I worked in IT for 20 years. I became a handyman and have 7 geese.
Are geese good animals to have?
Yes and no. They are much cleaner than ducks and they can be exclusively fed on grass once they are feathered out. This makes them unbelievably awesome in addition to their guard dog ability. In the springtime you get giant goose eggs. Which is a big perk. Since we got our first two geese we have not lost a single chicken or duck to hawks. Which is why we got them. We were losing 1 to 3 a year just to hawks.
The downside is that like all birds they poop everywhere And their poops are more undigested grass than runny stuff. And in the spring when you get those giant eggs the geese can become extremely aggressive. This means separating them from the other birds to prevent injuries and it means learning how to wrestle geese in a safe manner. And it means always being on guard. You will not be safe on your own property.
But for me the benefits far exceed risks. They pay for themselves. They give giant eggs, they stop hawks, they mow the yard, they require no feed.
There were a bunch of geese around my grandparents’ house when I was a kid. God those things would torment me. They had free range of the property and I tended to completely avoid the area they hung out because they were hyper aggressive and would chase after me every time I got anywhere near them. I was six years old, so it felt like they were as tall as me and they were definitely faster.
It wasn’t so bad once I got a little older, a little taller, and relied more on my bicycle than my feet for movement.
Nonetheless, those things gave me childhood trauma to the extent that I still can’t stand geese some forty five years later.
If they’re not tormenting you, they’re not doing their job. That’s their niche. They have one job.
Not safe ? what do you mean, a goose can hurt people ?
Only if they see you
Wait really, they represent a danger ?
To have such a good career payout that you don’t need a career.
I have taken a half step in this direction and it’s improved my life greatly.
I still have a normal job, but my Covid project back in 2020 was to finally put a koi pond in my back yard. I spend way more time learning and thinking about it than keeping up on tech shit. And the job I have now is great - I’m not trying to escape from it or anything.
The best part is that even the guy I bought my recent koi from has a microbiology degree. He’s properly living the “x farmer” dream, but that “job” is much more than a 9-5.
Wait…you mean to say it’s feasibleto have a cottage-industry koi farm for a hobby/supplemental income? I’ve been considering putting in a pond and looking at different ideas for what to put in it and koi are a contender.
Oh no, the microbiology guy I’m talking about is beyond full time with his farm. He’s there 7 days a week when he’s not traveling to shows.
And that’s just taking care of the fish and growing them out, not breeding them. He imports from Japanese breeders.
As for breeding new babies and selling them, it’s certainly possible but there probably isn’t a ton of profit in it. Any time I’ve thought about it I’ve thought two things: I don’t want to deal with rando customers and I don’t want to turn my happy peaceful hobby into a job.
Even farming eggs and gardening vegetables as a hobby is basically a p/t job for me. I do about 25-30 hours of work per week on my property, and some of that is just groundskeeping, then I work 40 hours at a 9-5.
But I wouldn’t trade it for anything lol
Yep, now with having my pond chores zen time and being able to enjoy the end results, I think I fully understand what gets people into gardening. I’ve just been forever obsessed with aquatic life.
Good points, thank you for the followup!
Yeah, after 22 years at Microsoft in a senior position, you should be able to retire and do whatever the fuck you want as a hobby. I very highly doubt this guy will ever make significant money from goose farming.
Are you saying his income will be … ahem … a goose-egg?
alas, many of us will never reach goose-farm level success
Yeah that sounds way more enjoyable, but first you need the 250k and up salary that a principal engineer at MS makes for 20 years, then you have plenty of equity to focus on whatever your hobby is
Average 350k according to levels.fyi.
I was expecting higher for principal tbh
I think MS like other big tech companies has started to run out of “senior” positions without paying more so many people just end up as “senior” principal engineers which is basically “this is as far as you can go if you don’t want to get involved in management”
“this is as far as you can go if you don’t want to get involved in management”
Yes. That exactly. This typically comes with a nice perk: Principals are supposed to have the same clout as lower-level managers. Which is to say they usually report to Directors or even the CTO in some organizations.
Another one is “Independent Contributor” which is similar but, as the name would suggest, is very self sufficient and does not work on (or for) a team. They’re basically one-man engineering shops and are expected to perform well everywhere in the company’s tech and talent stacks. As a result, ICs are very rare.
Jokes on programming. Hated life before being forced into it…
Edit: it meaning programming. This isn’t supposed to be that edgy.
Just try being uneducated and working in a dead end factory job while having hated life all your life anyway!
Much fun! -46/10 would never recommend!
I wish I was forced into programming… I tried on my own and just don’t have the mind for it, I find it incredibly boring. All my friends are in the field and all work from home wherever the hell they want to live. I’m stuck in a VHCOL area with shit income and 0 potential to increase it :(
Yeah well I was „forced“ into it by an injury and one my parents working at the university. I never finished my degree so in that sense I’m also uneducated.
I didn’t have the mind for Uni stuff either esp. the maths stuff. There are so many areas. I just liked doing webdev stuff in my freetime and that landed me a few jobs.
I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer an injury! From what I understand, your experience now and your interest outside of work counts for more than the paper degree so if you do choose to continue that path I wouldn’t worry too much about being uneducated. Good luck, I hope you find happiness in whatever you do!
Thank you very much! Yess school has never been for me but I’ve only been diagnosed with adhd when I was 21. so I’ve always struggled. I don’t know if it’s the perfect place for me, I’m still struggling from time to time, but let’s be honest who doesn’t. I never thought I could work 8 hours when I was younger. But here we are. So hopefully you can also find something you enjoy doing. And I wish the best for you too. Thanks again!
We have a principal software engineer who is a part-time farmer. He has chickens and cows.
Man I’m starting to think I’ve got the wrong hobbies. Maybe I do need to get out more.
Touch
grassgeese.
- rake in the lake
Might be one of the few times a Lemmy post related to me.
I have owned a farm for four years, and do engineering for fun. AMA
How did you get into owning a farm, and what led you to engineering?
My grandfather is/was an electrician for over 60 years. Worked on very important projects in New York City. This rubbed off on me growing up. I spent much of my childhood taking things apart, figuring out how they worked, and putting them back together how I liked. I’ve been working on both hardware and software since I was 11. Had the privilege to study CS formally in high school, and Computer Engineering in university.
Good timing mostly got me into farming, especially since interest rates fell to the floor during the pandemic. Had enough to buy the acreage I wanted, and the wife was interested in helping out. We grow a variety of things now, and not just plants. For example we sell Honey, Soaps, Walnuts, and Mushrooms. It can be hard on the body to be so active all the time, but it is more satisfying than a monitor staring back at you at 3am because of some small incident.
I continue to tinker, and assist startups in my spare time, I can’t imagine I will ever stop programming.
I feel like the progression of my “Programming shelf” says a lot about my career trajectory as well.
The programmer to homesteader pipeline is real.
Just know that complete self sufficiency is a pipe dream, whereas community sufficiency is much more achievable
I wholeheartedly agree, I’ve been going down the pipeline myself and this has been my approach. Recently I’ve been working with family and neighbors to get a community garden going.
What are those books on Doom and Wolfenstein? Is it the game development black book by sanglard? That’s the book I found with a bit of searching
Yes, those are the Game Engine Black Books (Doom|Wolfenstein) by Fabien Sanglard. Highly recommended for anyone interested in games, programming, and history. They are amazing time capsules of those games and the development environments that produced them. I think/hope he’s working on GEBB: Quake and I’m so excited for him to eventually release it!
I’m gonna have to snag that doom book. I love low level programming and I’ve heard a lot about how hacky game dev used to be and that just excites me
Oh you’re going to be in heaven, it’s one of my favorite books! He really gets into everything: how the game is structured, how different subsystems work (BSP trees, enemy ai, sound, music, every detail), and even gets into peripheral things like how the game was distributed, how the (old) console ports came about, and so much more. The copy on my shelf is actually my third because i keep giving them away to people.
This looks uncannily like my shelf, I’m trying to buy land now for my permaculture forest 😭
You read some Thoreau and immediately wanted to leave society behind lol, I see you took his lessons to heart.
The other pivot point is The Pragmatic Programmer, which is totally understandable.
That book does a good job of grounding the reader through examples and parables from everywhere else but IT. By the end, you realize that good software engineering makes the best of general problem-solving skills, rather than some magical skillset peculiar to computing. You wind up reaching a place where you can begin to solve nearly any problem through use of the same principles. So @codex here, perhaps effortlessly, went on to management instead.
Yeah… But right to left or left to right… Lol.
Thanks for reminding me about Art of Shen Ku. Friend had a copy years and years ago and from time to time I would remember reading parts but could never remember the title. Cheers!
I love ‘DEBT’ lurking on the bottom there.
Judging by The Dawn of Everything sitting next to it, I’d guess that book is Debt: The First 5000 years by David Graeber!
I feel like we are all agreeing here
Damn it! It’s Duck, Duck, Grey Duck! NOT goose!
***A Minnesotan argues about the important stuff
The Venn diagram overlap of senior+ programmers and farmers is oddly large
This isn’t a shit post, its the truth
You ever been around geese? Those terrible shits take shits everywhere, all the time. Loud, nasty birds.
Maybe if enough programmers become goose farmers they’ll be able to reprogram geese.
You ever been around Microsoft management? It’s an improvement.
Wtf does a goose farmer even produce
geese
its the last layer for my gooturducken
That sounds incredibly niche. Why not raise chickens or ducks :/
Bigger eggs and more meat. The cobra chicken is also a great security system.
Maybe they’re raising an army of nature’s angriest animal.
You say that, but have you ever met a Sandhill Crane? They started coming back, and people think they’re wonderful and majestic. Then they get too close, and find out they’re feathery balls of pure hate with pointy beaks that will send you to the emergency room.
Appreciate Sandhills from a distance.
Peak performance. I love them.
Currently have 26 ducks and one goose on my farm so I get it.
Honestly jealous
