ouch!; stot; Some Workplace Guidance For A Challenging Year

If you’re in the U.S. and have today off and cannot muster the strength to attend a local or regional protest (there are many happening today), please do not beat yourself up about that. This is going to be an even worse year than we’ve experienced in the last 4-ish weeks, and you need to rest as much as you need to fight.

Also, please identify the public health resources on your State web sites. You cannot count on the centralized federal CDC for help or information anymore.

With that joyful news out of the way, today we look at a couple new-ish CLI tools and offer some guidance for one way to help stay gainfully employed for the rest of 2025.

TL;DR

(This is an AI-generated summary of today’s Drop using Ollama + llama 3.2 and a custom prompt.)

• Ouch is a unified command-line tool that simplifies file compression and decompression across multiple formats, including tar, zip, 7z, and more, with support for chained compression formats (https://crates.io/crates/ouch)
• Stot provides a human-friendly alternative to the traditional stat command, displaying file system information in an easily readable format with clear permissions, sizes, and timestamps (https://github.com/stephenlacy/stot)
• Comprehensive workplace guidance for 2025 emphasizes the importance of documenting achievements, maintaining regular check-ins with management, and preparing effectively for performance reviews through structured 1:1 meetings and thorough documentation practices.

ouch!

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Ouch (GH) simplifies file compression and decompression through an intuitive command-line interface. The name, which stands for “Obvious Unified Compression Helper,” reflects its core purpose — to streamline archival tasks that traditionally required multiple specialized tools.

The program handles an extensive range of formats including tar, zip, 7z, gz, xz, lzma, bz2, bz3, lz4, Snappy (sz), zst, and rar. An especially spiffy feature is the ability to process files with chained compression formats, such as tar.gz or more complex combinations like tar.xz.zst.gz.lz4.sz. While Ouch supports most formats fully, RAR operations are limited to decompression and listing due to licensing restrictions.

Folks interact with Ouch through straightforward commands. To decompress a file, they simply type “ouch decompress archive.zip”. Compression follows a similar pattern: “ouch compress file1.txt file2.txt archive.tar.gz”. The contents of any archive can be viewed using “ouch list archive.zip”.

On Linux x86_64 systems, Ouch runs without additional dependencies, making it particularly lightweight. Installation options include package managers like pacman for Arch Linux and Scoop for Windows users, or through Cargo for those with Rust installed.

The tool’s intelligent format works super well. When encountering files without extensions, it analyzes their signatures and confirms the format with the caller. This automatic detection, combined with comprehensive error messages and built-in accessibility features, work in tandem to create a more human-friendly experience compared to traditional compression utilities.

With Ouch, you never need to remember different syntaxes for tar, gzip, unzip, and other format-specific tools. Instead, it provides a unified interface that handles everything from basic zip files to complex multi-layered archives, complete with shell completions and manual pages for additional guidance.

stot

Command line tools are great, but they can be gnarly to grok — especially much older ones that seem to assume you have chip-level knowledge of the systems you’re working on.

Enter stot, a tool that offers a more human-friendly alternative to the traditional stat command.

Developed by Stephen Lacy, it transforms the typically cryptic file system information into more digestible output. While the conventional stat command presents raw numerical data, stot renders the same information in a format that’s immediately comprehensible to folks without requiring mental translation of permission bits or timestamp formats.

When examining files through stot, you’ll receive output that includes:

• The file type and permissions in both numeric and symbolic notation (like “rw-r--r--”)
• File sizes in human-readable units (kB, MB, etc.)
• Timestamps in a clear datetime format
• The file path

For example, instead of parsing through stat’s output:

File: example.txt
Size: 3558
Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 16h/22d    Inode: 28185     Links: 1
Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--)

stot would present it as:

file 100644 (rw-r--r--) 3.47 kB "2025-01-27 23:26" - example.txt

It’s written in Rust and can be easily installed using Cargo, Rust’s package manager. Its straightforward interface accepts both direct file paths and piped input from commands like ls, making it a versatile addition to any toolkit for file system inspection.

Some Workplace Guidance For A Challenging Year

(This section is a tad out of the norm for these Drops (though we have covered this topic on occasion.)

I won’t sugar coat this: the upcoming year (let’s not look past that rignt now) is going to be brutally challenging in the U.S.; and, what starts here tends to spillover to the rest of the working world.

While we all must do what we can to help others, you also need to make sure you’re oxygen mask is on, and one of those masks is ensuring you’re still gainfully employed come December 31st. Part of that is ensuring you’re having regular, meaningful check-ins with your management chain and key stakeholders, and that you document the heck out of your accomplishments. At the very worst, this will provide concrete evidence to take to an employment attorney, and — at best — help you thrive in your work environment.

Use your quarterly and annual reviews (create quarterly ones if you don’t have them already) as markers to reach. This will help you prepare for them on a daily and weekly basis. This preparation does not have to be stressful. Let’s walk through one system (which you can and should modify) that can help you prepare effectively and ensure fair evaluation through smart documentation and regular check-ins. I’m being tersely prescriptive, so please reach out (Signal is recommended) if you have any questions.

Making Your 1:1 Meetings Work for You

Regular one-on-one meetings with your manager serve two key purposes:

1. They keep you and your manager on the same page about expectations
2. They create a clear record of your achievements and growth

What to Cover in Each 1:1

Track these four areas in your meetings to build a strong foundation for reviews:

1. Progress on Goals
   • Update specific metrics for your projects
   • Share examples of problems you’ve solved
   • Connect your work to team/company priorities
2. Professional Development
   • Record completed training and certifications
   • Document new responsibilities you’ve taken on
   • Note instances of working across teams
3. Feedback Collection
   • Save positive feedback from colleagues and clients (remember to give public, positive feedback to others, too)
   • Note your manager’s input on strengths and areas for growth
   • Include your own reflections on your performance
4. Career Planning
   • Discuss potential promotions or role changes
   • Identify skills you need to develop
   • Track leadership opportunities you’ve taken

Preparing for Quarterly Reviews

Before the Review

1. _Self-Assessment-
   • Keep a running list of achievements
   • Document how you’ve handled challenges
   • Collect informal feedback from colleagues
2. Stakeholder Input
   • Touch base with people you work with regularly
   • Get specific examples of your impact
   • Make sure you understand how you’ll be evaluated
3. Evidence Collection
   • Gather project metrics (speed, impact, quality)
   • Document any innovations or improvements you’ve created
   • Include customer satisfaction data

Keeping Good Records

Smart Documentation Practices

1. Performance Journal
   • Date each significant achievement
   • Save screenshots of positive feedback
   • Keep brief summaries of important meetings
2. Fair Comparison Data_
   • Know the typical pay range for your role
   • Understand normal promotion timelines
   • Track your workload compared to peers
3. Fairness Checks
   • Note if evaluation criteria seem unclear
   • Document any resource or opportunity gaps
   • Watch for consistency in feedback across teams

Making the Most of Manager Meetings

Meeting Protocol

1. Before
   • Share your agenda early with supporting information
   • Highlight key achievements
   • Bring up any concerns with proposed solutions
2. During
   • Take notes on any goal changes
   • Get clear confirmation of expectations
   • Agree on how success will be measured
3. After
   • Email a summary of what was agreed
   • Update your documentation
   • Schedule follow-up checks

Protecting Your Interests

Fair Process Documentation

1. Know Your Rights
   • Get timely access to review criteria
   • Ensure you can present your accomplishments
   • Check that standards are applied consistently
2. Prepare for Disagreements
   • Keep historical performance data
   • Save supporting statements from colleagues
   • Note any departures from normal evaluation processes

Key Takeaways

Success in performance reviews comes from:

1. Regular progress tracking in weekly/biweekly 1:1s
2. Building strong relationships with colleagues
3. Keeping clear, consistent documentation
4. Understanding your rights in the review process

Hopefully y’all are doing most if not all of this already. If not, it is vitally important you create and follow some similar cadence. The workplace is no longer (it never truly was) a place to “fly casual”, as Han might say.

FIN

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