[bb88]

Consider the statement: "You should be excited about building a website for (x) ." where x is one of the following:

A. Fecal sample collection.

B. Hardware fasteners.

C. Debt Collection.

D. US Tax Code parsing

E. HR regulatory compliance

I believe the reality is that most jobs are boring. Even if you're working in a business you're deeply motivated by, there's lots of ho-hum positions that need to be filled.

[ALittleLight]

You've picked a funny first example. I've actually wanted to work on software related to fecal sample collection and am passionate about it.

I have an intestinal issue - and as a result I'm always watching out for signs of problems in my own stool. There are obvious indicators - e.g. black tarry stool suggests a bleed in upper intestine.

One issue is that it's kind of hard to get good pictures to compare to. Google images will show you some examples, but not examples of false positives. Is your stool partially pale white because you ate a ton of marshmallows recently, or because you have an obstruction in your bile duct?

A doctor once suggested I had Crohn's Disease (luckily, didn't) and I joined the subreddit for it and was pretty horrified by what I read.

A big issue with Crohn's is understanding the relationship between what you eat and how well your digestive system preforms. This is something that tracking software could help with - I imagine taking a picture of food and of your excrement and then ML on the backend sorts everything out and makes dietary suggestions.

Users could also annotate their images with additional insights or notes like "I have condition X - this sample is a good indicator of X" and curious users could image match pictures of potentially problematic stool to the annotated repository.

My point is - plenty of people are passionate about random subjects that may seem dull to you. Plenty more people can get passionate because even a random topic likely has immense depth and nuance to it.

I find coworkers that aren't passionate are a drag to work with. I want to make something useful and good to solve a real problem. If you are just there to do the bare minimum to collect a paycheck - that's very annoying, you're more of an obstacle to work around than a teammate. You can hire people like that if you don't have better options, but hopefully there are better options!

[bb88]

Awesome. Welcome to your first "Fecal Sample Corp." interview.

Are you passionate about programming on the IBM AS400 platform? Our parent company never upgraded their infrastructure for the past 40 years, as it was deemed too risky.

[bigyikes]

Give me B! Fasteners are fun.

Have you been to mcmaster.com?

It’s a master class in online shopping UX. Their fastener section is a joy to browse :)

[m463]

> Fasteners are fun

some screw types are fun. I like allen which is pretty positive engagement, and can even take ball-headed drivers. Torx is pretty positive too. I don't like slotted that much (driver doesn't self-center and tends to slide out the side). In the middle is phillips (and/or pozidrive / jis). Easy to center and use, but frequently strips out if the driver is at an angle or too little downforce is applied.

It's also fun to find the perfect tool for the job. I'm surprised nobody makes a "mechanics tool set" that is completely based on 1/4" hex driver bits with positive engagement. Organized to do all kinds of screws, plus sockets to do nuts and bolts.

[bb88]

I think some people enjoy taking a classification nightmare like fasteners, and turning out a good product. Most people just see it as a quagmire.

[kelnos]

I think you vastly underestimate the variety of the things humans will be passionate about.

But sure, many people will still be doing jobs that they aren't passionate about, and that's fine. Passion shouldn't be a requirement. Maybe it's a bonus, though, both for the employer and employee.

[chongli]

Isn’t it enough to be passionate about your own work, taking pride in your ability to do a great job without taking too long?

[fbdab103]

Well, I am suddenly interested in option A, because I like to imagine everyone enjoys a good laugh about what a crappy place it is to work.

[userbinator]

A and B sound actually interesting while C, D, and E are likely going to be highly bureaucratic quagmires.

[bb88]

Keep in mind that A would be a highly regulated by the FDA, as is all health portals in the US.

B would be a classification quagmire.