Bob "Not Just The Coding Slave Guy" Reselman blogs about his interview with Microsoft and sneaks a real gem of a quote in near the end: If you tolerate something, you insist upon it (by the way, Reselman cites Jim McCarthy as being the source for this remark).
This really got me thinking. So often in work -- and life in general -- we're tempted to settle for the easy way out or to take the path of short term convenience. In programming it usually bites you in the ass, turning January's easy fix into March's nightmare code overhaul. Since we've recently added a new puppy to our household I'm hyper-sensitive to what we let the dog get away with; we can't tolerate her eating our cats, for example -- to the malleable puppy brain it's the same as if we're insisting upon her eating the cats! If you tolerate something, you insist upon it speaks on many levels!
In a way we're all these malleable puppy brains running amok . . .