Hate the game if you want, don't pretend it isn't being played

When I was in college I worked at a bar that had a pool room. I played a lot when it was slow and after hours. I got pretty good on those tables. Only "pretty good" and only on those tables ... I knew where the dead spots were in the rails.

If I put anything on the game, it was usually who bought the next round. Sometimes we couldn't drink as fast as we played, and we'd go for a dollar a game. We were all friends, and it was just to make the game more interesting.

But every so often someone would come in who none of us recognized. You could usually tell really fast who was better than just a casual player. Sometimes they'd see if they could get a game for $5. I'd always take them up on it. And I always won the first game.

Then they'd ask for a rematch ... let them win their money back. I'd take that game, too. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes not. But I was breaking even so I didn't care. It was usually after the second game that they'd look at their watch and realize they had somewhere they needed to be. But they had time for one more game.

How about one last round for $50?

No.

How about $30?

No.

Come on, give me a chance to win it back!

No, you're a better pool player than I am. But you suck at reading people. You thought I didn't know you were throwing the first two games.

That's when they'd get pissed. It wasn't fair that I took their money even though they could beat me without trying hard. I was just a punk-ass bitch that couldn't carry their stick.

Yup. But I had their money, and they were leaving.

If I wanted to, I could have spent the equivalent of a full-time job becoming a professional level pool player. I would have run into diminishing returns as I was going up against ever stronger competition. It would have dominated my life, and the only way to make a steady living would be constant travel.

Plus there'd be no retirement plan. Your earnings stop the moment you stop playing. The skills don't translate to anything else worthwhile.

So I stayed in school and learned to be a programmer, which doesn't suffer from any of those negatives. </sarcasm>

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Hmm, that came out a lot longer (and a lot faster) than I expected. It all started from one idea, though: You don't win by being better, you win by playing better. And you start by knowing what game you're playing.

When you're in an interview, you're playing the "get the job" game. Once you have the job you're in the "impress the decision-makers" game. If you go the uISV route you're in the "sell the most product" game.

Being better at coding is one of the plays in each of those playbooks. But it's not the one they keep score with.