Slashdot Mirror
Quirky Engineers Gone the Way of the Dinosaur?
Milican writes "I think its time we ask our fellow Slashdotters, 'is there still room in a company for a quirky 'guru', or are projects so large now by necessity team-based development rules.' Read this article on Embedded.com and decide for yourself." I think this article didn't describe someone really 'quirky' though - it was someone who didn't really want to work.
He just didnt want to work.
There is always room for individualism and outright wierdness on a team, as long as the person can communicate and somewhat meet deadlines.
However, the best developers and engineers I have ever known are always out working on personal projects. Its a way to get your juices flowing when you have been stumped on a problem for a few days/weeks.
If it only lasts a day or so, and only happens every few weeks, it was encouraged in all the teams I've been in.
This piece raises more questions than it answers.
I'm curious about how the quirky one managed to demonstrate mastery of the system he was being employed to develop, yet so spectacularly failed when he actually had to produce the goods. Certainly it seems like he didn't have single-minded attention on the job in hand (but even engineers deserve a life).
I'd be interested to hear his side of the story: there could have been plenty of internal organisational reasons or technical reasons why he didn't gel, which the author of the piece may not be so forthcoming about.
And, if his body odour was really a problem to his inter-relationships with colleagues (and it sounds like it was), why did he not obtain medical help? (Or work from home?)
It all smells a bit one-sidedly fishy to me.
You can never eat too much, only cycle too little.
the difference here is that your quirky guy s good, while the one in hte article is just quirky . . .
heck, if all you want is quirky, just go downtown in any big city . . .
hawk
"Guru"? Nothing he did worked. How, exactly, did this person attain "guru" status? Sure, the guy trying to get rid of him claimed he had knowlege, but why assume he had skills? (Esp. for the people posting without reading the article.)
There's an amusing stereotype at work in the posts here... we are automatically granting "guru" status because he is quirky. Sorry, I still look for skillz, and all the evidence suggests that was lacking. (Uncommented assembly may indicate guru status, but only when it works... when it doesn't work, it indicates an overestimation of personal skill. Not much middle ground here.)
The fact is that there is every bit as much room for an exceptionally talented person to bend the rules as there ever has been. Our definition of exceptionally talented is rising, though. (Besides, eccentricity itself seems to be on the decline.)
That said, we don't live in Utopia - some programmers are simply better than others, but if you don't have a process in place to support migration and redistribtion of that work load, you will regret it.
Being one of these somewhat quirky, highly individual, 11 year *.com techies, I have some insight on this issue.
First, the type of person mentioned in this article is more like a corporate myth in the sense of an urban myth. I have rarely come across such useless people and have never tolerated them in my environments. If the author of this article had spent the time it took to type it on interviewing the candidate I am sure he could have avoided the whole situation.
Frankly there is some merit to what the point the author is trying to make, altho not perhaps the exact point.
There is little tolerance in the corporate market right now for individual thinkers, loners if you will, and especially to guru's seeking lots of perks even if it is for lots of good work. This is somewhat understandable, I mean, how many of you have had engineers over-use the flexible schedule you allow them? How many of you have had to insist that your employees wear their shoes when running around the office, not sleep under their desk, or to get some dandruff shampoo? I am sure there are plenty of these cases.
Unfortunately, the cattle of corporate culture have had a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the whole 'crash' and the climate is rediculously herd-like. This is not the answer, and frankly this type of extremism won't last just as the type of free-wheeling internet company culture didn't.
To give you an example: The vendor of our new billing, provisioning, and CRM system had informed one of our developers that they had completed his assigned project for him: integrating a web based filemanager into their system. Of course QA signed off on it but it was never really tested. Four days before the launch, it was noticed by a support person and brought to general attention that the program authenticated but didn't work at all. Basically, the vendor did a small portion of the work.
Being the most Sr. technical person and the most proficient developer in house (I run R&D and Eng.), I end up being the 'buck-stops-here' guy. So, I spent that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday working from home 18 hours per day to complete the integration work, full regression testing, and documentation.
On monday, the CEO calls me and his other direct reports into a meeting at 9:00am. I was expecting significant praise for getting a tough project done in time to save the launch date of a 7 month project. What I got instead was a general message to send to my staff and the rest of the company that we must be at the office working from 9:00am till 6:00pm mon-fri regardless.
When I asked him how he would address the issue of me working from home (we have a very interruptive workplace) in order to complete the a key task on time and extensive use of my personal time, he basically responded that he wanted me to do the work at the office (including the Saturday work) and made some comment about being paid the big-bucks... This discussion degraded into him sharing his perception that all of the technology group was over-paid and under-performing. He made some exeption for me, saying I worked hard just was over-paid. He also has the impression that job market is so bad that we must accept his perceptions. All of us made cases in return and he waved them off without further discussion (he is a pretty bad manager when it comes to conflict).
Of course I will do what is asked. I am quirky, individual, driven, but am a team player. I also know how to make a point. The next time this sort of thing happens (which is often), I'll insist on being paid the OT in my contract. I'll also go back to making him personally call me when he needs help from me on my time when the operations team is unable to fix a problem.
Altho this sounds like so much bitching, my friends in similar situations all tell similar stories. Even tho they are successfull, productive, typically over-worked, gurus, they are treated like they resemble the man mentioned in the article above. It's unfortunate, but this is reality for many. Far more real and far more common than type type of situation portrayed in the article on embedded.com.
How do I handle it? Patience. For now, I just wait. The *.com boom had an end, the *.com crash will too. I try to show good work, productivity, and I try to be more agreeable. I keep my more innovative ideas to myself, saved for a time when they are more acceptable to the herd.
rr.
the thing is though -- you CANT run a software business like an assembly line. there is no blueprint - every project is unique. systems change often, bugs crop up in everything from the OS, compiler to the development platform. it takes creativity to fix all that and an assembly line drone simply will not have that creativity.
i've gone days doing nothing simply because my mind was a blank -- i couldnt code. ive gone thru periods where i can code 24/7 and not even feel it. you can impose a 9-5 schedule but then the productivity of your best programmers will plummet like a rock. would you rather have the product up and running with a minimal of bugs in 8 months or 4 years ? i've been on a project where i threw out every single line of code developed over 4 YEARS by multiple consultants (4-5 mil $'s) with an aseembly line approach and rewrote the whole thing in 8 months to produce a working and sellable product. what would you rather have ?
Six developers, four managers.
Wow, no wonder it costs $12 to cash a check.
Though somewhat dated now, there's a great section from one of the stories ("Ex Machina," 1948) which could have been written today: "The social trend always lags behind the technological one...moreover, an electronic duplicator could infringe not only on patents but on property right, and attroneys prepared volumious breifs on such issues as whether "rarity rights" are real property...the world, slightly punch-drunk on technology, was trying desperately to walk a straight line...It was all perfectly clear to the technicians, but they were much too impractical to be consulted; they were apt to remark "So my gadget unstabilizes property rights? Well-why have property rights then?"
Not bad for half a century before Napster...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
You are making the faulty assumption that "quirky" stands for "less productive". The Internet itself was made - and made useful - by folks that could be considered "quirky". They were there first. The types who focused more on their outward appearance came later. The "cooling of the economy", or to put it more accurately, "total failure of the bullshit hype machine", reflects rather poorly on their contributions, while there are many who are quirky, knowledgable, and productive who still remain, and will be there when know-nothings like you come crawling back.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I've been on a lot of projects and there are two types of 'Quirky' developers that I've come across. The first is the long haired hippy type. They may have short hair, but the have the sole of someone from Oakland. These are the guys that no every odd little thing about their operating system of choice. They play D&D. They code like demons. Sometimes a project can't live without them. Usually nobody even notices they are gone. The second 'quirky' type is much more sublte. He's the one with the wierd laugh. He's probably annoying. He may smell but probably doesn't. Management usually hates him but every once in a while he become management. These are the guys who don't get the girl. They don't get the program. They couldn't tell you what the scores to the game were last weekend and they definetly don't even know what games were played last weekend. Their attention is on their code. They are the people who everybody else goes to for help. These are the people that other programmer's look up to. They are 'quirky' true. But they are programmers and developers and without fail if a company chases one of these guys away the company won't produce anything good after that. If you're Microsoft you may have a dozen or two dozen of these guys and may two or three hundred of the other type.
Fancy tricks like XP and Scrum are nice buzz words from people who don't code in the trenches anymore, but, if you scare away the chief guru then you might as well shut the door to the business. I've seen that happen at least three times.
There is a difference between 'Guru' and 'Wierdo' and the author should have known better.
Beware the wood elf!!!