"Sign off on the process"
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I can't remember which of my books I put this story in, but here's one from a major telecom company I worked at. I needed to meet with a programmer from another department to discuss the API our two systems would use to talk to each other. Just two geeks and a white board. That's all we needed. Except for the fact that said departments were at war... Two programmers, my boss (who knew what was coming and wanted to watch my back), his boss, her boss, the counterparts on the other team, and the executive vice president over both groups. Five, count 'em, five layers of management in order for two geeks to discuss a simple protocol. They literally spent 45 minutes or so rambling on in corporate-speak about "interdepartmental dynamics" and other such drivel, as we two programmers had to sit silently. Finally, having run out of patience (and tact), I spoke up and asked the VP what the hell they were doing in my meeting. I was told, as if to a small child, that they needed to "sign off on the process." I'm still not sure what exactly that means, but I dove for the bathroom just in case...
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Coming soon: Got a career question? Ask the Attack Chihuahua! www.PracticalUSA.com
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I can't remember which of my books I put this story in, but here's one from a major telecom company I worked at. I needed to meet with a programmer from another department to discuss the API our two systems would use to talk to each other. Just two geeks and a white board. That's all we needed. Except for the fact that said departments were at war... Two programmers, my boss (who knew what was coming and wanted to watch my back), his boss, her boss, the counterparts on the other team, and the executive vice president over both groups. Five, count 'em, five layers of management in order for two geeks to discuss a simple protocol. They literally spent 45 minutes or so rambling on in corporate-speak about "interdepartmental dynamics" and other such drivel, as we two programmers had to sit silently. Finally, having run out of patience (and tact), I spoke up and asked the VP what the hell they were doing in my meeting. I was told, as if to a small child, that they needed to "sign off on the process." I'm still not sure what exactly that means, but I dove for the bathroom just in case...
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes Coming soon: Got a career question? Ask the Attack Chihuahua! www.PracticalUSA.com
I bet that somewhere on the internet there's a forum called "IT Geeks Hall of Shame", in contrast to this one, for the business guys at which you can read opposite side of the story. It could go something like this: "We had great brainstorming meeting about interdepartmental dynamics, when suddenly two geeks, I don’t even know why they were on that meeting, interrupted us with their rambling about XML, SOAP and stuff. I had to tell them to shut the hell up because we had to ‘sign off on the process’. Those geeks…”
Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)