strongly.
• One comment reframes this as mourning the death of an “idealized image” or conditioned self, leaving an unsettling but honest empty space.
• There’s discussion of unlearning reactive patterns, creating “headspace for actual volition,” and using novel experiences to break habituation.

Tools, YAML, and Modern Dev Frustrations

• Strong criticism of using string templating (e.g., Helm) to generate YAML, arguing ops should work with data structures then render them.
• This becomes emblematic of modern dev practices that are obviously “bad and wrong” yet fiercely defended by those who mastered them.
• Some note the more general pain of debugging code that can’t be run or tested locally, with long CI pipelines and flaky infra.

Code Quality, Tech Debt, and Organizational Dynamics

• The essay’s admission about rubber‑stamping bad PRs triggers long discussion of “normalization of deviance.”
• Engineers describe incremental hacks compounding into unmaintainable systems, and the social cost of being the person who blocks changes for quality.
• Tactics suggested: explicitly tagging tech debt in code/tickets, documenting pain points, tying refactors to business risk, but many note these tickets rarely get addressed.
• Stories highlight how leadership incentives (short tenure, revenue pressure) make long‑term code health hard to justify.

Searching for Meaning: Family, Religion, Side Projects

• Some argue the essay shows people seeking meaning in the wrong places (job, trivia, tech stacks), suggesting marriage, kids, and religious traditions as “battle‑tested cultural technology” for meaning and community.
• Others push back, pointing to historical gendered exploitation and the downsides of those same traditions.
• Hands‑on crafts (woodworking, metalworking) appear as an antidote to ephemeral, compromised software work—“painting the back of the cabinet” for oneself.

AI, Slop, and Transparency

• The coworker’s AI‑generated “slop” leads to calls for org‑wide prompt transparency to discourage laziness and disrespect for reviewers.
• Some riff on AI logos (“spirograph butthole”) and graffiti versus screen‑watching, tying it back to how people choose to direct their attention.

Miscellaneous Observations and Humor

• Numerous jokes and cultural references (The Office, Stand By Me, Bushisms, Tyler Durden, Schrödinger’s cat) lighten the thread.
• Several note how common it is for once‑idealistic engineers to slowly acclimate to “cat turd” work—and how hard it is to notice when your own chocolates have turned into turds.