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When Developers Work Late, Should the Manager Stay?
jammag writes "A veteran developer looks back — in irritation — at those times he had to work late and his unskilled manager stayed too, just to look over his shoulder and add worry and fret to the process. Now, that same developer is a manager himself — and recently stayed late to ride herd over late-working developers. 'And guess what? Yep, I hadn't coded in years and never in the language he had to work with.' Yet now he understood: his own butt was on the line, so he was staying put. Still, does it really help developers to have management hovering on a late evening, even if the boss handles pizza delivery?"
My boss has the perfect answer for this:
Get everyone set up with dinner/beverages. Then, go home, sign in from there, walk away from the computer and keep the pager close.
We page him if we need anything, or when we get finished.
Out of our hair, but still handy if needed. Perfect.
My favorite was when my manager would ask "on a scale of 0-100%, where are we on (x)?" One of my coworkers working on the installation scripting got fed up with it and answered:
"It's at 0% because it doesn't fucking work. It will remain at 0% until I work all the bugs out of it. When I get that last bug fixed, it'll magically jump to 100%. Let me be so I can finish it!"
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Many years ago a colleague told me a tale (with misty eyes) of a former boss who'd done exactly that - when everyone had to work through a weekend he came in first, left last and appointed himself as chief coffee maker and senior takeout waiter.
That kind of stuff breeds loyalty in employees. You'd think more managers would realize this. Especially if the manager's attitude is a humble one about clearing away problems and taking responsibility for issues and decisions. If you put that together in a positive work environment I'll stick around. Heck, I stuck around far too many years at one job that was a clear dead-end for me because I loved working with the team and my boss was a real mensch. Hard to find nice environments like that.
Sadly, they took that boss out in a political coup. It seems he was too focused on doing a good job managing and building a great team to spend the necessary time on politics, back-stabbing, and subterfuge. The details involved having his IT department's budget gutted to buy a penthouse for the CFO.
I recall a question used (many years ago) on some OCS exams. A detailed list of available materials was supplied, along with a sketch of the terrain surrounding a portion of a stream. The question was "How would you build a bridge capable of carrying jeeps across this stream?" The correct answer was "Sergeant, take these men and this pile of stuff and build a bridge across this stream. I'll be back in three hours." Some incorrect answers did get people into various specialist training programs.
"Part of my job is clearing the BS that I have to deal with from my directs' path so that they can do their best work"
Indeed, that is the most important part of the job.
I've been a boss and found it wasn't worth the aggravation. The best boss I ever worked with (as opposed to for) had been in the business for 40yrs yet he could make you feel like you were telling him something new when you answered his "silly" questions. He was a cockney and tough as nails but only brought out that side when his considerable charm and patience didn't work. He's dead now and they just don't make gentlemen like that anymore.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.