The Bosses Do Everything Better (or So They Think)

theodp writes "Some people, writes Dave Winer, make the mistake of thinking that if the result of someone's work is easy to use, the work itself must be easy. Like the boss — or boss's boss's boss — who asks for your code so he can show you how to implement the features he wants instead of having to bother to explain things. Give the code to him, advises Winer. If he pulls it off, even poorly, at least you'll know what he was asking for. And if he fails, well, he might be more patient about explaining what exactly he wants, and perhaps even appreciate how hard your work is. Or — more likely — you may simply never hear from him again. Win-win-win. So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better boss?"

Comments

It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DCTech]

Programmers themselves really often make the mistake of thinking that everyone else's job is simple and easy and doesn't require much knowledge, or that companies should be spending more resources on programmers and IT than other departments. Best example is sales and marketing people. Programmers think it is completely unnecessary, but quite frankly, they would perform really poorly trying to do that kind of work. And I say this is a programmer-since-I-was-a-kid, but only picked up some sales and marketing skills after becoming an adult (I run my own business).

I think I also know why programmers suck at sales and marketing people. Programmers, and geeks, quite often lack the social skills and knowledge of human psychology to succeed in it. I know I used to, and many slashdotters say they'd rather be left alone to work on code. Frankly, these are important skills. Programmers have the ability to read code, error messages and everything else that is presented to them as facts and clearly. They have the mindset of a computer, "do x, get y". What they lack is reading people and other things when it isn't presented to them in a straight, clear form. Programmers fail to see subtle hints and expressions. They need it in clear. Maybe it's a difference in brain or something. It's also why so many people with Asperger syndrome are overly fascinated by computers. They also cannot read subtly things, they need it in clear. Code, compiler messages and computers provide that.

Which is also why I don't understand why programmers and IT usually put down other departments like sales and marketing. Maybe because they don't understand that it is actually hard work, and requires learning just like you do with programming books. Yes, some people will be good at it naturally, but majority aren't. It's the same with programmers and pretty much anything. The fact is, sales and marketing is hard work. It's especially hard to do it correctly, as it's usually the sales and marketing people that are responsible for the product gaining any users.

You can have everything right in your product but if no one knows about it and if there's no one telling you what would your product improve on the persons work or life, then your product is almost useless. This same trend can be seen with Linux and to an extend with some Google (and other geeky companies) products. Just throwing something at wall to see if it sticks doesn't work. You need to do your research, you need to interact with your customers and most importantly, you need to provide them with something that actually fixes a need they have. "But GPL is free, and leads to code liberation" frankly doesn't cut it. Most people care about their own needs, and that does nothing about them. Sales and marketing people are good at researching, reading and telling people, from the customer point of view, that what would it fix in their lives, and it is an essential skill.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[mikael_j]

Wow, you really have a thing for sales and marketing, don't you?

Personally I have plenty of social skills (although this may not be evident when I'm ranting on Slashdot) but I've also seen enough of the insides of sales and marketing departments to know I would never want to do that job. Even as a developer I've had to implement various schemes by these people and no matter how many times they smile like used car salesmen and repeat the "Oh, it's not lying or making them want something they don't need, we're simply making them understand that they needed something they didn't know they needed" mantra I can't shake the feeling that they're basically making a living preying on others.

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

At the previous company I worked for I was the IT department. There were ~25 employees at the office and 10 shops with another 20 employees. There was more than average maintenance required for the equipment also, because of several reasons. One of them being that everything was poorly setup to begin with. I didn't even have the time to properly fix the setups (yes, multiple horribly setup systems) and I was already working overtime - unpaid.
The marketing manager was a girl with mediocre skills, you can probably guess why she got that position. Some of the other managers were actually up to scratch, but not all. On top of that, they were paid at least 3 times my salary.

This is about just one employee and one company, but I'm sure there are too many people out there who've had similar experiences.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[L4t3r4lu5]

Anecdote, to offer validity your point; A few years ago I was asked to implement a forum by my boss as part of a website we were building. I downloaded and implemented phpBB, and everything was hunky-dory. He invited me to the sales meeting to describe the product and demonstrate how easy it is to moderate and administrate.

I was asked how much this all cost, and I said "Well, we can't charge you for phpBB; It's free software. What you would pay is for the knowledge of setting it up and any support you require."

Thankfully the folks laughed and asked the sales guy the same question, but his face had gone the darkest colour of red I've ever seen a person go. I wasn't there much longer :D

I have no respect for sales staff; They are weasels barely any better than lawyers. I do, however, recognise that they make the money for the company by selling the stuff that's produced, and that they are a necessary evil which should be tolerated. Thankfully, working in the public sector, I don't have to deal with them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I was with you right until the last paragraph. LOL, you really can turn _anything_ into anti-Google or anti-Linux spin, can't you?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Mick R]

Which is also why I don't understand why programmers and IT usually put down other departments like sales and marketing. Maybe because they don't understand that it is actually hard work, and requires learning just like you do with programming books. Yes, some people will be good at it naturally, but majority aren't. It's the same with programmers and pretty much anything. The fact is, sales and marketing is hard work. It's especially hard to do it correctly, as it's usually the sales and marketing people that are responsible for the product gaining any users.

My personal experience and that of others I have talked to suggests that IT people, being particularly rooted in facts and logic, have little respect for people who routinely dance around pulling promises out of their backsides about products they don't understand and then expect the coders to just "sort it out" because the marketoids think they are the only ones bringing money into the business. It's also the same marketoids that get bonuses for sales that wouldn't have been possible if the coders hadn't put in huge amounts of unpaid overtime modifying production code to include ( non existent) features that the marketoids promised the customer without consulting the production team first. Sales and Marketing deserve respect? When they learn to SHOW some respect and act like team players THEN they might deserve something other than justified contempt.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DarkOx]

I dont think it's that most programmers don't recognize that sales and marketing folks have a difficult job as well or that they think they could do it better. They have a different culture. Programmers don't generally have a sense of entitlement, sales and marketing people usually do. I think the way compensation is often done feeds into it. They all work on commission and they all are usually pitted against each other in some fashion with leader boards etc.

They come to us with that same strong incentive to have it yesterday and done to their satisfaction regardless of the resources needed, few companies manage to account for those costs specifically enough to tie it back to that sales guys margin and they know it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DCTech]

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it. It's also making it easier for customers to buy your services or products, and letting them know such product exists (to fix a need, again). What is so immoral about that?

I've stumbled upon many programmers who are trying to sell their products to customers but they lack total understanding of it. They want to spend time with the product, and almost loathe customers (which is shared feeling between lots of geeks and programmers). But you can't run a business like that. You need someone to take care of the customers and researching what their product can fix. "Here is the thing, maybe it does something for you" isn't really good selling point. You need to figure out and tell the customer what he would gain by buying your product or service, from the customers point of view.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[buchner.johannes]

Well at some point when you have a product you want to make it known to people that it exists. Whether you force it down peoples throat or remain with the facts is a question of style.
So here you don't answer the question of whether marketing/sales is an important/necessary/hard job to do -- You don't like a common style of doing it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is also why I don't understand why programmers and IT usually put down other departments like sales and marketing. Maybe because they don't understand that it is actually hard work, and requires learning just like you do with programming books.

It's not because the sales and marketing people suck at sales and marketing and engineers think they can do it better. It's because the sales and marketing people promise features to the customers before they've even been proposed to engineering. Or they will demand some ridiculous feature ONLY because a competitor product has it. The fact that the feature is stupid or takes resources away from implementing real features that would add value is irrelevant to them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DCTech]

It's not an anti-Google or anti-Linux spin, those are just good examples that everyone knows. Linux is struggling to get market share, and while Google has successful products, they have tons of which they just cancel or someone never hears about (or has a reason to use). For example, see this story about the cancellation of Google Health. It's filled with people who haven't even heard about it, or didn't know why they'd use it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[complete loony]

The biggest gripe most programmers have with sales people is when they sell a feature that doesn't exist yet for a price that doesn't cover the cost to implement it. And somehow the sales person gets a bonus and the programmer has to work long hours and ends up with a bad performance review.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[kevingolding2001]

Oh, for the love of God, won't somebody with mod points please, please, please mod up the parent for producing this most eloquent and accurate description of marketing people everywhere.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[msobkow]

Experienced programmers lose that attitude about the value of other employee's work in a company. Sure some of us laugh at the stupid shit marketing comes up with, but we also know they're just doing their job. We keep complaining about management, but we learn to speak their language and explain things in their terms if we want to succeed. Only arrogant fools keep thinking they're superior to everyone else.

And how could it be otherwise?

After you've spent a few years making mistakes and correcting bugs in your code, you either lose the ego that you're infallible, or you drown in a sea of egotistical misery.

When a bug report is filed, the experienced programmer thinks "Oh shit. What did I miss."

The junior programmer thinks "Damn users. Always complaining. They don't know how anything works."

Nothing but experience can burn the ego out of a programmer. And either it gets burned out of your system, or you get frustrated enough to quit the industry.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[The Askylist]

From long experience, it's always best never to discuss costs with customers unless or until they ask you to do a foreigner for them. Then you ask them what they would pay your employers for the job and offer to do it for half that, in cash. Never fails ;-)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

If sales and marketing is about finding out what a person needs and a sales person finds out that what that person needs isn't something that they can supply, it is a rare sales and marketing person that will say so. They do exist. I speak to maybe one a year...

I regularly field calls from sales people trying to sell me stuff I don't need. It is a waste of my time. If these people were better at their jobs they would know that what I need is not to be talking to them.... I take a particular and instant dislike to the ones who try and setup meetings to discuss 'potential opportunities'. Particularly if they arrange the meeting themselves whilst talking at me and then try and end the call without actually having me agree to it. That is the perfect way to ensure I never place an order with your company.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[icebraining]

Linux is struggling to get market share

No, it's not. Ubuntu is struggling to get market share. Most other distros simply aren't interested in that, they write for themselves and for whoever finds them useful.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and you always fiind negative "good examples" in Linux/Google world and positive "good examples" in MS world, however counterintuitive/controversial (really, "Linux sucks because command line, Ribbon is hands-down greatest interface innovation"? Was this a good example in an article about FB privacy issues?)

Sapienti sat. I'll stop now before we go too far off topic.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[fred911]

"3 times my salary"

  Difference is you have a salary due to your marketing/sales department who generally don't have a SALARY.

IE: when they don't produce (income or work for you), they don't get paid.
   

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[chronosan]

Nobody tips the dishwasher.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[icebraining]

Well, maybe you think you shouldn't, but you can charge them. And the FSF actually says "we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can."

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget what "programmers themselves" think about OTHER people's jobs - programmers think this about their own jobs!! How often do you start something thinking it'll take half an hour, and it becomes a weekend project that you actually finish some time next week?

This goes for both code and systems administration. You often go on IRC after you've already tried doing something for a few hours or days, thinking it was no big deal. Of course, in retrospect, it isn't. Unless you can't get it to work at all, and give up after 40 hours - the most radical underestimation of all.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22but+I+could+never+get+it+to+work%22+%2BLinux

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

If marketing and sales are so about understanding peolple....how comes that it's almost impossible to explain to marketing and sales that something they're asking cannot be done or that there is not enought time?!? What would be your conclusion? That coders are not people or that MKT and sales just do/ask what they want and expect the others to fill the gap? The first answer looks impossible the second one dosn't require any skill from MKT and sales.
Here, we are 10 coders and 30 MKT,sales and teachers, I'm the onlyone that speaks both languages, but apparently they all should do by what you are saying.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[shic]

While I've met a few 'programmers' whose skill set is limited - requiring everything to be laid out in black and white... far more often, I find competent programmers are also deeply insightful analysts; innovative problem solvers; dedicated, hard-working and have an eye for accuracy and an ear for honesty. While you can resort to ad-hominem when people disagree with you, such attacks don't work on machines... with fallacious argument off-the-table, those who program are forced to exercise other skills.

I definitely respect sales and marketing - when it's done well. There's a real skill in creating a buzz about a product or service you can deliver - and in closing deals to generate revenue. However... this does not mean that anyone who associates themselves with sales or marketing is automatically above constructive criticism. A major problem for both sales and marketing is that there's a motivation to short-termism... Marketing can blame someone else if they create a buzz about a product that can never be delivered (and it's easier to get people excited about things that are impossible than the mundane...) Sales suffers from the ABC - "Always Be Closing" problem, too, where there is considerable motivation to promise anything, no matter how dishonest, to 'get the deal done' - especially when some convenient 'office politics' can lay the blame for any subsequent disaster at someone else's door.

The underlying problem with all this is management. If sales and marketing run amock - without clear instruction to the aims of the business - they'll run the company into the ground soon enough. Similar catastrophes hang in the balance with technical staff and R&D... Executives need to both respect their staff, and take responsibility for the big picture... They need to avoid the temptation to micromanage (which leads to inevitable failure); they need to learn to draw on the experience of others - and to delegate without washing their hands of a matter. Without suitable direction, you'll end up with a ramshackle bunch of people all blaming each other as the company fails... this is not the fault of the employees - per se... or, even, of day-to-day management... but of the executive. In large corporations where failure as an executive is rewarded similarly to success, we should expect this sort of organisation-wide failure to be endemic.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

When a bug report is filed, the experienced programmer thinks "Oh shit. What did I miss."

The junior programmer thinks "Damn users. Always complaining. They don't know how anything works."

And what if your first thought is "Is this really a bug or was this intentionally designed this way? If it wasn't, should it still work as it does or should I change it?"

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ccguy]

It's also the same marketoids that get bonuses for sales that wouldn't have been possible if the coders hadn't put in huge amounts of unpaid overtime modifying production code to include ( non existent) features that the marketoids promised the customer without consulting the production team first.

Well, try to see it another way:
1) It's possible that the marketing team promised those features because it was the only way to sell the product. Your attitude seems to be going to the marketing/sales team and saying "This is what we made, go sell it, even if it's not what you could sell".
2) How is it their fault that you do unpaid overtime? Don't do it or ask for it to be paid.

PS. I'm a developer but I've been around. I've been in a couple of places where the software team wasn't listening about what the potential customers wanted (we were too full of ourselves to listening to sales I guess) and the places went down of course. By the way a potential customer is someone how has the money to buy the product and is able to make a purchasing decision. It's not another developer who think some feature would be cool to have for some reason.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[dintech]

Write Java. (...like a boss!)
Do some sales. (...like a boss!)
Force it down your throat...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Programmers have the ability to read code, error messages and everything else that is presented to them as facts and clearly. [...] Code, compiler messages and computers provide that.

Unknown error, code -73285251

Standard load letter.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it. It's also making it easier for customers to buy your services or products, and letting them know such product exists (to fix a need, again). What is so immoral about that?

The immoral part is having to create an artificial need in order to make a living, or more direct: manipulating others to give you money. That doesn't apply to most sales representatives/consultants as they tend to have a single product and a direct relationship with the customer, but indirect sales and mass marketing are as immoral as can be.

I've stumbled upon many programmers who are trying to sell their products to customers but they lack total understanding of it.

(it=customer or product?)
Again, you're talking single product, direct interaction. Yes, there is value to that. Please tell me how you can tell every person in the world the same sales pitch and still be catering to their needs instead of yours.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

So you're saying they can do their job without PC's, laptops and phones? By the same token, you could say that without me, they'd be out of work. This is why a company has - or should have - multiple departments, all working together.

By the way, they phased me out, they are selling parts of their company and can't find a buyers because people aren't that stupid. I, on the other hand, learned from the experience and now I have a much better development job and a much higher salary.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

I think most sales and marketing people would say that "real features that would add value" is an ill-defined concept. There is the IT version of it where value is "cool idea of the week". There is also the sales-world definition : "$".

Programmer versus sales usually boils down to that point.

In reality, programmers hate customers. Especially the customers with the "do what I want" syndrome. Salespeople ... they're messengers with the message that programmer's worldview is radically wrong.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Sales would still be possible if you didn't do the work. Yes, you can be subbed out.
2) All cashflow comes from sales.
3) Your salary comes from cashflow.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[jrminter]

Well put!

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

Add to the list the intranet and websites. And marketing is not even a department every company needs. Administration is.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it.

Do you really, honestly believe that this is what sales and marketing exists for? The world would look completely different if this were the case, starting with next to no advertising anywhere. What people need has virtually nothing to do with what companies manufacture, even most services they provide. What marketers and sales people really do is to create needs, by association of the product with unrelated feelings/emotions (cars/cigarettes and freedom, shower gel and sensuality, uniform phones and a sense of individualism, ...). Their job is to persuade people they need whatever the company is offering. I can't remember seeing any advertising saying "remember to call your friends" or "cook your own food, it's healthier".

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is also why I don't understand why programmers and IT usually put down other departments like sales and marketing.

Perhaps programmers and IT don't like sales and marketing because---albeit being a necessary evil---sales and marketing is a very stupid and boring domain, in fact so boring and stupid that even the sales and marketing people don't really like it and just do it for the money? Just a guess.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what a prissy pants hypocrite you are.

If what sales and marketing do are immoral, you are equally immoral for building the products they ask for.

Really, is the carpenter at Auschwitz really less culpable than the administrators directing the people coming off the trains?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Jane Q. Public]

I'll grant you that sales and marketing can be hard work. But they're a different KIND of hard work. You mention a few aspects of that yourself. So it's pretty hard to compare the two.

And you give yourself away when you say "programmers suck at sales and marketing". Maybe that was just a Freudian slip, but it sure looks like you intend to include most programmers in that category, and really that's unjustified stereotyping.

Take myself for example. I'm a programmer. But I like people. I like to be around people. I don't get along with everybody, but I get along with most people just fine (even, amazingly, on Slashdot). Certainly there are some exceptions. Frankly I think anyone who claims to get along with everybody is either lying or has some serious issues.

I have done sales. I have gone out representing organizations and pressed the flesh. I have led organizations. And I have done a bit of public speaking. And I did at least okay at all these things.

But I don't like sales and marketing. It's just not something I enjoy doing, which is completely unrelated to my ability to do it. And I have demonstrated that I can be pretty good at manipulating people, if I have to be. But I don't like doing it. So I choose to do something else. It's that simple.

I would also like to add my support to those who have commented here, that often it is sales and marketing people who are the clueless ones in an organization, and cause everybody else a lot of grief. Not all of them, by any means, or even most. But a significant number of them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

A proper sales process involves consultation between the marketing and development teams to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that goals are realistic. Having salesman unilaterally make promises about features, scheduling, etc. to "seal the deal" is a largely destructive process and results in a lot of the animosity seen in these comments. It's not just the development team that suffers either; making empty promises runs a high risk of alienating your customers and having them decide to look at other vendors for products and services.

Both the development and sales teams may see the other as a means to an end, but that's really not the case. Both sides what the same thing (make money) and its in their best interests to work together to maximize that potential.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[hawkinspeter]

Building a product is very rarely immoral (maybe a product that can only be used in an evil way). Using a product for immoral purposes is immoral.

The carpenters and administrators at Auschwitz did nothing wrong. It's the people doing the killing that are wrong.

People aren't generally responsible for the world they find themselves in, but they are responsible for their own actions.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

w-h-a-t. At the end of the day someone is using the code YOU coded in the way that YOU exposed through a UI for THEM. The ONLY one who can prey on them is YOU. If YOU didn't exist, they wouldn't be using YOUR code. If they have a shitty, inappropriate experience it's YOUR fault as the coder. Sales puts your code in front of a customer who tries to use it, and it ends there.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

While I've met a few 'programmers' whose skill set is limited - requiring everything to be laid out in black and white... far more often, I find competent programmers are also deeply insightful analysts; innovative problem solvers; dedicated, hard-working and have an eye for accuracy and an ear for honesty. While you can resort to ad-hominem when people disagree with you, such attacks don't work on machines... with fallacious argument off-the-table, those who program are forced to exercise other skills.

Most programmers (including those egotistical twits who call themselves "developers" or, god forbid, "software engineers") DO need everything laid out in black and white. They also start with the assumption that any problem is the fault of the "lusers" misunderstanding the software or unrealistic expectations.

"ear for honesty"? Are you kidding? "deeply insightful analysts"? What are you smoking? Most of them can barely dress themselves or make eye contact when talking with the users.

Try managing a team of programmers sometime, attempting to keep the coders from abusing the users, and management from firing them for unprofessional behavior.

Simple example, that happens ALL THE TIME - one of my team promise something that the business needs, announces it's done, but it's either not working quite right, or it wasn't actually deployed. If they realize it, they just go on their merry way, intending to "get around to it", and deploy it sometime in the next day or two. It never occurs to them to go to the users, explain what happened and why, and then to prioritize fixing it.

I've been teaching them, and they're starting to get it, but they simply don't know how to;
Correctly capture requirements (yeah and document them too)
Prove that the solution addresses all requirements
Properly unit test
Properly involve the users in UAT
Communicate schedules to users

You think that 'programmers' are born with these innate skills. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They have to be taught them, told why they have to use them, and then be held accountable if they don't.

You're just another nerd who thinks everyone outside your profession is incompetent. Look in the mirror.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[donscarletti]

Sales and marketing are like any other type of worker. Some are good, some are shitheads. Good ones can tell you what the customers want, what they need and even whether a design you propose will make the customers happy or not. Good ones know the product their selling, what it does, what it can't do and roughly what it could do with a little bit more work. Good ones can generally also go out and make money by persuading customers that might need your product that they need your product, without restorting to lying about functionality. Bad ones have a lot of bad ideas and make a lot of suggestions of things that could waste a lot of programmers time and not translate to sales. They also tend to tell a lot of lies and get everyone into trouble.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Another, completely]

Yes. And the reason IT people resent this system is that when they *do* make a big sale, promising to build the thing that the IT people said would cost far more to build than what they were getting the customer to pay, they still get a bonus based on the selling price. They are generally long gone by the time the delivery people go over budget (as predicted).

Is there any company out there that has asked for their closing bonus back because they lost money on the sale?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[paiute]

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[umghhh]

that is all interesting but besides geeks behaving like assholes we have salespeople behaving differently but still being assholes, marketing people behaving yet more differently and still being assholes etc The problem here may be that we got used to ways for instance marketing&sales people are bullshitting us all the way up their arse and the geeks way is much more open and straight more like evil boss'es way but without associated power. What I wanted to say is that social skills are important but being nice and polished does not mean you are a good person, good engineer etc.The skills are however used as a useful proxy to determine whether or not you are a nice person which may but does not have to back fire ever so often.

In a sense it is similar a difference as between coaching and telling: one is nicer the other more suitable in fast changing hostile environment that is not forgiving the difference between comma and full stop. You change if you have to of course, most of us did in a life time.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are promising non-existant features then they are not selling the product are they; they are selling something that doesnt exist.

In my experience 80% of them will say "Sure, we can do that" rather than "We cannot do it at the moment but can add it in; it may take a few weeks / month"

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[IceNinjaNine]

Like a boss indeed!

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Ash Vince]

"3 times my salary"

    Difference is you have a salary due to your marketing/sales department who generally don't have a SALARY.

IE: when they don't produce (income or work for you), they don't get paid.

So you're saying they can do their job without PC's, laptops and phones? By the same token, you could say that without me, they'd be out of work. This is why a company has - or should have - multiple departments, all working together.

I think what he was actually saying was that people in sales or marketing departments are much more likely to be on a pay scale that is much more performance related.

Nowadays I work in IT so have the standard "and any extra hours the business needs" clause in my contract. I do not mind this, as the boss very rarely uses it. I also have a basic wage that is reasonable, but no overtime pay.

I used to work in a sales department doing lead generation (ie - telesales). I got paid an absolute joke basic wage that was designed to be less than I needed to live on (my boss actually told me this). I also got a hefty bonus (50% of my basic weekly wage) every time I generated a lead that closed a deal when vistited by a travelling salesman I was booking appointments for. The result of this was that I needed 2 deals to close each week in order to have enough money to cover my expenses. If I got 3 in a week then I was very happy, most weeks I think got 1 or 2.

This is how most sales based roles work. If you get no results, you get very little or nothing in wages. Most guys in IT would run a mile from this sort of wage insecurity for any number of reasons. You have to be a very confident, out going individual to buy a house when you guaranteed basic wage would not cover your mortgage.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[skegg]

What a great example.

It's ironic that we roll our eyes in superiority when someone from Sales doesn't know how to use pivot tables, and then we turn around and do something that makes him roll his eyes. (Or turn red.)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[lightknight]

So help a salesman from a local company become the new CIO (seriously, rewrite his resume for him, checking for spelling / grammatical errors, and cut your friends in on it, so they will vet him properly -> "Dude, this man wrote UNIX from scratch; the company needs him and his leadership!"), short the company stock (borrow against everything you own, and when you run out of collateral, see if you can't short naked), and laugh as the company burns down while you become an instant millionaire (inform your friends that snitches get stitches, and be sure to fax your new CIO's latest expenditure reports to the tabloids).

If asked, at some later point, why you did it, explain that you were simply employing the same tactics they used, only more effectively. Explain that while the new CIO may not have been the best fit (v 1.0), he had told you that he was willing to take some night courses to catch up on the things he needed to know (v 1.1 - a patch issued), and that after he had done this, he'd be perfect for the job. When they press about you making out like a king while others got burnt / the company collapses, explain to them that it's exactly the relationship salesmen and programmers have had for years -> one profits obscenely, the other makes good on third-party promises (and gets fired if they fail to meet those promises). Finalize things by handing the former sales staff individualized bad performance reviews, indicating that it was their fault the company went under.

Programmers do what they do because they like getting paid to program -> they like programming, and they like getting paid. Find me a programmer that does not like getting paid, and find me a programmer that does not love writing code. They do not exist (well, except for the burnt out ones).

Salesmen do what they do because they like getting paid to promote company products and close financial transactions -> they like getting paid, and they enjoy selling stuff to people. I am not aware of any salesmen who do not like getting paid, nor of any who do not trumpet their company's products nor attempt to close a deal whenever possible. Find me one that lacks these attributes, I do not believe they exist (perhaps someone fresh out of school?).

The programmer's skill-set is a lot more marketable than the salesman's skill-set. Colleges put out tens (hundreds?) of thousands of salesmen every year, while programmers are of a lesser quantity. A programmer's attributes includes the ability to problem solve, perform complex mathematical calculations, write reusable and legible code, meet requirements from people who do not understand computers or their inner workings, and perform extensive research. A salesman's attributes include the ability to problem solve, charm the customer into submission, lie in ways that would make the Devil blush, draw up requirements for the magical gnomes / elves / pixies (programmers) to follow, and an alcohol tolerance that is higher than the victim (person with purchasing authority from the interested company) that enables them to "guide" the intoxicated's good hand into gripping the pen and signing the purchase order (that the salesman just so happens to have typed up, in his front shirt pocket) all while the emergency personnel are trying desperately to administer CPR.

There's a shortage of people with the former skill-set, not so much with the latter. One would think that wages would reflect that, but one would be wrong.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ulzeraj]

I am not a programmer. I work as a network administrator. I take pride in my work and its results because they are as efficient as they should be. However, when the necessity of "talk to people" outside the IT department appears I just lose my will to keep on doing that work. So, if I schedule a reboot of a certain service I have to warn X department and for some reason I just have to gather an extra dose of willpower to do that.

The funny thing is that I'm always observing people. It took a year to befriend the rest of the IT department and understand them(the help desk guys used to hate me but now we're friendly towards each other) but I think I am pretty good at detecting said signals and even predicting people reactions.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

just had to slap in a google put down in there. as if that wasn't the bloody point of the whole post. i guess, kudos to getting in a few paragraphs before defaulting to your anti-geek, anti-google ranting.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Food, sex or danger.
I got into copywriting a while back and agree with mikael_j. I have to keep the reader on the page, so I want the reader to wonder:
Can I eat it?
Can I fuck it?
Will it kill me?
Open with a decent story, then present cherry picked facts about the service or product with simple language. Sales and marketing are mostly emotional manipulation. Read the 1928 book Propaganda by Edward Bernays. Madison Avenue is slithering with his disciples.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[LSU_ADT_Geek]

I believe engineers generally hold non-technical departments in contempt because of the seeming inability to understand technology and the lack of common sense exercised. Here are a few reasons I have cringed when working with non-engineers over the years:

1. 1. Unable to detect phishing attempts
2. 2. Installing crap software on their workstations infesting it with trojans
3. 3. Making demands that clearly show a lack of research / thought
4. 4. Office politics devoid of reasoning / rationale
5. 5. Lack of transparency in decision making

While it is true that engineers generally value logic and reason (how else could we do the job others cannot do?), I believe engineers are more likely not to put up with people's bullshit to the extend everyone demands. There is a time and place for sentimentality and everyone shouldn't be catered to because they are a precious snowflake

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what parent is talking about. Being able to shake off your knee-jerk reaction to things you don't particularly like on the surface, and giving people who are more immersed in a system than you are the benefit of the doubt as to their moral character, is the key social skill you are lacking. Sitting on a moral high-horse about the very existence of a career which a large proportion of the population is engaged in won't win you friends - or at least, not the kind of friends who cause you to challenge your own pre-conceptions and develop as a person.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ShieldW0lf]

Ahh sales... how I miss it. When you have merch to sell, you can talk to ANYONE, because you have that most wonderful of things, even better than an introduction... you have a pretense. You can walk up to any pretty lady you see and start a conversation if you've got a pretense in your pocketses.

Gets tiring running around in "ON" mode all day though.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[lightknight]

Granted, there are "special" people in both groups, but hanging out with the sales / marketing people is kind of like hanging out with the local IRS tax collector or local DA. Except the IRS tax collector / DA might be preferable (this is from an avowed libertarian, mind you). At least the shark has a law degree and the taxman probably is a CPA; psychopathy and pathological lying is, at worst, a learned trait for them. With sales / marketing...well, they didn't have to spend to attend a finishing school or study for an exam to get that good. They were born naturally that way. They're the only people on this earth that, when I am in their presence, I feel the subconscious need to make sure I am still wearing my watch. ^_^

 

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[shic]

Most programmers (including those egotistical twits who call themselves "developers" or, god forbid, "software engineers") DO need everything laid out in black and white. They also start with the assumption that any problem is the fault of the "lusers" misunderstanding the software or unrealistic expectations.

It seems you overlooked that my post referred exclusively to "competent programmers".

You think that 'programmers' are born with these innate skills ...
You're just another nerd who thinks everyone outside your profession is incompetent. Look in the mirror.

Thanks for the chuckle. I trust you notice the irony in this as a response to my suggestion that competent programmers have skills beyond ad-hominem?

Programmers are not 'born' - people (worthy or respect as such) are born. Through application and study, they may become skilled/competent programmers. You seem to be under the illusion that the label 'programmer' is a genetic deviancy - presumably one you don't think afflicts yourself?

Programming competency (obviously) is not a sufficient universal qualification - but those who are able often have a wide range of related transferable skills applicable to a far wider range of activities. It is the responsibility of competent management to make best use of these abilities, and to facilitate effective communication to establish the best possible outcomes.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[somersault]

Programmers don't think that marketing isn't necessary, they just wish that people weren't dumb enough to fall for it, and put a little effort into finding and judging products on their own merits. All it takes these days is a quick Google.

Nobody is saying marketing doesn't take work either. From what I can see, it often takes up so much of your life that you don't have a life left. It seems like a stressful and boring life to me.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Mr. Underbridge]

I'd say your overgeneralizations completely prove his point.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up shill.

I get a kick outta it every time AC calls you out. It might take a whole week to figure out you're a shrill if you change your nick. Dont want to miss any of that entertainment. Don't go away.

Oh BTW? Mind if I ask hows the pay?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Nursie]

Linux is struggling to get market share

Desktop linux perhaps. Linux is a huge presence in the server room, and practically owns the embedded/consumer electronics space.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[aXis100]

Plus, the sales guy usually gets a commission for making his sale, even when those overinflated promises burn the dev team for the next 3-6 months.

No wonder there is usually animosity.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Ash Vince]

It's also the same marketoids that get bonuses for sales that wouldn't have been possible if the coders hadn't put in huge amounts of unpaid overtime modifying production code to include ( non existent) features that the marketoids promised the customer without consulting the production team first.

They do not need to consult the production team, just the production team manager. It is him that knows if he can drive his development team to reach that goal. The boss of the development team is the guy who ultimately decides how much overtime to ask of his staff, not the guys in sales. Sometimes it is actually in the developers best interest to pull a bunch of overtime just so he gets paid at the end of the month, but a good boss never lets his staff know this unless he has to as it ruins morale.

Also quite often IT people are too rooted in getting something done the ideal way, even if it is only going to be a shortly lived project. Sometimes you just need to put a quote in for work that is based around the concept of "bodging it" just because that is what all your competitors are doing. The sales guys who meet the client have to decide in an instant whether the client is going to accept their "quality solution" pitch or whether they need to come back to you and say "throw that shit together any old way but get it done quick".

I have far more time for good sales guys who get results nowadays than I used to. Most developers I know cannot sell a product for shit as they get far too bogged down in details and the potential client just switches off and stops listening to the pitch. A decent sales guys has often already made the sale before he starts talking about actual product based purely on the initial patter he had with the client where he built a personal relationship with them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[marcosdumay]

And that is the problem. You have your company, I bet it isn't big. You are assuming that market and sales departments on big companies are equivalent to what you do on your company, that's almost (but not completely) wrong.

Marketing and sales for you is discovering what you have to develop, how to present what you created, and how to get into customers. In that order of importance. On most big companies, the order of (perceived) importance is exactly the oposite, thus slackers can hide at the easiest job (getting people) while avoiding having all the technical dificulties of actualy understanding the products and consumers, and understanding the market, understanding the company's technical ability, and thinking on how to use the latter to satisfy the former.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[skegg]

With all due respect, then you probably don't "speak Marketing" as well as you think you do. However I believe you wish things were harmonious between the 2 departments, and that's a good sign.

Tell me:
when things get hairy between you and Marketing do you find you have to pass the issue up to your manager / someone higher than you?
Perhaps you are the "higher power". If not, my advice would be: become that higher position.

When you reach an impasse with Marketing, keep your butt on that seat. Search for a solution; be creative, flexible.
They are not the enemy. To do their job they need your participation, and they don't always know what's possible. They're knowledge of technology is a fraction of yours.

Sometimes they ask for a Taj Mahal when in fact they'd be happy with a cubby house ... I've had conversations like the below more than once ...
BUSINESS: we need a website for XYZ by Monday morning.
ME: are you sure? You do understand you'll need to supply me with the content. I suspect you'll need at least a week for that.
BUSINESS: yeah I will actually.* Can we at least get just a home page with this poster on it?
ME: sure, that's trivial. You can have that by late afternoon.

* more often than not they get back to me in 3 weeks, which gives me time to work on the site.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[hey!]

Well, sales is a tough job. Salesmen don't get to work with logical rules, like programmers do, or at least consistent rules, like engineers do. They have to work with customers, who are free to do things like demand something they don't really want, then not buy it after you go through the trouble of having it made.

Being a salesman sucks. I had this epiphany when I was reading an in-flight magazine and noticed all the advertisements pitched at salesmen: nose hair trimmers, and shoe inserts that increased your height or (allegedly) your energy levels. As a salesman, you're only valued as much as your last quarter. If you're a programmer and you have a rough sprint, well, the problem was tough, so let's put some more resources on those problems. If you're a salesman who has a bad month, you're obviously not valuable, so let's cut your pay. If you want to eat you'd better pull yourself the hell up by your bootstraps.

Still, it is possible to be a salesman with dignity and integrity; like being good at anything else, it takes brains. When my dad had a heart attack, my late, older brother dropped out of engineering school to keep the family business running. By the time my dad was ready to work again, my brother was married with a kid on the way and couldn't afford to go back to school, so he became a salesman. He was one of these guys who could make a sale to anyone, but his secret was that he knew that he had different kinds of customers. Some people wanted the best, so he sold them his "Mercedes" line. Some were pragmatists looking for value, so he'd sell them his "Honda" line. And others were cheapskates; he'd sell them his crap line, *emphasizing* what garbage it was; and they'd snap it up because they were looking for garbage.

Of course he was a manufacturer's rep so he had the luxury of carrying three lines, one for each kind of customer. Imagine the poor bastard in your software company's sales department. He suspects your product is crap, but it's all he's got to sell. No wonder he goes out and buys a nose-hair trimmer to give himself a little confidence boost. Maybe if your work were a little better, he wouldn't be so pathetic.

Now as for the boss asking for the code, speaking as a former software development leader if your code isn't checked into the source control system just about every day you're in deep shit with me. If you then *refuse* to give me access to the code, you're in *really* deep shit.

What's really going on in a situation where the boss is sending you the message he can do your job better than you is an ego conflict, grounded in insecurity. A lot of guys who felt confident as coders climb the ladder to a point where they're responsible for things they don't feel so confident about. Did they send your boss to management classes so he could learn how to supervise, budget, and plan? Or did they expect him to somehow *know* how to do it because he'd seen it being done?

Personally, as a team leader I found nothing so delightful as handing an assignment to someone and knowing they'd get it done when they said it'd be done. With some guys it was like having a wishing lamp. The work would show up on time or little early and it would be everything I could hope it would be. There were other guys who talked a good game, but delivered late and if you looked into their stuff they often *faked* getting the work done. I ran into a situation like that as a young programmer asked to take over a project that was supposedly a few weeks from completion. When I looked at the departing programmer's code, I realized that he had *hard coded the data outputs* so that he could give a carefully scripted demo.

Now here's the funny thing. When I became a team leader I found that the wishing-lamp developers weren't reluctant to ask for my help or advice. They didn't have any problem with taking orders, but they didn't hesitate to voice any doubts they had. They weren't shy about asking for more time, although often it turned out they didn't need it. The *fakers* always told

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you have people like me, who really could do damn near just about anything we put our minds to.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

You, yes, you, are exactly what is wrong with the view of "geeks," "programmers," and general computer enthusiasts.

I have been a hardware hacker and self professed geek my entire life. My current job title is Software Architect, and I am a perfectly well adjusted adult. I socialize, I hang out with friends. I have even done some sales and been moderately successful at it--I just don't like it.

It bothers me that you are painting this huge group of people with predefined notions of what they should be like because it's how you "used to be."

And for the record, most of us geeks don't loathe marketing/sales people because "their job is easy." We loathe for what they get paid. I don't think you can find a single geek that will say sales people are unnecessary, but are they really worth 3-10 times as much as the individuals that actually create the product?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the kitchen staff usually gets a cut from the waitstaff's tips.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[heironymous]

Which is also why I don't understand why programmers and IT usually put down other departments like sales and marketing.

Part of it might be because the sales guy drank and partied his way through college while the science majors were suffering through actual hard work. There just might be some resentment that somebody who made no actual contribution to a technical product just got a huge commission off it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC as at work.

If you feel this way, and you produce code customers don't need, will you quit your job then as you're creating something nobody needs?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[dbIII]

Programmers themselves really often make the mistake of thinking that everyone else's job is simple and easy and doesn't require much knowledge

That's true - after all, now many of them call themselves Engineers without having any more than a high school background in science and mathematics?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure I know the guy. I wouldn't buy anything from him as his service sucks and he doesn't pay his bills.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it.

You sir, are full of shit. I've spoken with enough salespeople, on both sides of the fence, to know you have abso-fucking-lutely no interest in how much somebody needs your product. You want to sell more, so that you get more money. Period. Everything else is just a justification, but the essence of sales is deception, and like any good grifter, you will never, ever, ever break character, to the point that you start believing the hype, and even living it--right up to the point that you think you might not make the sale.

Then, the gloves come off. I've had salespeople strongly imply that they were going to speak with my boss for not giving them sufficient consideration. I can't even count the number of salespeople that continued to try to keep me on the phone after I've made it clear that we already have something that solves our needs, and trying to convince a salesperson that you simply don't need their product at all? Hah! You might seem hard to convince to someone naive enough to believe your fake ultra-earnestness, but the truth is you know we don't need it, and you don't give a flying fuck.

I don't expect you to break character and accept this, but now that it's no longer my job to give every stupid asshole their "due consideration", I just want you to know that although I don't let it into my voice, I take great pleasure in politely saying, "No, thank you," and hanging up while you're still sputtering about how much I need a new tape library.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple Asperger's response question, if they were to assume that the question was required:

Do you feel that you are trying to sell the best product, or at least a competitive product based on price?

Most IT people think of sales people as con artists and that the product should sell itself. The quantum leap required is that most sales reps and customers don't look at the technical aspects of a product. The quantum leap required by sales reps is to know that a quantum leap is a very tiny thing, not a vast thing, before using the word! ;)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[dbIII]

Actually another reason they resent it is many sales people see nothing wrong in screwing over people in their own organisation if it's going to get the sale that they depend on for their bonus, plus any mistakes desperately need blame shifted onto others or that endangers their income. That makes it very difficult to work with some salespeople. Of course places where that is allowed to happen for any period of time are badly managed.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

4) All sales come from products
5) All products come from the developers
6) Sales salaries come from developers

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

Well, I did say the marketing manager only had mediocre skills. Not up to scratch at all. I understand that was what was meant, although he addressed me directly in his reply. I'm not sure about bonuses, but I do know that her base salary was already ridiculously high. In her case, even more than 3 times my salary.

I did say at the end of my message that this is only my personal experience...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Lt.Hawkins]

Sure, theres that. But what about the "sales and marketing" aspect where you're trying to convince people who already have requirements A, B and C, and that your widget meets those requirements better than a competitors?

"I hear you need paper! Well, Dunder Mifflin can meet your paper needs better than Hammermill. Our paper is whiter, cut more precisely, and our special SoftEdge technology reduces the number of papercuts!"

"I hear you need XYZ specialized financial management solution. Ours is better than theirs."

I see nothing fundamentally wrong with that. (implementation of marketting, such as bribes, is outside the scope of this post)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Oh, it's not lying or making them want something they don't need, we're simply making them understand that they needed something they didn't know they needed"

isn't that effectively what Apple has been doing (VERY effectively) with their iPod, iPhone, and iPad? creating new markets?

I'm not saying these are necessarily revolutionary products (likely most are simply evolutionary products with revolutionary approaches), but they HAVE been effective at telling people what they want.

Movies often do the same. From Minority Report came many touch/kinect-like interfaces, Back To The Future with hoverboards and self tying shoes, etc.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[dbIII]

Oh, it's you. Nice job with the ribbon post - a truly professional bit of artificial grass rooting dumped in as a first post despite it's length and I hope you were well paid for it. The final paragraph looks a bit like it was intended for a different site or that you really don't understand your audience though. Does it really make sense to make fun of the people you are trying to get your PR message to though? I wouldn't think so, but I'm just an engineer and not a PR professional so I'll bow to your expert opinion.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it. It's also making it easier for customers to buy your services or products, and letting them know such product exists (to fix a need, again). What is so immoral about that?

It's the difference between theory and practice that causes the problem (in theory theory and practice are the same; in practice they aren't)

In theory that's what sales and marketing is (finding and filling needs), in practice it's manufacturing a need for whatever product you have, and adding requiernments to future products based on how easy it will be to manufacture more need (rather than based on how well they fit existing needs).

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

AC, at work.

Ask an engineer how long a piece of string is? They'll probably laugh at you or think you're an idiot.

Now ask a salesperson how long is a piece of string? They will have a conversation with you and find out what you want the string for. The end user is incredibly difficult to tease information out of. Why? They are a business and they have a blank canvas called the future they have to bet their existence on, and they don't even know if they will need a string or not.

Salespeople have to be so hungry that they get the business - whatever their boss allows. A good salesperson knows that the coders or engineers or chemists or whatever have good reasons for doing what they do. And sales will be maximised by selling what is ready to ship. Anyone successful in sales avoids rocking the boat unless absolutely necessary - it's good for sales.

Now let's think about something for a moment - why do sales get more $$$? Risk vs. Reward. You know how much you will earn at the end of the month, and can plan a stable life around it (relative to a salesperson). The salesperson is risking their ass from one month to the next with bosses who say "you're only as good as your last sale".

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[n5vb]

There are times when it would be helpful (or at least less harmful) for sales/marketing people to have *some* grasp of the logical/factual side of interacting with the computers they are selling and marketing. When sales people don't have at least a basic factual grasp of what they're selling, they promise everything but the kitchen sink and set unrealistic expectations that will inevitably fail to be met when the customer gets the machine home and turns it on and starts actually trying to use it. When marketing people don't have at least a basic factual grasp of what they're marketing, they censor the company's technical information sources and kill knowledge base articles that say anything at all negative about the products, including articles that might head off tech support call drivers and give people solutions quickly. And both of these things wind up one way or the other in tech support which has to take the hit for customers being dissatisfied -- and since support is usually a cost center anyway, tech support then becomes the black sheep of the family.

So it goes both ways. Yes, I'd make a lousy salesman or marketing person. But we've got to meet in the middle here somewhere.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[FatLittleMonkey]

On top of that, they were paid at least 3 times my salary.

So they were better at selling their value to the boss than you were. Turns out you really did lack an essential skill.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Attila Dimedici]

The thing is that sales and marketing guys are not necessarily that way. However, many sales centric enterprises tend to learn to be that way.
I will use as an example some friends of mine who are in the car business. They had learned that sales was about sticking it to the customer, so whenever their company made a lot of money, they saw it as having "pulled one over" on the customer. The classic example was where the dealership they worked for had gotten a car cheap for one reason or another and then sold the car for slightly less than its current market value. To use some numbers, let's say that a particular car had a blue book value (the blue book you have to be in the industry to get your hands on) of $13,000 but somehow the dealer had gotten their hands on for $2,000. If the dealer sold the car for $10,000, these people thought that the dealer had taken the customer. They had trouble understanding that the customer had gotten a great deal, they had gotten a $13,000 car for $10,000. If anybody had been taken, it was the person who sold the car to the dealer for $2,000 (and that is not necessarily the case because there could be reasons why someone would be getting value for selling a car for that far below the "going" price), not the customer who bought it for $3,000 less than what he would have had to pay elsewhere.
The point here is that they were so used to the idea that they were trying to "beat" the customer that it never occured to them that both parties could win in such negotiations. I was finally able to get one of them to understand the point here. I think it has made him a better salesman as he no longer views every sales interaction about trying to "win", but instead sees it as an attempt to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement (his dollars per sale are down, but his total sales are way up).

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DrgnDancer]

Exactly. Are there shithead sales people who oversell and expected engineering to pick up their slack? Of course. Are there shithead engineers that spend more time complaining than developing and are shocked when they don't finish on schedule? Of course. Where I work Sales drives Product Management and PM drives Engineering. This is pretty much a good thing. The sales people are mostly competent and they know what the customers want. If we drove our own development plan in engineering we would no doubt have a very cool product. It wouldn't be usable by any normal mortal, it would be full of cool features no one actually wants, and would lack a bunch of basic and boring features that everyone does want... but it would be cool!

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

DCTech needs moar sockpuppets! Dude, we've established you have a hardon for sales/marketing, that's quite enough now.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Another, completely]

Half as much as the waiter gets. With luck.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

The marketing manager was a girl with mediocre skills, you can probably guess why she got that position

Well, she's a woman. And she has a managerial role. I see no other way she could possibly have gotten her job except by fucking her way to the top.

Did I nail it, o poor beleaguered, overworked and underpaid IT guy?

What a surprise that someone in IT thinks that the only way a woman could possibly get her job is by interviewing on her back! And furthermore, what a surprise that someone in an IT job thinks that their job is the only one that's difficult, and believes everybody around them has "mediocre" skills! And to top it all off, what a surprise that somebody who can't negotiate a fair pay rate ends up doing a shit job supporting a small company's IT infrastructure. Yeah, they should have just fired all the managers and tripled your salary, champ.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

Or maybe there were personal circumstances you don't know about.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Iamthecheese]

I'm building my company around never ever selling a customer something that's not in his best interests, even if i can so YMMV

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[AJH16]

There are really two kinds of sales and marketing. Some are genuinely trying to make an artificial need so that they can fill it by using psychology. This is along the lines of the "sex sells" mantra and is arguably ethically dubious. There is also a lot of sales that is interested in genuinely trying to identify a need and see if you can fill it. A truly great salesman will tell someone "good luck, I don't know that we can help you, but if you ever need x, y or z, here's my number" and walk away from the sale knowing that they may have just guaranteed a sale that will have much higher satisfaction in the future.

It's easy to lose sight of the real goal when commissions are aggressively pursued rather than trying to find the sales that will result in a true level of satisfaction for the consumer and generate trust in the company for a long standing relationship. In the long run, sex may sell and mass marketing has done a good job of programing the populace to respond to it, but real brand loyalty normally comes from establishing trust and nothing establishes trust better than demonstrating, at your own cost, that you are looking out for the customer more than yourself and seeking to give them a fair deal.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DrgnDancer]

If a sales guy has sat in five meetings, and in four of them a customer has said, "man, I wish your product had x like the Acme product," he's going to ask for that to be added in. It's "valuable" if customers want it. Not matter how stupid you find it, no matter how much you'd rather add y (which perhaps no one has asked for), the sales guy thinks he can sell more product with x.

We're having this situation right now. Our sales department is screaming for "Enterprise Management Tools". Basically they want an integrated Nagios/syslog function put into our product. During one recent meeting one of our engineers stood up and basically told them to use Nagios and syslog. Which, from an engineering perspective was a perfectly reasonable idea.

Of course sales felt compelled to point out that:
1) We can't make any money telling them to use someone elses products.
2) Most of our customers have little or no expertise in setting up and deploying complex software systems.
3) The customers are telling us that they want this in our product like our competitors have. "You don't really want that, shut up" isn't exactly the response we want to give them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Not the dishwasher.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

Oh and if you have actually read my comment, instead of just modding it down, you could have known this had nothing to do with me, I was just too desperate for a job to reject it.

One of them being that everything was poorly setup to begin with

Their tech infrastructure had always been a mess and it still is, from what I hear.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that the feature is stupid or takes resources away from implementing real features that would add value is irrelevant to them.

If they're promising something to a customer, it follows logically that the customer wants that feature, or at least believe they need it enough that the sale is contingent on that feature being present. If adding the feature a paying (or would-be-paying) customer wants is not "adding value," what then, is?

If the conversation goes like this:
Customer: "Add this feature, and I'll give you $10,000 for your software."
Developer: "But we were gonna refactor our code this week, sorry."
Customer: "Okay, I'll buy your competitor's product with the features I want, or feel I need."
Developer: "Cool, I'll be busy adding value by porting everything to Haskell."

Then there is a major disconnect between the developer's sense of "adding value" and any real-world-market's sense of "adding value."

I'd submit that this disconnect is precisely why so many open source products are perpetually beta quality: developers often want to do the "interesting" work, not necessarily the "valuable" or "profitable" work, so bugs and minor non-sexy features and final fit/finish/polish work is pooh-pooh'ed as "stupid features" that "take resources away from implementing real features." There's no manager, and no sales & marketing team, to push the developers to do that detail work that customers actually DO care about.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[lightknight]

So, and this is my only question here, were you still wearing your watch after explaining this to your friend? ^_^

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually yes, I would, and did exactly that. I once worked as a flash developer creating sites and widgets for people. The company I worked at slowly shifted their flash efforts purely toward advertising, so I left. I now create games to rehabilitate sufferers of stroke.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ifiwereasculptor]

4) All sales come from products

You obviously don't know Craigslist or eBay...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[hazah]

... by answering a question honestly... no less.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[maple_shaft]

Of course he was a manufacturer's rep so he had the luxury of carrying three lines, one for each kind of customer. Imagine the poor bastard in your software company's sales department. He suspects your product is crap, but it's all he's got to sell. No wonder he goes out and buys a nose-hair trimmer to give himself a little confidence boost. Maybe if your work were a little better, he wouldn't be so pathetic.

You hit the nail on the head right here. I started out as a manufacturers sales rep for a small boiler room accessory company, and then fell into software development later in my career. I loved my job doing sales there because the product was real, tangible, provided a great and real benefit to customers, saved them money, sometimes with an ROI of 2 years, AND it was green technology and good for the environment! I didn't even have to drink any kool-aid to believe in the product, I just naturally thought it was tops, and my organic enthusiasm helped me close deals.

I certainly never had to lie or be unethical, but at the same time if I started crunching numbers and talking figures right off the bat then nobody would listen to me. These poor saps that you describe who don't have a real product to sell are insecure, and unethical out of a need for survival and nothing more. How do you sell a product when you don't really have a real product to sell? Even if you make that sale, do you think the customer will be happy with you long term? Do you think they will upgrade? Do you think you will actually get repeat business by scamming them?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of that, they were paid at least 3 times my salary.

So they were better at selling their value to the boss than you were. Turns out you really did lack an essential skill.

When is being a flirtatious dumb blonde with enormous boobs an essential skill? I totally know exactly what he was talking about.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[LingNoi]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it.

Wrong, check out Fear appeals. It's not about helping each out.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[AdrianKemp]

Perhaps a lousy programmer eventually thinks "what did I miss" all the time. I know I've been coding for a long, long time and approximately 95% of the bugs that I'm informed of (in production stuff) are not bugs but functioning exactly as documented and specced.

So my first thought: "Find the specs" as all competent programmers do. Once you've found the specs you can assess what "should" be happening and then you can start discussing what *should* be happening. They're rarely the same because users/sales/management can't seem to think ahead but it's important to know what was decided on the first time and why before you go fixing things that may not be broken.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[LingNoi]

Anyone can be a dish washer, not everyone can program. Everyone can be a marketer, not a good one, but still hold down a job.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[BVis]

Engineering is in the business of solving problems. Sales/Marketing are in the business of bullshitting people until they can rip them off; when the shit hits the fan, they blame Engineering for not delivering on the promises Sales/Marketing made (despite those promises not being rooted in reality.)

If you want problems solved, involve Engineering. If you don't, don't invite Engineering to the meeting. (That is, if you want to destroy morale and put your entire enterprise at risk.) Realize, of course, that you're diluting the quality of the product you're selling an.. wait, this is Sales/Marketing we're talking about, they don't CARE that they're selling a crap product, so long as they can tick off an arbitrary list of features (and the check clears.) The fact that half the features don't work right because they promised something to the customer that is, in fact, physically impossible, is totally alien to them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. While you did screw up there, your boss takes part of the blame[1] for putting you in a customer facing situation that you were unable or not trained to handle properly.

It's simple: if you're not a sales guy, when you're asked a sales related question (e.g. how much does it cost), you get the sales guy or your boss to answer the question.

And if you're a sales guy who's not a technical person, when you're asked a technical question (what does this error-message from your product mean), you pass the technical guy the question, then look at his reply and DON'T pass it the customer as-is (do not let your customer communicate with the tech directly till you are sure the tech is "customer safe"). Especially if it would _unnecessarily_ damage the relationship with your company. Technical people might say stuff like: "oh that's because our product is full of bugs". Which may be true, and possible to admit internally, but not very helpful to tell the world if everyone still wants to keep getting paid. Your bug-ridden product might actually still be better than the competitors but if you say stupid things and they don't, guess who has a higher chance of going out of business?

[1] That's actually one of the reasons why bosses are paid more. Whatever happens, they are at least partly responsible for what their subordinates do in their jobs. And a good boss would never have put you in that situation. The same team under a good boss could be 10x or more times productive than under a mediocre boss.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Kjella]

The "problem" is that these people are usually at each their end of a tug-of-war. The developers are trying to produce solid, working but conservative and boring products, but hopefully not outdated and unsellable. The sales people are trying to sell dreams and solutions with those products, but hopefully not things that can't you can't possibly deliver. At least not the kind that's expressed in a contract, failing to live up to the sales pitch in other ways is usually okay.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to deal with a similar situation not too long ago...

One of our customers had an unrelated need from our product regarding an easy way to search very specific publicly accessible government records in a common report. I was told it needed to be done as fast as humanly f***ing possible no excuses stop everything you are doing I don't care you are in the middle of a sprint for another customer tell your wife and kids you will not be seeing them for a while. So naturally I saw this one company that already wrote webcrawlers to sweep these public records and offered pay per use webservices that would give me almost all the information I needed.

Awesome! So I used my expense account and signed up for it, wrote a simple web crawler for the remaining information and whipped up a working demonstratable prototype in 3 days. After I finished I demo'ed it to the sales guys and they thought it was stupendous. They went to talk with the customer who flaked and decided they didn't really want that after all because another department in their company is already doing that and they are going to be sharing the information with them.

Damn... so the next meeting with the sales guys they started trying to pitch potential customers for this prototype that I created. I literally almost had a stroke when I heard them trying to create a product out of a prototype, based on a pay-per-use service, that was quite literally almost nothing of value more than a wrapper for an existing web service offered by a company that did ALL THE HARD WORK. I tried to explain to them that the company's webservices that this prototype depends on would quite literally ALSO be our competitor if we try to make this a product! I said that as soon as this company figured out what they were doing they could cancel our account and our product would STOP WORKING! I was laughed at and told to leave the sales to them.

THIS is why I despise sales people.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[archen]

If sales and marketing is about finding out what a person needs and a sales person finds out that what that person needs isn't something that they can supply, it is a rare sales and marketing person that will say so. They do exist. I speak to maybe one a year...

That has a lot to do with someone not being good at their job. Lets face it, the majority of people really aren't that good at their job. Sales and Marketing is about making a company money, not flushing money down the toilet with worthless mailers and radio ads. Efficiency in marketing requires knowledge of your product, and who would use it coupled with a well formed strategy to bring it to a potential customer's attention. Why try to sell stuff to people who do not want it? Seriously think about that. The EASY approach however is to keep flinging shit until something sticks, and inevitably something will.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Phrogman]

The first computer company I worked at, I was the new guy in tech support. I spent 2 (paid) weeks learning how to use the software I would be supporting and then got toured around to the various other departments. While visiting the sales department I watched and listened as the sales guy in front of me sold a customer our top end package (several thousand bucks plus yearly support contract) by offering the customer various features that they insisted were necessary. The customer upon being told all the things they required were in fact supported, paid for the software.
The sales guy hung up - then looked at me and said, I sure hope the next version supports at least some of that stuff, cause the current one doesn't support it at all. He got his sale though, and it would be left to someone else to resolve the issue (most likely the folks in Tech support).
I have seen many examples since where the sales and marketing fuckwads would LIE to get a sale and leave someone else holding the bag.
I was visiting a software company in my home town, and listened in while the owner and the chief developer discussed a new product. Nothing had been done other than the advertising artwork. While I was there, the owner sold several copies of the program, promising it in a few weeks. He collected the information and processed the CC information. Then he turned to the developer and said "How long till its ready?", and the developer responded "Oh, 6 months or so".
At another company, our network guy hacked together a small program to perform some specific function. It was badly written and he said it was - only he needed to know how to work it since it was only for internal use. He accidentally let a Sales guy see it and had to explain what it did, telling him at the same time it was for internal use only, the developers had never seen it, etc. The sales guy turned around and sold our software to a major company *based on the existence of this unofficial hacked-together tool*. It was enough to close the deal. Result: Development had to be brought in and programmers and resources had to be devoted to developing a releasable version of this product ASAP. The company had no interest in developing this product of course and it took away from other critical development but the sales guy forced them to do it or lose a major client.
I worked briefly in the marketing department of the same company as I was working on their website development. The marketing people had pretty much zero interest in being accurate and the sales people were mostly like the folks in the examples above.

Sales and Marketing might be a necessary evil but they are still evil and I left that company knowing that I could never be part of either sales or marketing because I have some integrity. I have never seen any in any S&M (joke intended) personnel. If I put down Sales and Marketing, its because they are lying assholes within my experience and I have no evidence to support that anyone in Sales or Marketing at a software company is actually honest.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he was all red because they asked you to implement something and had been, from the very beginning, representing to the potential client that the company was providing a custom solution. And then you go to the meeting and turn him into a liar.

A good salesperson should salivate at the prospects of selling "knowledge and support". The profit margin is insane and every sale increases the value of the product - the "experience in delivering said knowledge and support" grows with every sale.

A salesperson has to make a lot of promises and claims to get a potential client to even show up at a sales meeting. Unless you know every promise and claim that has been made, a "Surprise!" moment is probably not going to be well received. Wake up; the world does not revolve around you. If you want to be a one-man show, build apps for the App Store and leave the "A company is a collection of people working towards a common goal" world behind.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[eth1]

Let him set up the meeting... there's nothing that says you have to show up.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[hazah]

Terrible! You should check if you missed something first!

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

"They also cannot read subtly things, they need it in clear." I will try to remember this the next time I am looking for a bug somewhere in RedHat Linux, Java, Perl code, C++ code, and HP unix OS spread across five separate computers . Or maybe when I am looking for a software or hardware bug in C++, two embedded boards, wiring harness, 2 circuit boards or cabling.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DrgnDancer]

I'm completely unclear on how this is a response to my comment. In my comment sales wants a reasonable thing and we have engineers frighting them on it large because they'd rather focus on stuff that interests them more. They are, in fact including engineering in the discussion, and they're not, in fact asking for anything impossible. I'm in engineering by the way. I know why the engineer in question said what he did. He's a certified genius who is both incapable of realizing that not everyone can setup a Nagios system in a few hours to solve their own problems, and much more willing to spend time on algorithmically interesting analytics code than on "grunt work". So he's pushing back on a perfectly reasonable feature request, mostly because it doesn't interest him.

This shit happen all the time. The whole "Sales guys are all snakes who over promise and under deliver" is no more useful a stereotype than the "Programmers are all lazy creeps who don't want to work" stereotype on the other side. Both sides are made up mostly of reasonable people trying to do their best by the product and make sure we all get paid. Sure there's some snakes in sales. Sure there are some lazy programmers. There are also people in both groups who are imperfect in other ways. Most of us are just trying to do our best and get paid.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[TheCarp]

I think you are right but.... programmers hardly deserve to be singled out.

How about this... most people in most jobs don't understand what other people really do, and underestimate what is really involved. In fact, I think this ties in with some research from a few years ago on competence: The incompetent rate their own skills higher than the competent. The competent, know how much they don't know, whereas the incompetent, think they know everything already.... because they don't know.

The extreme of this is someone who doesn't do the job at all... a salesman looks at what a programmer does and has the same thoughts, it looks easy for him, he bags stuff out in a few days...

A few years back I was getting together with a salesman and another tech guy, I was more systems with some interest in writing code, he was more of a coder with the chops to take on the project, the salesman was, a salesman. Clearly I don't understand what they do very well but, the whole project broke down because we didn't understand eachother.

It was to be our first project, we looked over the requirements, figured that it would take us about 100 hours or so between the two of us, had a meeting or two, and our sales man comes back, after meeting with the customer.... and came back saying he agreed to do it for a number so low ball that our jaws dropped, to which he said "come on, you guys will bang it out over a weekend."

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It's possible that the marketing team promised those features because it was the only way to sell the product. Your attitude seems to be going to the marketing/sales team and saying "This is what we made, go sell it, even if it's not what you could sell".

So let me get this straight. If my job is to sell Dodge Chargers and I told a customer (or group of them) that the Charger can park itself simply because a competitor's product does that and it was (and I am quoting you here) "the only way to sell the product, that would be perfectly legitimate?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

So far in my years of working experience, most of the bugs aren't in my stuff. But I often still have to fix the bugs anyway...

Heck, in one of the new services it turns out that while the "charging the customer's credit card" part was "somewhat done", there wasn't any code to give the customer what they paid for! So I had to write that part, and while there find bugs in the payment calculations and fix those too.

Everywhere I look there are bugs. One of the bug-ridden products has been sold for years, so it's obviously useful to customers but there's plenty of code and crud over the years. Plenty of bugs and code done wrong, which I eventually may have to fix... :(

The people in my previous workplace still talk to me, and they don't complain about my stuff (which is still in use and working fine, still no bug reports years later - I ask from time to time and they say it's fine). They complain about other stuff- crap written by someone else which I had to somehow make less crap when the original developer left, but so far they've been complaining mostly about some new fancy stuff.

I'm far from infallible, but I've long realized that the reason why many programmers seem 10x faster than I am is because they're not writing a lot of code that should be there, they're not considering as many possible cases and what could go wrong. They're also often writing stuff that shouldn't be there... SQL injection, race conditions, bad assumptions.

BUT if they wrote stuff slower and better there might not be stuff to sell in the first place ;).

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[h4rr4r]

You have to be a very confident, out going individual to buy a house when you guaranteed basic wage would not cover your mortgage.

You misspelled idiot.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Gilmoure]

*golf clap*

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont like writing code at all. It's extremely easy and feels like absolute druge work.

I like people. They're complex and hard to program.

I've been a programmer for 14 years. It pays the bills, meh.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Americano]

Marketing & development both speak English, but they're certainly different dialects. You're probably literally saying "It can't be done," or "There's not enough time for that," as an endpoint statement of fact, rather than offering them a solution and a proposal for what you CAN do in the time specified, or when you CAN offer the feature they want. It's the difference between "No!" and "Not now," that I see many programmers get hung up on. Marketing guy says, "We need to do X by date Y," and it's usually a prelude to a discussion. Developer often hears "I need impossible feature by impossible date," and simply shuts down, saying "That's not possible."

If you're straight with most of your marketing & sales guys, you'll find that they're well aware that what they're asking for "can't be done" when they ask for it, and are perfectly happy to negotiate on a phased delivery, or a longer timetable, or a reduced feature set hit that scratches the right itch for the customer in question. Don't assume they're idiots, tell them what you need to do what they're asking for. If your plate is full, tell them, "I'd love to work on that feature, but I'm booked solid; If you want to talk to my manager about reallocating my time to support this, I'll be happy to have a discussion about what we can do and when we can do it for you."

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[jelizondo]

Excellent suggestion. Here is a PDF of the book.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering he/they are being paid to troll Slashdot posting negative comments about Google* and up-selling Microsoft... Marketing is their life.

*Case in point: "... then your product is almost useless. This same trend can be seen with Linux and to an extend with some Google..." (That's craft... putting those connotations together...)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[nine-times]

They have the mindset of a computer, "do x, get y". What they lack is reading people and other things when it isn't presented to them in a straight, clear form.

I think this is one of the important issues that programmers and other technical people sometimes miss about jobs in sales (or similar). In fact, you gloss over the idea casually enough that I think you're not completely identifying it, which is telling. What I'm talking about is that programmers and engineers tend to think of things in terms of reproducible problems for which you develop systematic solutions. So, for example, when you put them into sales/management/marketing situations, they want to nail it down to "these are the things that I say and do to complete this work."

However, this approach often fails because it has the wrong aim. The sorts of jobs that you're talking about often require building and maintaining interpersonal relationships, which are not straight-forward. It's not just about having a set of social skills and reading people well, or at least that would be an oversimplification. It's not about developing a checklist of, "Say this, smile, give this bit of information, present a certain body language, if they seem unsure, tell them that other thing. Done."

It's about taking the time and care to develop a relationship, learn about the other person, gain trust, negotiate boundaries, and be convincing. These things happen even in short interactions that only last a few minutes, and they must be improvised based on the person you're talking to and the context of the situation. It requires give and take. To do it very well, it requires more than learning a set of skills and routines.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[nedlohs]

Wowser! So your a psychologist/psychiatrist who can diagnose brain differences merely by generic occupations. And you have a serious infatuation with sales.

Here's my, slightly less "I'm a genius and know how other people I've never met brain's work" take:

Most IT people don't have any issues with sales and marketing at all. They just manage the company network and software licensing and hardware and so on. Sales and Marketing is exactly the same as accounting (well sales and marketing probably use things like VPNs more often and so have more contact with IT). Of course some IT people are just jerks and some sales and marketing people are just jerks - but on the whole all is fine.

On the programmer side most programmers also don't have any issues with sales and marketing at all. They never deal with them in the first place and just churn out the code that their manager assigns. We still have some jerk programmers and some jerk sales and marketers.

The main problem arises when you have bad sales and marketing who over promise and then expect the programmers to make it happen for them. The odd sales and marketing person who does that is fine - they tend to get pushed out when management sees that their sales aren't actually profitable because of the huge amounts of work being done to meet them. Just like the odd programmer has the same problem and under estimates the amount of work involved in doing something and the same end result.

Sometimes though it becomes the norm. And most programmers know someone who has worked somewhere where the programmers slave away meeting the ridiculous promises of sales and marketing while sales and marketing people get all the credit in the company and the programmers are constantly criticized for being behind. Since places like that tend to churn through programmers (they burn out due to the "last minute push" being an almost constant event) a much larger percentage of programmers have worked at such a place than the raw number of jobs at such places would indicate. Hence there's a dislike of the generic "sales and marketing" label that spreads.

I don't know any programmers who think sales and marketing is simple or that they would be good at it (well aside a few, but they are good at it just like some programmers are good at rock climbing). I know a lot who put sales and marketing at the same level as "used car salesman" (oh wait that is sales) and "con artist" (oh wait that is marketing) and "read estate agent" (oh wait that is sales and marketing). OK who don't think highly of sales and marketing - not because they think it is easy but because they see it as deceptive (remember they know how the system they wrote works and they see how sales and marketing talks about it and how those two things just aren't the same).

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ultranova]

The carpenters and administrators at Auschwitz did nothing wrong. It's the people doing the killing that are wrong.

So... Hitler did nothing wrong? Because he didn't do the killing, but simply ordered it done - a managerial role.

People aren't generally responsible for the world they find themselves in, but they are responsible for their own actions.

Such as building and running concentration camps?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Sectoid_Dev]

I used to get a percentage of tips as a dishwasher. But there was never any feedback about my performance unless something wasn't clean.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Tsingi]

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it.

That's just sales. Marketing is convincing the customer that without the product he is:
- at risk of death
- at risk of disease
- harming innocent children
- not cool
- unpatriotic
- not using what seven out of ten doctors are using
- all of the above.

They aren't the same thing.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[rubycodez]

I'll tell you exactly why we technical put down the majority of sales and marketing people. They are for the most part completely fungible and interchangeable people with no special skills or abilities other than schmoozing clients. However, there are a few who are really gifted that can create markets or drive sales. I do respect those people, without them the company withers and dies.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DCTech]

Why is that idiotic? It's entrepreneurship. My income is completely based on commissions and has been for the last five years. I'm not even working for anyone, as I do affiliate marketing on the internet (and no, not the spammy type, the useful type where my visitors actually benefit from my sites). Sure, there's some insecurity in a job like that, but there always is if you run a business. On the other hand on good times I've also made significantly more than I would get if I were paid a normal salary instead of commissions. On top of that I am free to travel the world at the same time and can wake up (and take holidays) when I want to. Everyone's own choices.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Tsingi]

Let him set up the meeting... there's nothing that says you have to show up.

That was my first thought. I don't think I could be that rude though, unless he was being overly pushy.

When he calls back tell him that you are merely reciprocating by wasting his time.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[kalirion]

How about when Sales and Marketing are trying to figure out the best way to raise prices without customers leaving in droves. And then do it again. And again. And again. For the same products within the same year?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, I've seen plenty of sales jobs, especially in IT consulting, that paid a very good salary, in addition to a nice fat commission.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Tsingi]

Duh! I forgot the most important one:
- It will get you laid.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you hit the nail on the head with "ON" mode. THAT is why sales is hard, or at least why it was for me. Being friendly, effusive, cheerful, and comforting all while not coming across as a greasy douche (see every other post in this thread) is exhausting.

Imagine trying to make every single person you meet your friend (I like to do that anyway, I'm friendly) but then imagine trying to figure out if they could use your services or product while you're having your initial conversation. It actually feels a lot like asking every new person you meet if they'd like help moving.

And no, I don't always bring up the product. That's the fastest way to find yourself alienated. Good sales folks can and should bring up "sales" in a personable way, such that there's no awkwardness or "pushy" feelings, and good sales folks offer services and products based on real-world benefits to the customer, not just to make a quick buck on the newest mark. The former leads to satisfied and happy customers, the latter leads to resentment which in turn leads to difficult relationships.

That said, I do know folks who *enjoy* making people buy a product they don't need. These people are assholes.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[BVis]

In my comment sales wants a reasonable thing

What they want here, as far as I can tell, is to charge money to solve a problem that is already solved elsewhere. The engineer's response is correct, IF you actually want to solve the problem. If you want to give the customer another problem that you can then heroically step in and fix (also known as 'fuck them over') then his response was inappropriate.

we have engineers frighting them on it large because they'd rather focus on stuff that interests them more

No, you have engineers fighting them on it because the sales person's solution is stupid. The engineer identified the problem and provided a solution. If you don't want your engineers doing that, don't invite them to the meeting. Also, don't invite them if you don't give two fucks about your engineers' morale.

They are, in fact including engineering in the discussion, and they're not, in fact asking for anything impossible

They're involving engineering in the discussion but they don't want engineering to do their jobs (ie fixing problems). If your salesweasels weren't morons, they'd realize that they can charge time to install the systems in question, then make more money supporting it. Several problems solved, money made, customer not ripped off. Win-win-win.

So he's pushing back on a perfectly reasonable feature request, mostly because it doesn't interest him.

No, he's pushing back on the request because it's fucking stupid. IT'S A SOLVED PROBLEM. Why re-invent the wheel?

Both sides are made up mostly of reasonable people trying to do their best by the product and make sure we all get paid.

Sales people reasonable? I haven't met a reasonable one yet, and I've worked in a bunch of places in several industries. The common factor is that sales over-promises solutions, and the people who do actual work are left holding the bag while the salesweasel cashes his bonus check.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

...and this, my friend, is why programmers generally HATE salespeople -- not the customers. When provided with accurate, precise information about what it will take to get the customer what they want, sales will disregard that completely, regardless if it means making a sale only to lose a customer, then blame the rest of the company because of some catch-all my shit doesn't stink empty platitude like "your worldview is radically wrong." No, ass, we told you that our water boils at 212F at sea level, you went to our European client and just changed the F to C because it looked better on A4 and hey, everone else's brochures said 100, so we must be like twice as good or better, a customer was KILLED as a result and now we're being sued and you're now dithering around with us about whose "worldview" is "radically wrong." Here's a hint: it's the one that doesn't defy the goddamned laws of physics.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[omglolbah]

It depends a lot on the business area I guess.

Where I work we're all in a small part of marketing and sales. We build industrial control systems for the oil/gas industry and most of us are hardware and software people who spend large parts of our time implementing those systems...

But more importantly we spend a rather large part of our time at a customer site installing, testing, modifying and just in general getting it absolutely 'right'.

One of the things we make the most 'extra' money from is snagging 'variation orders'. In essence seeing a need that nobody saw yet, and asking the customer if they'd be interested in seeing it improved. If you ask the right way, and can explain why it would be a good idea most of the time they'll go with it.... but only if the right person makes the suggestion.

One of our largest customers is Statoil, norway's largest oil company. They loathe our 'sales and marketing' department... But I never bullshit them while at site, and if they ask me about details that sales would rather they not know, I'll not lie to cover the sales dep arse. I'll tell the customer the details they ask for.
This has given me a reputation of not suggesting something unless it is a genuine good idea to implement. I wont BS in crap they dont need. My -only- ability to sell in extra variation orders is that trust that I've built over years of working there... If I go sales-person and try to hard-sell it I'll probably never sell a VOR again :p

And by $deity... If the customer say's "Not interested" you fuck right the hell off... a pissed off customer is bad for business...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you probably have a bigger thing for sales and marketing labelling them "immoral" than the OP.

The so-called sales and marketing you described typically in large corp vs the OP on the perspective of a business owner is very different.

Whatever you think is immoral, program it online to get rid of them because you can, and I believe most of these non-value-add "middle-men" will be eliminated by e-commerce.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[grandpastackhouse]

If sales and marketing is about finding out what a person needs and a sales person finds out that what that person needs isn't something that they can supply, it is a rare sales and marketing person that will say so. They do exist. I speak to maybe one a year...

This is true. I work for a company that sells and installs luxury residential electronics. Any Sales 101 that is actually effective would have you first identify any problems that your potential customer is having. If you have a product or service that can help them out, then you can identify why your product or service solves their particular problem better than other products or services they may be familiar with. Some clients are perfectly willing to hand over a bucket with $30K in it for a Kaleidescape movie server system or a Lexicon audio processor, and I have actively discouraged them from doing so because it doesn't actually help them. I would much rather put that money towards something that they actually need/want because it encourages FUTURE sales and a trusting relationship. That's why I've never really understood the "cold call." It sounds cliche but a good sales guy is more of an adviser than a pusher. If you have no interest in my advice, then that's great I don't have to waste any more of our time.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Tom Smykowski: Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Kidbro]

Which is also why I don't understand why programmers and IT usually put down other departments like sales and marketing.

I put down sales and marketing because they are liars. No other reason. Every single time sales and marketing reps produce anything, be that as little as a two minute conversation with a potential customer, they lie.
Now, you can go on about how you can't present all the technical details to the end users and whatnot, but that does not change the fact that you should not lie. Whatever the fuck did their goddamn parents do while they were growing up? Not parenting, apparently.

I do recognize that sales and marketing is hard. I suck at it, perhaps because I don't lie. But I'll be damned if I'm ever going to respect someone who does. Fuck them. Seriously.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[glorybe]

You are absolutely correct. I have worked in sales and we took pride into making customers into victims. In the more aggressive organisations we were told word for word that the money in the customers pocket was ours and we should do whatever it takes to get it. Slogans such as "rip their lungs out" were not all that uncommon. In the real world if a product is good enough you can't keep it a secret no matter how hard you try and the buyers will beat a frantic path to your door to make the purchase. The simple fact is that most products are simply worthless junk. The first clue is price. If you are looking at that expensive vacuum cleaner being demonstrated in your living room and check around a bit you will see one party paid four times as much as the guy on the next block. Some fancy beds are like that as well. One guy pays $1500 and the next house paid $7500 for exactly the same bed from the same salesman. The companies attitude is that the guy did a good job in the home where he charged $7500. When you get 30% of the take you have a big reason to charge the big bucks. If you actually publish prices you don't need to have salesmen like that. Try buying a car and asking to see what others at the dealership have paid for that model. They will escort you to the door or have a take over salesman step in. The way you get to be the take over guy is by proving you can rip lungs out better than other salesmen.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS:

Imagine the poor bastard in your software company's sales department. He suspects your product is crap, but it's all he's got to sell. No wonder he goes out and buys a nose-hair trimmer to give himself a little confidence boost. Maybe if your work were a little better, he wouldn't be so pathetic.

Alternatives: the programmer also sells OR the programmer sits there and wait for the customer to come because the product is so awesome.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[roeguard]

Having done sales for a couple years before discovering I was completely unsuited to it:

Customers don't know what they need. They don't know what's possible, they don't know what future challenges they will face. Sometimes they don't even know the current challenges they face. And so they sure as hell can't communicate them to you, as a sales person.

For a while I tried to only sell people what I thought they actually needed, and I discovered that more often that not, I was not selling someone something they really needed because they didn't know how to ask for it. One of the things I learned was that marketing spends a tremendous amount of effort generating leads (i.e. potential customers) and then qualifying the heck out of them (i.e. making sure there is a really good chance that they actually could use their product). Even in retail, by the time the customer walks in the store, or onto the lot, tremendous effort has been made to winnow out people who aren't likely to need the product.

Now that I'm on the other end of things, its frustrating dealing with sales reps who think they know better than I do about whether or not I want a product. Frequently, I'll have a potential vendor "drop" my company because we don't fit their sales pipeline model and have been disqualified (i.e. are not their "target market"). So it swings both ways.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ahmosis]

There is theory and there is reality: Sales and Marketing are immoral in that they are just looking for ways to get your money providing the minimum value for it! They don't care about your needs if they can't make money from those!

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[virtualXTC]

Well at some point when you have a product you want to make it known to people that it exists. Whether you force it down peoples throat or remain with the facts is a question of style. So here you don't answer the question of whether marketing/sales is an important/necessary/hard job to do -- You don't like a common style of doing it.

... disagreed, what you are talking about is "outreach". Sales and marketing have a very specific connotation that reach beyond the scope of outreach. Moreover, you will find individuals considered by others to be "well grounded" tend to equate the common style with the common definition, no matter what Merriam-Webster may say. To solidify this point for you I'd make an analogy to the definition of a Republican as fiscal conservatives who believe in small government, when for the past few decades they have been war-mongering corportists, however, that would probably be seen as flame bait, so I'll avoid it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[SydShamino]

You have to be a very confident, out going individual to buy a house when you guaranteed basic wage would not cover your mortgage.

You misspelled idiot.

If you are correct, then basically anyone who starts his or her own company is an idiot by your definition.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Society favours the assholes, simple as that. Being good is only a slice of the pie, being able to out-asshole everyone else so that you step on their necks on the way to the top is the rest of the pie.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Imagix]

If you're straight with most of your marketing & sales guys, you'll find that they're well aware that what they're asking for "can't be done" when they ask for it, and are perfectly happy to negotiate on a phased delivery, or a longer timetable, or a reduced feature set hit that scratches the right itch for the customer in question.

If they're well aware that what they're asking for "can't be done", then why are they asking for it? Why aren't they asking for what "can be done"? If they're not being straight with me, why should I have to go on a hunt for what they really need? Remember, we're supposed to be on the same team.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

eBay's product is the sales/auction forum, which came from developers.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[kdemetter]

How do you write such a large post, and still end up first ?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Americano]

Already answered that question in my original post - the marketing & sales guys are negotiators. It's what they do day in and day out:

Marketing guy says, "We need to do X by date Y," and it's usually a prelude to a discussion.

It's not that they're not being straight with you, they're setting out their starting position for what they figure will be the inevitable negotiation and back-and-forth discussion about the feature. That's when you're expected to make a counter-offer. They wouldn't get much done if they just said "Could I maybe have, um... a text entry field or something, if it's not too much trouble? Whatever you can give me, is okay, really. I'm sorry to be such a worthless parasite, o mighty technical wizard."

They're coming to you, and saying, "Customer wants a a full-featured Rich Text editing feature in our forum software by March 1." They don't know what "can be done" because they're not the tech experts. If you respond with "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE GO FUCK YOURSELF," you've effectively ended the negotiation session they expected to have. If you try saying, "That's a pretty tall order... but I could maybe support some limited set of rich text - say bold, italics, underlining, and bullet points - by end of March, with a fuller-featured implementation in our next major release in September? That might be possible..." you're speaking their language - which is the language of negotiation and compromise. Not the binary language of "YES / NO".

At the end of that discussion, maybe you've committed to Bold, Italics and Underlining by March 1; Indenting & Bullet points by May 1, and a full Rich Text feature set in the next major release slated for September - a realistic schedule for you, and a happy customer & marketing guy.

If you refuse to negotiate, you will simply be handed edicts because marketing will go over your head to management if you shut them down, and then it will be two people who don't understand the tech details (a manager and a marketer) hammering out implementation details for something they don't understand, and handing it to you with the demand that you "make it work."

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[russotto]

Exactly. Are there shithead sales people who oversell and expected engineering to pick up their slack? Of course. Are there shithead engineers that spend more time complaining than developing and are shocked when they don't finish on schedule? Of course.

Sure. And the shithead engineers either get let go or promoted to management. The shithead sales people, on the other hand, get rewarded while engineering gets the whip.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a french programmer in the informatic service of a big electronics factory in France.

I use to programm everyday software for the users I see everyday.
When I product something for my users I directly see them, their reaction with my product.
I know exactly what is their job and how they use my products and that's why I can produce very precise and "common"-human-readable pieces of software.

If every programmers could have the same proximity with their users like my job do.
I'm pretty sure the softwares we were using would be much more usefull and easy to deal with.

It's the same with marketing services, I work with them everyday since I manage the CRM system, and I see directly their effect on the company.
Working with commercials and marketing services were the most interesting things I've ever seen after discovering IT when I was pretty young.
And I always try to get these services to work better and enhance our company.

When your work is directly involved in your users and their wishes, all you can do is usefull stuff.
And I don't think this applies only for programming, it's much more good sense for making good work.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Hatta]

Programmers themselves really often make the mistake of thinking that everyone else's job is simple and easy and doesn't require much knowledge, or that companies should be spending more resources on programmers and IT than other departments. Best example is sales and marketing people.

No, we don't think it's an easy job. We think it's immoral.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Hatta]

Which will last until you are outcompeted by people with fewer ethics than you. And if you are successful, your business will grow and your influence will decrease as a burgeoning sales department gets more powerful. What middle manager is going to fire his sales guys for meeting his numbers, even if his strategy goes against the corporate mission statement?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DrgnDancer]

Very nice, and with absolutely no understanding of our product. We could charge people for installing and configuring Nagios except we don't do that. We sell products. Appliances. I suppose we could just sort of grow an IT consulting arm in an afternoon and take up your suggestion, but I don't think it will work all that well. What will happen if we don't include the features our customer want in our product; features our competitors already provide; is that people will buy our competitor's products. Then neither sales nor engineering makes anything and we all get to find new jobs. Hopefully at a place that give customers what they want so we don't have to repeat the cycle in six months.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[TheRaven64]

And this post sums up the reasons for the negative attitudes towards sales and marketing: it's not that they're easy, it's that most of the people working in these departments suck at their jobs and, in the case of marketing, have no metrics to be able to judge their quality (metrics are easier in sales).

Identifying potential customers, identifying their needs, and working to fill those needs is very useful and is very difficult. It's much easier just to spam a million people and hope one of them is stupid enough to buy your product.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[quacking duck]

Reminds me of the the time our managers and dev team, about 8 of us, finally, *finally* got funds and time to reward ourselves to a weekend retreat, at a famous rural hotel.

It was supposed to just be us, but the sales and marketing team found out about it a day or two before we left, and invited themselves along.

While we generally got along with the sales guys, IMHO was extremely rude of them to bust in on our team's retreat, when they routinely got to go on their own retreats.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

All too often it's about making a sale no matter what, not about helping a person with their needs. That's why it's immoral.

I'm a programmer that wouldn't go into sales and marketing unless I had no choice. I would suck at it and I have no respect for marketing.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[derrickh]

Yes. Sales and Marketing can do their jobs without PCs, Laptops and phones. Lots of things were sold and marketed before PCs were around.

Tech makes their job easier, but it doesn't make their job.
D

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[BVis]

But it's clear you didn't want Engineering's input at that meeting, so why were they there?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[fahrbot-bot]

You can walk up to any pretty lady you see and start a conversation if you've got a pretense in your pockets.
Gets tiring running around in "ON" mode all day though.

By "ON" mode, do you mean salesman mode, or the "pretense in your pocket"?
Because, if you have the latter for longer than 4 hours, please consult a physician...

BTW: If you have your pretense in both pockets, either "congratulations!", or "yikes!"

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[TheRaven64]

This is because bad engineers generate problems in the short term, while bad sales people generate problems in the long term. If you have a bad engineer, you won't deliver a working product on time and you lose money. If you have a bad sales person, you may generate a lot of sales now, but you'll seriously damage your corporate reputation and lose long-term sales. But, by then the sales person will have received their big bonus and moved on...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[fahrbot-bot]

Food, sex or danger...

1. Can I eat it?
2. Can I fuck it?
3. Will it kill me?

Survival tip: Determine #3 before evaluating #2.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

If people do something you don't like, you say that they are in "deep shit" with you. One of the main concerns you list about "fakers" is that they do not take your orders, and they don't appreciate you looking over their shoulders at everything they do. I'm sure there are people like that, but from the way your describe your serfs, it sounds equally likely that you piss off the professionals who work with you to the point that they don't care about the work and are just standing it long enough to go somewhere else. Part of your job is to make sure that the people who do the work understand the context of why it is being done, so that they can do the work in a way that supports that context. It is much better if a person working with you can figure out what the right thing is than if you have to order him around and then follow up to make sure he did it just the way you wanted it done. If you are just handing orders out and expect everyone to be greatly concerned with how much shit they are in with you personally (as opposed to being concerned about doing their job well), then yes, you will separate the people working with you into the servile and the people who are trying to get away from you.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[necode]

>I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society). But both may be immoral: -- programmers when producing an inferior product, which is still marketed and sold -- sales and marketing when misrepresenting superior product for the benefit of marketing or sales The way to morality (if we are to look for it in here) is to do both correctly, but that mostly depends on hiring good people at all company levels and that mysterious thing called quality. When company is sold this is naturally the first thing that is likely to suffer.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[jmottram08]

I am sorry to break this to you, but there are MANY companies that try their hardest to be actually helpful, and people remember them. Autorepair shops that are honest get TONS of work, because people want to, and will pay more to, deal with businesses that are honest. And they tell their friends about them as well.

USAA comes to mind as a business that does its best to be helpful and only give you what you need, even if that is recommending another company. This isnt just my experience, everyone that i know that uses USAA thinks the same way. Even when another company may have better rates on a credit card, and USAA tells me this openly, i still choose their card. Why? because i know they are honest and have great support.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[TheRaven64]

Now ask a salesperson how long is a piece of string? They will have a conversation with you and find out what you want the string for

No, that's what a good salesperson will do.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[jmottram08]

Blame the boss at the company that set up the system, not the sales guys.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[DrgnDancer]

Engineering input was accepted at the meeting. It was a good meeting. This particular bit of engineering input was pretty clearly not useful. Even most of us in engineering agreed. One bad idea being shot down doesn't "engineering input not accepted" make. My point wasn't to show that all engineers are stupid or lazy (as I said, it's my department), but rather to illustrate that just because sales wants a feature doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Even if it has to sadly take precedence over something that engineering would prefer to add. Sometimes when sales wants something (often in my experience with this particular company), it's because we really need to add it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

My company used to pay sales people commission on the sale price of a unit (we build natural gas compression equipment). After a few monthes of selling tons of units but losing money on all of them, they figured out that paying salespeople a commission based on the total *profit* on a unit was much more conducive to the company's well-being. Of course, by this point the sales guy was long gone, and we still had some losing contracts we had to complete.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[BVis]

Perhaps, but my experience is that for every 'legitimate' feature Sales wants to add, there's a feature that's just completely retarded.

It's all irrelevant most of the time anyway, as Sales only consults with Engineering after they've promised the customer the sun moon and stars and it's up to Engineering to make the impossible happen, lest the customer go somewhere else. Not sales' problem at that point, they've made their money.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[operagost]

Washington, D.C. and the mainstream media are slithering with his disciples.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

The immoral part is having to create an artificial need

As a programmer, you're helping to do this. No one actually needs the stuff you do, as it's not food, water, or shelter.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

What middle manager is going to fire his sales guys for meeting his numbers, even if his strategy goes against the corporate mission statement?

If it's his company, someone who actually does have ethics.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

Are you honestly going to say that you don't do the same? That you don't try to get the maximum amount of money out of your employer?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I laughed so hard at this -- not at the sales guy, but at the naive programmer who told a bunch of clients what they would be paying when that is the job of sales, not the technical staff. A lot of people don't understand overhead costs and how they need to factor into the final delivery of a product, and this is one of those cases.

Please trust me when I say that companies very rarely see salespeople as weasels -- they prefer talking to them over the socially-hindered IT guys most of the time. I have had clients specifically ask that those involved with the tech side not contact their users directly in the past

I say this as a techie with an MBA, by the way, not a sales guy.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

From Minority Report came many touch/kinect-like interfaces, Back To The Future with hoverboards and self tying shoes, etc.

Funny how we're close to the Minority Report interface, but we still have yet to get self tying shoes.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

In the real world if a product is good enough you can't keep it a secret no matter how hard you try and the buyers will beat a frantic path to your door to make the purchase.

That's not exactly true. In the real world, a product can be the second coming of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and it won't matter if the customer doesn't actually hear about it. And the customer won't hear about it without some form of marketing.

I have worked in sales and we took pride into making customers into victims.

Sadly, these places exist, and they generally have the slimiest of salesmen. But they're not the only types of sales outfits there are.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

So you're saying they can do their job without PC's, laptops and phones?

A good salesperson? Yes. Those things are simply tools that help them out, but a good salesperson can do the job decently enough on their own.

Further, if you're in that shitty situation, make it clear that they will either rectify it or you leave.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

Doubtful, unless they involve you being very naive.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Imagix]

Note the comment that I replied to:

you'll find that they're well aware that what they're asking for "can't be done" when they ask for it,

As opposed to your statement:

They don't know what "can be done"...

And there's a difference between "Customer wants a a full-featured Rich Text editing feature in our forum software by March 1." vs "We have to have a full-featured Rich Text editing feature in our forum software by March 1 or the company will collapse.". The techs get the second one far more often than the first. There's no point in negotiating about the second one because it has been clearly stated that if it cannot be done by March 1, then that's it. Now if they come with "The customer wants X and would like it by Y.", or "The customer wants X by Y, can it be done by then?". If there isn't that hard deadline, then don't phrase it like there is one (ie: stop lying to the techs). Again, the marketing and sales guys are supposed to be on the same team as the techs. If the question gets phrased in such a way to invite discussion, they'll find that they'll get a better answer. Instead of demanding everything, and expecting the techs to try to wheedle concessions out of sales (which is a waste of time by the tech). Why aren't they starting with the the smaller subset (recall, this started with sales asking for something they know isn't possible), or even simply acknowledging that the timeline is unreasonable with "The customer wants X by Y. How much of X can we do by then?".

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

you could have known this had nothing to do with me, I was just too desperate for a job to reject it.

That has everything to do with you. You have to be willing to walk away from a job like that, otherwise they're going to assume they can abuse you.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

It's also entirely possible that she was shitty at her job. But nice try at assuming he's a misogynist.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

No, you completely and utterly fucked up, and they were right to terminate you. The customers asked how much it cost THEM, not what the individual components cost. You should have simply given them a number based on the amount of work you put in, and the knowledge you had coming into the assignment.

You cost your company a lot of money by fucking up like that.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

He still didn't answer it correctly. He could have still answered it honestly by just giving them a number that's based purely on the value of his labor, and not mentioning that the software was free at all.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

He didn't necessarily turn him into a liar, in that I'm sure there was some amount of work integrating phpBB into the product.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[edremy]

Funny how we're close to the Minority Report interface, but we still have yet to get self tying shoes.

What's wrong with Velcro?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

No. While you said that just about everyone can hold down a marketing job, just about anyone can read "Teach yourself VB in 24 hours" and hold down a job for a while.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

No, your whole post is nothing but excuses for their shitty actions. Ok, say adding this feature is the only way to make the sale. Then the sales/marketing people need to be REALISTIC with when it can be delivered, and they need to consult with Engineering on how it can be done. Anything else is nothing short of assholish behavior.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

This feels like the start of a screenplay...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

The sales guys are the ones that made the shitty, unfounded promises. They are just as much, if not more, to blame.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

Wrong. Sales would not go on for long if there wasn't an actual product to sell.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

Where I work Sales drives Product Management and PM drives Engineering. This is pretty much a good thing.

Maybe in your specific case, but in general that's a horrible idea. Then you get Sales promising the customer the moon, and the engineers being overworked and pressured to get something done, and it ends up being half-assed, and everyone is burned out.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Americano]

One more time, you are speaking a completely different dialect than the one marketing speaks. You view an opening gambit in a negotiation as a "lie," because all the parties around the table know it's not what they're going to walk out of the negotiations with. And that effectively shuts down negotiations. It's not a "lie" it's a statement of "what I want, what I think I need, and what I hope to get a commitment for out of this discussion."

To turn it around on you: you and I both know you're overstating the case when you say that the majority of feature requests from sales or marketing includes the caveat that "if you can't do this by Date X, the company will collapse." Why would you lie that way? You also know that there's virtually no such thing as "It cannot possibly be done by Date X," except in a very small set of crisis cases, e.g. Apollo 13. - so why would you lie that way to marketing, instead of responding with a realistic assessment of what you'd need to be able to deliver their stated requirements by Date X? Maybe you need more engineers? Maybe you need more equipment? Maybe you need to clear your schedule of some other work? Maybe you simply don't have the expertise, and so the expertise of another engineer is needed? Maybe there's a conflict with other, higher priority work that the marketer doesn't even know exists?

Their job is to maximize the stuff they can get out of you to make the customer happy. Your job is to avoid over-committing so that you can actually meet the dates you've said you will.

It's a negotiation, stop treating every parameter marketing gives you as an inflexible edict, and you'll both end up a lot happier in the long run. And you'll also develop a much better rapport with your marketing counterparts, to the point where these discussions will flow a lot more smoothly, because you'll understand each other a lot better, and have a better awareness of the constraints you're both working under.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

In this instance, the sales guy's response was correct. If your customers are telling you that they want Feature X, you probably should give it to them.

However, what routinely happens in this situation is that the sales guy will promise Feature X to the customer before even breathing a word about it to Engineering. And he'll promise it on a completely unrealistic timeline.

If more sales guys were like the one in your story, then a lot of the animosity might not be there.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

What they want here, as far as I can tell, is to charge money to solve a problem that is already solved elsewhere. The engineer's response is correct, IF you actually want to solve the problem. If you want to give the customer another problem that you can then heroically step in and fix (also known as 'fuck them over') then his response was inappropriate.

No, this is completely off base. How the fuck is it "fucking the customer over" when they have REPEATEDLY told them that they want his company to solve the problem? They don't want to bother with the other shit, which would probably involve another set of consultants and sales guys, and might end up being more expensive.

Seriously, your attitude here is completely unreasonable. You can scream all you want about it being a "solved problem" and that pointing the customer to a competitor is a "good solution", but at the end of the day, that's not what the customer wanted. They wanted a more compact solution, and they wanted to deal with a company that they were already dealing with. If you can't see that, then it's no wonder that you would rally against sales people.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

No. Nothing you've said is a valid response in the slightest. Saying, "It's what sales people get paid to do!" is not an excuse. When a salesperson's bullshit causes me to have to work long hours because he couldn't be bothered to consult with Engineering and present a reasonable timeline on how long it would take to implement a feature, then he is officially a shithead, and should not get any semblance of a bonus check.

The world would work a lot better if, for every time a sales guy made engineering work late due to one of his promises, that the engineers would get his bonus check, and he'd get nothing.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[The End Of Days]

If they bring in the money... yes. A product no one buys is worth exactly zero. You may not like that fact, but please feel free to find a logical reason it's not true.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[BVis]

If by "completely unreasonable" you mean "wants to solve the problem in the most efficient way", then yeah, I'm unreasonable. I could give a shit about sales. I leave that to the salesweasels. What I'm 'rallying' against is rejecting a legitimate solution because it doesn't make any money, in favor of a less efficient solution that happens to make you more money. If you solve the customer's problem, they'll continue to be your customer. Trying to squeeze as much money out of them as you can will drive them to the competition anyway.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

Yes, you are completely unreasonable. You need to be caring about sales, as that's what pays your salary. Without sales, you wouldn't have a job. Granted, without a product, they wouldn't have a job either. But saying that rejecting a solution is them being shitheads is completely unreasonable. Have you been talking to the customer? Do you have any idea what the hell they want? Probably not.

Further, the solution wasn't rejected simply because it doesn't make any money. It was rejected because it doesn't solve the customer's problem in the way they want, and it would cause the customer to go to a competitor.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[jmottram08]

What is worse, a bad employee or the person that is responsible for that person and continues to allow them to be bad? Because there is a person that is ultimately responsible for "shitty, unfounded promises", and that person is the boss.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[leonem]

I heartily agree with this, and would add that 'sales and marketing' is a very general term, and like any general term it masks a huge variety of approaches.

In the past I have been involved in lowest-level coalface kind of work (approaching people in the street - and this was not a temporary thing, I was starting a local business, and canvassing in this way was part of our overall lead generation strategy for three years), and in some of the most high-level (and often ill-defined) 'relationship building' that professional services firms ply Fortune 500 / FTSE 100 companies with.

The difference between the first and the second of these is stark indeed, for all that they rely on the same fundamental skills: reading people and convincing people. One of them you have about five seconds to hook someone, the other you can easily take a year, meeting them every three months, before anything comes of the connection.

(For the record, I disliked working in both of these roles, and although I could force myself to be 'on', I much prefer programming and other structured work; the lesson I took - addressing your weaknesses is useful up to a point, but playing to your strengths is more rewarding and more fun!)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[cas2000]

You have to be a very confident, out going individual to buy a house when you guaranteed basic wage would not cover your mortgage.

actually, no. you have to be pretty stupid, or innumerate, or bad at analysing risk. Being good at self-deception and living in a fantasy world of your own imagining helps too.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Fjandr]

You'd think that would be the case after all this time. Still seems that they're frequently evaluated in the original order listed though.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ahmosis]

Honestly, I try to make the maximum amount of money I can make in a honest way, providing a value per the money to whomever hire my efforts. I could be making a lot more money if I faked or lied, but that is against my principles. I am not saying I am perfect, just that I try to be honest, for true. I do believe we could be a better society if we stop faking and lying each other. You lie to your employer to make more money from them?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[fahrbot-bot]

Still seems that they're frequently evaluated in the original order listed though.

And provides material for The Darwin Awards. :-)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Your right virtually all sales men are idiots, including car salesmen, it solutions sales, real estate, small business owners...

Way to contribute to the discussion.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference being that's not unethical to use pivot tables.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's immoral to take money for clarifying what a customer needs (sales), why is it any more moral to take money for designing, writing, debugging and testing the code to meet that need (programming)?

Seriously, if you have a moral problem with what your company's salespeople are doing, then you should have a problem with working in any department. After all, it's their money you're taking.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[moogaloonie]

I thought it was just the nature of people who have an aptitude for tech that we tend to make informed purchases, based on a thorough examination of our needs. Many of us don't value marketing because we've convinced ourselves that we don't respond to/fall for it. When I see ads for "Windows 7 computers" I smirk knowing Windows 8 will totally obsolete it; that Microsoft have already moved on to the next product and anyone trying to sell me Windows 7 is being disingenuous. At the same time, I am a Windows 7 user who needed a 64-bit OS's ability to use larger amounts of memory during 3D rendering, so marketing played little role in my purchase. (If I worked at the company whether I held a low opinion of marketing or hailed this as heroes would always depend on my feeling about the product.) I just assumed most geeks were meritocratic and so would often see marketing as a consumer of a disproportionately large amount of company funds. I wasn't going to bring up Asperger or autism, but I can see how some people could completely miss the point of an ad that was all flash or pathos while responding well to those speaking in percent improvements in performance, specific improvements in design, or advantages over competing products.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[moogaloonie]

Good that we value the second more than the first, or we'd have been a short lived species.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

I started out as a server administrator, got bored and moved to programming (and found you need a real eye for detail - which I didn't have), then moved into networks and had an absolute ball. But it was really in networks when I found that you had access to a huge amount of personal information about people's browsing habits etc. and what interesting possibilities that opens up.

That was when I realised I have flexible moral values.

So I went to university, studied an MBA and now I'm back .... In Sales!

But it's not me who's immoral! At least I'm not conflicted in my position - which is to get the maximum amount of money from the maximum number of people without breaking the law.

It's the programmers who I have write the code that interrogates the data that you all think is private who are immoral. It's the network administrators who provide the data that you all think is private to the programs that interrogate that data who are immoral. They are the ones who broke your trust.

Sure, in sales we use anonymized information that is derived from data you thought was private in order for us to best extract more money from you ... but you never trusted us to do any different!

It's legal - read page 209 subsection 3 of the terms and conditions on our website - you agreed we could use anonomized information.

But you tell me, who is immoral - the sales team who are doing exactly what you expect them to, or the networks and systems teams who you trust to keep your data private who are instead just keeping it anonymous, while assisting in the pursuit of extracting more money from you?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[AuMatar]

IF you're just starting your own company and buying a house, you are an idiot. At that point you continue renting to minimize your outgoing cash flow so you can survive longer if the business is slow to break even. Why would you take on debt at a time when your incoming salary is uncertain?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

As sales you promise the eath and then give me 3 days to make it - Even God got 6 days and a holiday.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I was working with someone who would write shit code then if anyone saw it call that the "hand over" and disown it. He was also constantly asking for "help" (aka trying to make it other peoples responsibility) on every task, especially debugging. I guess to his benefit he wasn't hard coding values, however that did manage to embarrass the business owner of a time during a demo.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[mjwx]

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it. It's also making it easier for customers to buy your services or products, and letting them know such product exists (to fix a need, again). What is so immoral about that?

LoL,

You've never worked with sales have you.

Sales is about ignoring what a perspective client needs and convincing them to buy the product or solution that generates the most commission for the salesman.

Marketing is about convincing people they have a need for your product or solution, a need that does not exist.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[mjwx]

The biggest gripe most programmers have with sales people is when they sell a feature that doesn't exist yet for a price that doesn't cover the cost to implement it. And somehow the sales person gets a bonus and the programmer has to work long hours and ends up with a bad performance review.

As a network engineer, when a salesman sells something that we cant deliver, I have the balls to go to the salesman and tell him that he needs to tell to the client he sold something that cant be delivered. If he doesn't I will point out to the client that the salesman lied. The salesmans rep gets damaged more then mine or the companies, reasonable clients will talk to me about the solution and in this case the salesman gets shut out, unreasonable clients will just dump us.

Given this, salesmen quickly learn not to fuck with IT, when we tell them X isn't going to happen, it isn't going to happen and they will look bad for it.

Now salesmen are nowhere near the kind of fuck ups that project managers are. A good project manager who works with the team, eliminates problems and blockages is worth their weight in gold and are considerably less abundant. Most project managers are shit, they spend most of their time arging amongst themselves over resources (I.E. People) dont bother having relevant information about the projects they are meant to manage and simply delegate without knowing what staff are doing. A PM does not need to have an in depth understanding but they need a basic understanding to know what a job entails and how this will affect the end result.

I've been sent to install servers into rooms that didn't have power by shitty project managers. I called the PM and he said the electricians were coming next Tuesday and just to do the job. I did everything I could do without power, which was nothing. I couldn't even physically install the rack because it would block access for the electricians. A lot of PM's fail to understand the sequence in which things must be done, power must be installed before servers, this manager also had the gall to complain that I messed up his nice gantt chart because he fucked up the planning, he just stood there with a blank stare when I asked him "how do I even turn on servers without electricity". The depth of the problem was completely lost on him.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[LoztInSpace]

This is why we have requirements and functional specifications. If it's ambiguous, then fine, ask the BA/Customer/whoever and fix up the documentation and then the code. Generally speaking though, this question should be your last one, not the first one.
I hate paperwork as much as the next guy, but there is a fair bit of truth in the attitude that a system with undocumented requirements and functionals is impossible to pass testing. When you have customers, this actually translates to potential contractual issues and whether payment should be forthcoming or withheld. You need something that can be signed off and accepted by all parties, not "it doesn't feel right to me".

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

That distinction is a meaningless one. They are both extremely shitty. The salesperson still made the conscious, free decision to take action to make our lives miserable. Giving them a pass because "the boss allows it" is just sweeping the problem under the rug.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[s73v3r]

Where did I say anything about lying? Further, how can you prove that most of the Sales & Marketing guys are lying? How can you prove that they aren't doing the same as you? You're just trying to get money from your employer, same as them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

> They have to work with customers, who are free to do things like
> demand something they don't really want, then not buy it after you go through
> the trouble of having it made.

And who do you think goes through the trouble of actually having it made?
As in
Salesperson: Bob, Big Bucks Affairs, Ltd. demanded this feature. I need it yesterday.
Bob: OK. It's 2 weeks.
Salesperson: 1 week.
Bob: 8 working days.
Salesperson: OK
[Bob busts his hump for 6 working days, stays extra hours, and generally works like a horse]
Bob: Phew! It's done, and 2 days ahead of schedule!.
Salesperson, indifferently: OK
Bob: What do you mean "OK"?! When do we demo it to Big Bucks Affairs?
Salesperson: Oh, that. They said they are not interested 3 days ago.

Sounds familiar?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[mysidia]

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

Then you definitely shouldn't take a jobs in sales or marketing.
The self-conflict would be horribly destructive.

But those functions are still critical for business success.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Here's a hint: it's the one that doesn't defy the goddamned laws of physics.

Assuming that you are the only one with a correct view of the implications of the laws of physics is beyond delusional. The entirety of the human species has this thing called civilization and "denying the reality of the laws of physics" would not be that bad a description of it. This is the purpose of religion, which attempts to do that by changing human nature, and the purpose of science, which attempts to do it by changing the structure of the world surrounding humans. Religion fails at influencing the real world and science fails influencing humans in constructive manner. Somehow the future is something combining both of these, as such an ideology would be unbeatable by both religious people and unbeatable by scientists working to one-up one another. Both concepts, mostly religion but not neglecting science, are the very core of civilization, and they are it's past and it's future.

All sorts of inventions were tried and implemented in support of this. From the wheel, to Jesus, to cars, cities, electricity, computers ... you name it. And software is essentially nothing but our latest attempt to rewrite the laws of physics. It's also pretty damned successful at it even today, and if our visions of future software capabilities come true, like replicators and holodecks we will have the ability to trade (hopefully small amounts of) energy for total reality denial. This is the long-term goal of software. This means that it needs to do 2 things. First it needs to create an illusion around a person, or better yet, humanity as a whole, and prevent that person(s) from finding out about the real world. Secondly, it needs to influence the real world to sustain it, so that the machine/program/... creating the illusion is not destroyed by things like lack of energy or any of a million other factors.

Most software attempts to make a tiny, tiny little dent in this goal. Because we have no idea whatsoever how to make this happen, this is only natural. The main task you have as an employee is to move someone else closer to the ideal of a new reality, which boths prevents them from breaking the illusion *and* prevents reality from breaking the illusion. And the big bucks are reserved for those who succeed. Your software failed at this, but you'll get another chance. Everybody everywhere has thus far failed, so that's not exactly a big deal. Since you clearly have your next chance, get to it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[bronney]

that's wa fight club is one of my top ten :D

In order to find out what a person really needs, think of the things that you've never seen a commercial of.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[crafty.munchkin]

I'LL TAKE 12!

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely with you. One needs accounting knowledge to protect your investments, taxes and retirement; legal knowledge to protect your intellectual and other properties; marketing to communicate with your girl/boy friend, managers and customers. It is time consuming and forces one to learn these related skills in the present complex world. Just a four year degree in some area is no more enough. All these unemployed people are the witness to this lack of skill set. They cannot move laterally to new areas of knowledge because they are set fixed in their limited skill sets. Laughing at others only indicates the ignorance of people will find themselves themselves without jobs, good living partners/living space and l be part of some kind of litigation. No school counsellors (or advisors) even talk about all the related but necessary subjects. So people go vertical and fall down when the economic climate fails. Pity these self obsessed and ignorant software (or any ware ) people. Programming and coding alone is no more important without the added skill sets to survive.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the area of work that you may not like, but the basic principles you learn in those domains are relevant. No one asks you to become a sales person(liers) or marketing guys(vaporware) rather learn the best techniques and apply it when you have to communicate with your bosses, wife or any one else you interact with. Your perceived social skills are of no use unless you can touch some one else to reach your goals. Most coders do not get better projects or lose job not because they are not aces in their field, but poorly failed to market and communicate their ideas to the bosses who control the budget. One can use a knife to kill thus hate the knives or learn to carefully use it to cut stuff and use it as a screw driver in an emergency because you realise it's tip is enough to tighten a small screw.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I simply find both sales and marketing immoral (at least in the forms they commonly have in our society).

Wow. That's a bit like saying the Internet is evil. Yes marketing and sales is done in and evil way sometimes but done correctly it helps connect people with needs to companies that can fulfill those needs.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

You are absolutely correct. You hate your teachers and professors because they expect you to perform at their level of expertise. You want them to hand hold you and guide you to get your grade when you don't understand something. Customers are not expert in coding or any thing. They want that product but you are so arrogant with your own knowledge well scorn at them because they don't have your expertise and instantaneous understanding of your code or product. You lose them and also your job and pride. Ignorance is not bliss. If you cannot successfully market yourself, your job is outsourced to India or China not because they are better than you but have learned what is the value of marketing in the US.Our education system is producing more functionally ignorant people because of political corruption at the school level.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[CAIMLAS]

The big thing about sales and marketing is that, to be "good" at them, you've basically got to be able to lie really well.

Sure, there are truthful salesmen. They're usually (irritating) persistent motherfuckers. Some are good men/women. Mostly, they're deceptive. It's almost a requirement simply on the basis of skill curve: not everyone can be a truly good salesman or marketeer. Successful ad campaigns are testament to this: they're fucking expensive not only because they're good, but because they're as guileless as possible while still making the sale.

Social skills and the ability to read others is one thing; what commonly passes as sales and marketing behavior is another. As someone who has BTDT with running my own business, my hat is off to you: I'm not terribly good at coloring things for people, and I have an intrinsic dislike of doing so (probably mutually exclusive).

Honestly, I respect what sales and marketing do, to a degree. It is hard work, damn hard. I just hate the way in which it usually transpires. They're often fundamentally dishonest, and it behooves an ethical salesman to not actually know all that much about what he's talking about.

Most sales people I've met are good at a couple things: overselling a low-cost product, underselling a costly one, and telling the customer that they won't be as bad as what the customer currently has. Sales, like IT, has the burden of being in the unenviable position of having to have better-than-the-last-guy performance. Unfortunately, they rely upon others for what they sell, and are never held responsible for the bad (from a technical perspective) sales. Unlike IT, they're given accolades for the successes (which are usually not actually a long-term success due to nobody knowing what's needed but the engineers, who weren't asked). That's why we don't like them.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[CAIMLAS]

I agree whole-heartedly. (See my earlier response to my GP.)

The best salesmen I've seen are the ones who are held responsible to and by their sales engineer. A salesman needs to be kept on a leash or he will sell an Eskimo an ice maker, and then you'll be responsible for figuring out how to turn ice into water so the ice can be made on the inside of the device.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[CAIMLAS]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it. It's also making it easier for customers to buy your services or products, and letting them know such product exists (to fix a need, again). What is so immoral about that?

That's the salesman's impression of himself. It fits the description of every used car salesman I've met (literally and metaphorically).

It's true in all but spirit. You know damn well that it doesn't come down to finding what the customer needs and how they can help them with it: most salesmen will sell anything they can get the customer to agree with, regardless of whether it's practical or even feasible. If it's not practical, the result will have cut corners. If it's not feasible, it will be a flop, but engineered to still appear to meet the contractual requirements.

At least in IT/programming, it's pretty well known that sales-centric/heavy companies tend to fall on their asses fairly quickly if someone doesn't hold the leash of the salesmen and say "this much, and no more". Sales can not be the last word in anything: they need to have oversight.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I also know why programmers suck at sales and marketing people. Programmers, and geeks, quite often lack the social skills and knowledge of human psychology to succeed in it.

In my case, I REFUSE to mess with the customer's heads to try to get a sale--I just use facts. I know people are motivated by their emotions to buy stuff and that fact SICKENS me! Let Madison Avenue continue to brainwash the masses to buy stuff that is overpriced due in part to [push-based] advertising. I avoid as many ads as possible. For starters, I NEVER watch commercial broadcast TV live, it is WASTEFUL to watch as it is one-third ads. I'd use (and have used in the past) a DVR to watch such programming on 'tape delay' and 'zip' past all the ads. As for channel/network 'watermarks' and product-placement imbedded in the shows themselves, I ignore them though they are seen in some circles as a 'necessary evil' in return for 'free television'.

CAPTCHA: baseness [Says it all in a nutshell about advertising in general! :P]

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

"Here is the thing, maybe it does something for you" isn't really good selling point. You need to figure out and tell the customer what he would gain by buying your product or service, from the customers point of view.

If telling a customer UP FRONT that your product/service can save them time/money or make them more money than the cost of the product/service AND PROVE IT *WITHOUT* playing on their emotions to close the sale just proves these customers are WRONG for your product/service and not worth your time pursuing.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[CAIMLAS]

I think what he was actually saying was that people in sales or marketing departments are much more likely to be on a pay scale that is much more performance related.

Bullshit. It's set to make median performers have livable lives. They still make more than IT.

IT, on the other hand, is expected to perform at 150% optimal. They're not allowed mistakes, and a 40 hour work week is short time slacking off.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

I regularly field calls from sales people trying to sell me stuff I don't need. It is a waste of my time.

I read somewhere (online?) what one guy does....

He could dectect a sales call in under FIVE SECONDS (I think is was three seconds). He just hangs up on them.

"I don't have time for that sh!t, I've got a business to run!" (reasonably accurate paraphrase of what he actually said).

If you want to go the extra mile, tell them "Do not call me again at this number." THEN hang up. If they call again, you can
sue them due to the DO NOT CALL law in the USA or configure your company's phone system to autohangup on such
calls if you are able to get the incoming phone number from you CALLER ID properly.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[mikael_j]

Oh there are plenty of marketing people out there who think that when someone says "It's impossible" or "It will take months to build" that it is in fact a negotiation, that it's a person v person thing that can be dealt with by talking them into making it possible.

These are the ones in high enough positions that they need to be obeyed who don't understand arguments like "I fail to see how we could do that without boiling the oceans" or "The time required just for planning is at least a week and building it will take another month or two" and instead insist on "Well, we need it by friday"...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[CAIMLAS]

If a sales guy has sat in five meetings, and in four of them a customer has said, "man, I wish your product had x like the Acme product," he's going to ask for that to be added in. It's "valuable" if customers want it. Not matter how stupid you find it, no matter how much you'd rather add y (which perhaps no one has asked for), the sales guy thinks he can sell more product with x.

The problem is that the sales guy is typically sitting with the executive officers within an organization, whether they be the CFO, CEO, or CIO. They don't know the shit on the ground: they haven't been there themselves, they just know what they've heard is awesome ("Cloud", "AJAX", "Agile, you name it).

Meanwhile, -good- developers are developing something which is useful and meaningful - not just "another awesome feature" but something which will actually improve manageability and utility (say, for information systems, the people who will have to make it all work).

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Malvineous]

Definitely agree with that. An 'adviser' salesperson is much easier to work with. I had to buy a new photocopier recently and went back to the same salesperson as the last time precisely because he wasn't pushy when all the others were. Interestingly enough he didn't always work in sales, he started out as a repair tech...

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Blake: We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?
[Holds up prize]
Blake: Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

Glengarry Glen Ross... great stuff.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ameen.ross]

"A job like that"? So are you implying it was a bad job? I couldn't agree more. But then how the hell do you conclude from this fact that it's my fault? A few facts:

• I didn't know about their infrastructure when I first started there.
• I stood up for myself, got angry a number of times.
• I got a raise after 6 months, reluctantly though.
• Then a new manager came and got rid of me and a few other employees for no apparent reason at all. One of my former colleagues went to court and won.
• I would have left long ago, if I could afford it.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Archtech]

No, you completely and utterly fucked up, and they were right to terminate you. The customers asked how much it cost THEM, not what the individual components cost. You should have simply given them a number based on the amount of work you put in, and the knowledge you had coming into the assignment.

You cost your company a lot of money by fucking up like that.

So you really, seriously, believe that it's OK and perfectly normal to charge customers for software that someone has written and explicitly made available free of charge? I guess you also believe that there's a sucker born every minute, and it's immoral not to fleece them for all they've got.

Attitudes like that make me ashamed to be a human.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had sales make promises that were impossible to do with their time frame during the crunch month. My boss calls up the sale's rep manager and tells them that *they* will have to let the customer know they were miss-informed and they'll be served "when we get to them".

Speaking of which, we haven't had many issues after that first string of them. I think they got the message.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, just pass the torch. If you're the developer in that meeting, and the "how much does it cost?" question somehow comes your way, it is appropriate to redirect it to the sales guy who is sitting at the table with you. When you're in a room with a customer, know your role, and play as a team.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

An ethical one.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[hey!]

If people do something you don't like, you say that they are in "deep shit" with you.

Pretty much. As supervisor, I have the whole team to think about and I *don't like* a developer creating pointless work for other people on the team by not checking his code in regularly. I *don't like* people who don't get their work done by when they promise, and don't tell me until its too late to do anything about it. I *don't like* employees falsifying their work. Do any of those things and yes, you are in deep shit with me.

I basically care about three things: quality results, achieving budget and schedule targets, and fairness to the other team members. Outside of that I keep my likes and dislikes to myself.

it sounds equally likely that you piss off the professionals who work with you to the point that they don't care about the work

Just let me point out: a *professional* doesn't stop doing his work professionally because he's pissed off at the boss. But then, a professional programmer wouldn't have to be told to do frequent commits; or he certainly wouldn't have to be told *twice*. No professional would be pissed off by the insistence he check in his code regularly and submit to source code review. That's bare minimum kind of stuff, and anyone who'd get pissed of by that isn't going to be happy working for me, because flexible as I may be those things are non-negotiable.

Ultimately, being professional isn't about what you *know*, or what you can *do*. It's about being responsible, honest and open. I can take bad news without shooting the messenger, but if he's held that news back until there's a crisis I *will* hold him responsible. And if anyone turns in *faked* work (which believe it or not happens), when I discover that they've got bigger problems than feeling alienated by my reaction.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[h4rr4r]

Buying a house is not entrepreneurship. All marketing is spammy. If I wanted your crap I would find it myself.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[lsatenstein]

Regarding programmers and geeks going into sales of doing sales support. These two groups are late bloomers. First they master the technology, then due to marriage, kids, bosses, etc, the master the social skills. The best salespeople in my view are the 50+ group. Any concurrence from you?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[richardpaulhall]

And NOT everybody can be a dish washer. The unmotivated cannot produce. The lazy do not produce. (I saw a new hire pot washer get fired for throwing away pots and pans rather than wash them. I had just been promoted out of that job and was there when someone at work saw pots and pans in the dumpster.)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[ahmosis]

I have no prof and I will not take the time to do it. Some are honest but most Sales & Marketing guys are just to "loose" on what is honest, maybe we could agree on this. I'm not "just" trying to get money from my employer. Absolutely not! I could be making more money selling tacos or hamburgers and I am not doing that. Hope this assertion makes clear the difference to you! By the way: what do you do for a living? do you like it or just do it for the money?

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[jmottram08]

Not really. Its the bosses job to manage his people. He is completely failing at that. The sales guy is making sales in a bad way, knowingly or not. End of the story, this situation is why we have managers to begin with, so if you are not willing to put responsibility where it is supposed to go then.... i dont know what to tell you.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[biovoid]

He invited me to the sales meeting to describe the product and demonstrate how easy it is to moderate and administrate.

I was asked how much this all cost,

It wasn't your job to tell them how much it cost. You should have deferred that question to your sales team. They were right to fire you.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Survival tip: Determine #3 before evaluating #2.

That only applies for species that average less than 2 offspring per copulation (mammals yes, arachnids no)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying a house is not entrepreneurship. All marketing is spammy. If I wanted your crap I would find it myself.

A) On the product website?
B) In its folder?
C) In the store window?
D) By talking to everyone in the world asking them if they happened to have created the product you need.

(only one of these is not marketing-based)

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[tonekids]

Unfortunately, I have no mod points for you. Why would a developer be quoting prices in the first place? I'd defer that question to the sales guy, pleading ignorance.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, try applying it as a filter on #1 too.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it only applies for an individual who values survival as an individual over survival of the species.

Fuck the species... I intend to live another day to fuck the species again before I die. Preferably a female of the species. Actually, that's a non-optional criteria.

Re:It's not only programmers vs bosses

[Jeruvy]

I think its rather an interesting point you make.  I have made a career out of taking 'technical' people and teaching them to be sales people.  Its stunning how well this works especially when I advise the tech's not to say they are a salesperson, instead they need to keep their technical perspective.

This allows many people to relax better and think they are the ones making 'informed' decisions since our tech's simply 'advise' and not 'push'.

Re:how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-can-

[Anonymous Coward]

I started my own company.

That's a very bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Giving (access to) the code to your boss is probably a very bad idea, unless you know he's a talented programmer of course.

The problem is that once is done with his (probably poorly written) code, he will consider the task as done. But by the time this code will need tweaking of fixing, he probably won't have the time or will to do it himself and it will be YOUR job to dive into this mess and sort things out.

If you're lucky enough that it's actually _your_ boss who is question, the you should really fight for better communication and for him letting you do the job correctly, explaining to him that its not as easy to write _good_ code as he thinks, etc. This, of course, might not be an easy task depending of how stubborn he is.

If on the other hand the request comes from a customer as it often happens to me, then you're probably screwed and will have to accept his code and live with it.

Re:That's a very bad idea

[lightknight]

Assuming you're dealing with a non-programmer boss or board member, I'd be more worried about them shipping the code-base off to someone in India in an effort to save face (never-mind the fact that it's the companies latest flagship product, and the competition will have a copy of it before sunset). The board-member could just jump ship, and take the code with him, to start a new company (thanks for the lift, guys). Not like that doesn't happen all the time.

Letting your non-programmer boss / board member have unrestricted access to the code should rank up there with leaving them alone on a computer that has access to the financial's database. I'm not saying they won't twist your arm to get what they want, I'm just saying it does not bode well for the company.

Code can be surprisingly complex ...

[jginspace]

... I'd opened quite a few Wordpress scripts before I did anything beyond modifying lines in header.php, footer.php, index.php.

Re:Code can be surprisingly complex ...

[MichaelSmith]

You don't say....

really?

[mapkinase]

> Give the code to him, advises Winer.

I recall a more general advice from the series: don't upset people serving your food.

Re:really?

[lightknight]

Lol. In this economy, they think you can't find another job, so they can let it all hang out.

Re:really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, me too, when i am preparing their food.

Human Resource Management Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Human Resource Manager I will tell you that this whole article merely displays the anti-authority attitude that many people in the IT field have. The author self-validates his own beliefs and cognitive biases by not only ignoring and fighting against his superiors, but by setting them up to fail. If the code (referred to in the article) were well written and commented, then the executive who took a programming course should have had no problem completing the task. Well written and structured code should be easy to modify and improve.

I personally always find resistance from IT people when trying to get them to do something. Usually they are just too lazy and stubborn to complete tasks in a time efficient manner. When I remotely monitor their computer screens, for example, I often see 1 or 2 minutes at a time when code is not being typed into the terminal. There is no excuse for such laziness. And many of them want to be paid for "over-time" when they don't complete their tasks in a time-efficient manner. But I tell you, if they don't bother to finish their tasks in the scheduled time then they shouldn't expect to get free money by working over time.

Many programmers in fact are socialists. I've noticed that many of them are against businesses and capitalism, as can be seen by their anti-SOPA, and pro-copyright-theft ideologies. If programmers would be smart enough then they wouldn't be programmers, they would be a boss like me telling them what to do. It's obvious that the people complaining about their superiors are just jealous.

I guess since this is Slashdot I can expect to be moderated down because people just can't handle the truth.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Walt Dismal]

I'm awarding you the Slashdot Satire Award for the day. It's not expensive, consisting of an opened can of tuna that's gone ripe, but the sentiment is hearty.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[gnasher719]

If someone is a troll, but really funny, should that be modded down as "troll" or modded up as "humour"? (That said, if I had a real "Human Resource Manager" like that, I can promise that we would have a meeting behind the bike shed, and I would totally give up my usual non-violent attitude).

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[The Askylist]

Epic troll.

Could almost have come from some of the worst HR people I have had the misfortune to meet - congrats.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[icebraining]

I think he deserves a "+5, Troll".

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[empty_other]

You should probably tag this as a joke, because these kind of people do actually exist. Though they usually dont read /. afaik.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[JaredOfEuropa]

I personally always find resistance from IT people when trying to get them to do something

A funny post, but there's a lot of truth to this part. IT is a "no" department; we (I am in IT myself) have gotten great at telling other why something is impossible or why something shouldn't be done. When faced with change, we come up with issues and blockers rather than solutions. In my experience, other departments like Legal, Marketing & Sales etc often start out in the same manner, but it is easier to switch them from problem mode to solution mode. IT is more stubborn and arrogant about things that go against the current way of thinking and way of doing things.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, very nice satire. you had me going until "When I remotely monitor their computer screens, for example, I often see 1 or 2" but didnt't continue with "social media or news windows open with loads of tabs and nothing else, sometimes a game."

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Jane Q. Public]

Ha ha ha! You are demonstrating the same mind-set that the author of the article was talking about.

"If the code (referred to in the article) were well written and commented, then the executive who took a programming course should have had no problem completing the task. Well written and structured code should be easy to modify and improve."

Only by somebody who is as good as the programmer who originally wrote it. In any other case, you're full of crap.

That's like saying "anybody should be able to properly tune up an old car, as long as they have the manual." Maybe that is true to a certain degree, but if they have only done a bit of car repair work before, or none, then in fact you cannot reasonably claim that they will perform as well as an experienced mechanic. They will fumble, they will make mistakes, and if they manage to get the job done at all, it will have taken a lot longer than if someone with more experience had done it.

"I personally always find resistance from IT people when trying to get them to do something."

This tells me something already, because in my experience this is NOT usually the case.

"Usually they are just too lazy and stubborn to complete tasks in a time efficient manner."

There you go again. Giving away your own mindset. You think most IT people are lazy and stubborn. And if you act toward them as you describe them, guess what? They are probably going to be lazy and stubborn... around YOU.

"When I remotely monitor their computer screens"

And my suspicions are confirmed even more. You are a tyrant. I, personally, would not work in a place where the boss had the ability to monitor my screen. Why? Not because I am lazy or stubborn, but because it demonstrates an abysmal lack of trust and respect for me as a person. It's a "guilty until proven innocent" situation. Treat me that way, and again, guess what? That's how I'm going to behave. When working for YOU.

"Many programmers in fact are socialists."

Really? How many? Funny, but I know or am acquainted with a great many programmers, and the socialists among them number MAYBE one.

I've noticed that many of them are against businesses and capitalism, as can be seen by their anti-SOPA, and pro-copyright-theft ideologies.

Wow. You're a real piece of work. Anti-SOPA is neither "anti-capitalism", or "pro-theft". It is anti-"so greedy you would damage other people's Constitutional rights and the internet itself in order to exploit those people for your own profit." Not the same thing at all. Greed isn't Capitalism. In fact they are mutually exclusive. Read Adam Smith.

"If programmers would be smart enough then they wouldn't be programmers, they would be a boss like me telling them what to do."

Well, I will agree with you on that! Smart programmers would indeed not be working for you.

"I guess since this is Slashdot I can expect to be moderated down because people just can't handle the truth."

Ha ha ha ha ha! It's late and I have to go to bed, but I have to thank you for giving me some comic relief before I go to sleep.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

[Mimes using a fishing rod]

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[GameboyRMH]

I had many lols XD

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

If the code (referred to in the article) were well written and commented, then the executive who took a programming course should have had no problem completing the task. Well written and structured code should be easy to modify and improve.

Emphasis added to point out the part where the bullshit lies.

Well-written / structured code is easy to modify. Well-written / structured code being easy to improve? That's a function not only of the code but also of the skill of the developer modifying the code. Your executive that just took Intro to Java 101 lacks the latter.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Sectoid_Dev]

As a Human Resource Manager I will tell you that this whole article merely displays the anti-authority attitude that many people in the IT field have. The author self-validates his own beliefs and cognitive biases by not only ignoring and fighting against his superiors, but by setting them up to fail. If the code (referred to in the article) were well written and commented, then the executive who took a programming course should have had no problem completing the task. Well written and structured code should be easy to modify and improve.

This could had been an epic troll if the AC had only posted the first paragraph.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

IT: Did you order the code read!? Manager: You're damn right I ordered the code read!

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[spads]

I mod-d you down, before I saw your category was "funny", so I have to comment to back that out.

I will lose a couple other mods, but your joke definitely does deserve to be heard, though it is probably a flamebait. Ie. "1-2 minutes at a time when code is not being typed into the terminal" posted on slashdot - puh-lease! Funny as hell, though, b-gard!

So, now that I'm posting anyway, would just say this whole "what not known is easy" is a perfect illustration of the danger of being impulsively optimistic. Realism will trump it every time. Oh, yeah, and a lot of manager are trying to make up for feelings of personal inadequacy, by lording the only thing they have over others - their power.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Jpnh]

When I remotely monitor their computer screens, for example, I often see 1 or 2 minutes at a time when code is not being typed into the terminal.

Unlike you, as evidenced by this post, programmers actually have to think before they type.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to hear your admonition. Giving structured code alone cannot help any one. The assumptions and the selection of particular algorithm, the selection of a particular data structure, the performance constraints, the security constraints, the embedded business rules etc. etc., do not come with the source code rather resides in the creator (like the DNA of the parents). So, don't be abusive by saying every one is against the management and programmers are socialists etc., the PR crap of GOP. What is going on here is a genuine discussion as to why and how certain things can be or cannot be done when the expectations are too high. No one wants to fail in their domain of expertise. If one ha aptitude and interest in teaching he or she cannot make a dumb ass student with uncaring parents and environment make a genius out of the dumb ass. Even if the best teacher gives all his material to a school, it still can not implement any thing without his whole hearted participation. HR dept. is a waste.

Re:Human Resource Management Perspective

[goose-incarnated]

There was a reason why, in a piece of fiction I wrote, I made fun of the amount of work the HR officeers actually, but you're much funnier :)

What about the other side?

[bogaboga]

You can have everything right in your product but if no one knows about it and if there's no one telling you what would your product improve on the persons work or life, then your product is almost useless. This same trend can be seen with Linux and to an extend with some Google (and other geeky companies) products

Chrome has issue 44106, which despite countless requests for an implementation, was labeled "Won't Fix".

One developer says:

"Commenting on this bug has absolutely no effect at all on the likelihood that we are going to reconsider."

Then goes further to say:

"We made the decision not to make this configurable long, long ago, even before we WontFixed this bug in comment 59 (over a year ago itself). Accordingly the bug is closed because that reflects not only our current stance but the position we've had for a very long time."

So thus "bug" sounds like a feature! Now, talk of listening to customers.

Re:What about the other side?

[arkhan_jg]

It's a feature request/design change, not a bug. One that changes the layout of the browser quite considerably by shifting the tabs below the url bar; which given that's where addons and bookmarks live, may well have other impacts on the code.

Google have decided that they don't want to implement such a design option, even if that annoys the 602 people who've starred the bug report. C'est la vie.

Re:What about the other side?

[Soluzar]

Bugfix: Don't use Chrome. I find this solution eminently satisfactory.

Re:What about the other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chomium is open source. If you want this feature implement it yourself, then send Google your code and see if you can get it committed to the project.

Re:What about the other side?

[Ed Avis]

"Customers"? WTF? Who pays money for Chrome?

Re:What about the other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've taken that completely out of context and twisted his words to mean something completely different.

Re:What about the other side?

[Colonel Korn]

You can have everything right in your product but if no one knows about it and if there's no one telling you what would your product improve on the persons work or life, then your product is almost useless. This same trend can be seen with Linux and to an extend with some Google (and other geeky companies) products

Chrome has issue 44106, which despite countless requests for an implementation, was labeled "Won't Fix".

One developer says:

"Commenting on this bug has absolutely no effect at all on the likelihood that we are going to reconsider."

Then goes further to say:

"We made the decision not to make this configurable long, long ago, even before we WontFixed this bug in comment 59 (over a year ago itself). Accordingly the bug is closed because that reflects not only our current stance but the position we've had for a very long time."

So thus "bug" sounds like a feature! Now, talk of listening to customers.

Maybe this is why everyone I know at Google uses Firefox (or Safari!), even at work.

Re:What about the other side?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google have decided that they don't want to implement such a design option, even if that annoys the 602 people who've starred the bug report. C'est la vie.

No, Google decided it was not a bug, or it was functions as designed. Now if the people reporting it as a bug want to go over to the discussion boards and open a discussion about an enhancement or a change to the layout because of the impact to their user experience, they are welcome to do so. But it is not a "bug".

Re:What about the other side?

[Jonner]

I'm not sure Google considers users of Chrome customers. Google's customers are those paying for their services, like ads. At least anyone so inclined and skilled could make a fork of Chromium with that feature.

Re:What about the other side?

[Coren22]

Advertisers.

Be a swan

[jholyhead]

Be like a swan paddling upstream. Graceful on the surface, but working like crazy underneath. I don't buy into the idea of embarrassing your boss by making him look stupid. Who is that going to help? Certainly not the person who made him look a fool. When it comes to promotion/pay raise time, who is going to get the bacon? The complainer who makes his superiority known, or the guy who shuts up and gets the job done without fuss?

Re:Be a swan

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes to promotion/pay raise time, who is going to get the bacon?

The manager?

Re:Be a swan

[lightknight]

Depends on the boss, but reality is if you don't have a decent boss (one you can respect for his technical prowess, sharp thinking, and managerial capabilities), it's time to jump ship. Trying to get your boss fired will in all likelihood result in two things: 1.) you burning a bridge and 2.) you getting fired instead.

The current mindset amongst the business people is that programmers are a dime a dozen -> one is interchangeable for another, and that someone in a third world country can do your job for less (so they imagine that they have you up against a wall). Inform them of the difference by quitting, and let the new guy try to find his way through your code (carefully documented or otherwise, any decent project will take several months for him to catch up on).

Promotions are kind of a joke for the last several years -> it's easier to get a pay raise and recognition by floating your resume than believing that being a good / helpful / quiet person will somehow advance your career.

Again, if you're dealing with a boss or a team who are simply not on the same page (and resist change), jump ship. The programmer's greatest liability is his desire to be like the Marines, to leave no man (project) behind. Once cured of this weakness, you will advance in life. It's the same as when you stop offering free technical support (to all but your closest colleagues)-> you suddenly get your free time back.

Re:Be a swan

[Tim C]

In my experience, it's the guy who gets the job done at least tolerably well, but makes pretty damn sure that everyone knows about it. This is generally done subtly, e.g. by just chatting to the right people in the kitchen/by the watercooler/in the pub after work, but it generally ensures that they're considered above and beyond the guy who does the job even better but keeps his head down, his mouth shut and consequently doesn't get noticed at all.

That's not to disagree with your main point, that in general embarrassing your boss is a bad idea.

Re:Be a swan

[grep_rocks]

In my experience working in corporate R&D management has no respect for technical skills, our society just does not value expertise. For them, just wishing for a new feature or system is the real work - figuring out if it is even possible, and then figuring out how to make it work is for little people - many times managers have asked for system concepts that are just physically impossible - but god help you if you actually told them that "you are not a team player", when you suggest an alternative which has a chance of working, you are ignored - because little people can't possibly have good ideas and usually the alternative is not as sexy as something that is physically impossible

Re:Be a swan

[lightknight]

R&D is typically the life-blood of a non-'mature' company; 'mature' here meaning a company that has decided that it has completely captured a market, driven out all competitors, and made entry / exit into this market almost impossible. Whether or not this is actually true is a subject of some debate; however, we are getting off topic.

A typical (non-fly-by-night) company has its foundations set in R&D -> the founder(s) of the company came up with a new product, a new design, a new business process, or a new service that proved agreeable with the populace. Even in mature companies, successful spin-offs typically harbor some new technology that enables them to stay afloat long enough to prosper. Hacking away at R&D is the equivalent of destroying the company's future. They're the ones who are making the impossible happen, getting ready for the next product 12 years into the future; they're not the ones who employ 'gimmicks' to make present day sales happen.

Our society, at least a portion of the higher echelons, do value expertise. However, our society (the US, at least) also values becoming wealthy before you hit the age of 30. That's an admirable goal. Still, the paths taken, by some people have proven detrimental over the long term.

I am a capitalist; not a particularly good one, mind you, by anyone's mark or measure; I've received aid from others, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not (there are two ways to read that, and both are correct); I've given aid to others, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not; I've screwed up on more than a few occasions, and I could spend an eternity playing the blame game of which mistake was mine or possibly someone else's; I'm not sure I'd win; I am not, however, what might be termed a 'crony' capitalist. F*cking over other people, and putting myself ahead in the process, has never been, nor ever will be, a part of my game plan. Functionally, though, there may have been non-intentional violations of that rule. And while making myself wealthy has some great appeal (if only so I can pursue other things at leisure), it would not do me well to see my company's pension fund destroyed to make that a reality. Perhaps in this banal fantasy of mine, I think I might somehow achieve one while avoiding the other.

The point of my little distraction is that these people are violating certain rules that are not to any benefit, not even to their own (over the long run). For a company (not necessarily a corporation, in much the same way a customer is not necessarily a consumer) to thrive, it must continually be laying the brickwork for the path it will tread on tomorrow. In response to your comment, I'd recommend leaving to create your own company. The beginning will be rough, as they all are, but your company will remain afloat while theirs sinks; the taste of victory here will remain sweet.

Re:Be a swan

[grep_rocks]

Thanks - I have thought of this and still consider this, unfortunately my field and the systems I have expertise in require a large amount of capital, so I feel I am forced to work for a larger organization. However, there are smaller companies in my field that do try to produce innovative products and systems - unfortunately the end game for most of these companies is simply to be bought out by a large conglomerate - that is how things work, big companies stay in business because they are big, they buy out smaller competitors and eventually run them into the ground, but in the process they make enough money to buy out the next wave - but you are right, it would be better to work for a small company and get bought out and get rich, it is risky, just as often as a buy out small companies with innovative products are simply run out of business through lack of distribution and negative marketing, a buy out is really the last thing the big conglomerate wants to do. Our system leaves something to be desired, I used to be sympathetic to capitalism, but after seeing it at work from the inside I have become more of a socialist, markets without regulation and rules prohibiting predatory behavior is just as bad as a dictatorship or a feudal system - the waste an inefficiencies in a poorly regulated market are seen in bloated management salaries, huge marketing and lobbying budgets and huge corporate profits from quasi-monopolies .

And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[SmallFurryCreature]

Chrome was designed a certain way, if you don't like the design, then don't use it. What next, you are going to file bug reports with Ford because you want only 2 wheels on your car and four is a bug?

Why can't I file a bug with MS for making windows have the close button on the top right where I don't want it and no way to change it?

A bug is something where something does not work as intended.

When something is working as intended but you want it to work a different way, that is called a feature request. And yours was turned down. Google, MS and nobody else owes it to you to implement YOUR feature requests in THEIR product. If you want to dictate how a program should be designed, pay its development.

But of course that won't wash with your sort, everyone should do everything exactly as you want it for no pay.

Easy bet that you yourself have never done anything for anyone else ever in your entire life.

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[bogaboga]

I will not debate you on what is, and is not a bug. You are 100% right. But why didn't this programmer inform users that what they are talking about is a feature? I am sure they would understand. Simple.

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[icebraining]

The bug reporter said it himself:

Note: There was no option under Template to set this as a feature instead of a defect report.

So why would the programmer inform the user of what he already knew?

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[jellomizer]

Many times in software development when you make a decision not to do something, and you have enough people asking for it, the best thing to do and bend a little and put the feature in. Google made and put a lot of money behind Chrome for a reason, primarily to have a widely available browser that uses all the new features of the HTML standards. So Google can make cooler products. Before Chrome and Safari there wasn't much effort in passing the ACID tests Google Chrome help put the other browsers in gear to keep up with the standards. However to keep this success up their browser will need to be and stay popular. So they will need to listen to their users, in order to keep popular.
That said, there is a balance that needs to go on. You can't just put every request in, you need to step back and look at the popular request and objectively see if you made a mistake in the decision to not implement that feature.
For example Apple and its long standing position of the one button mouse.
Apple had a logical reason for a 1 button mouse. It was a good reason at the time (If you have ever taught an adult how to use the mouse who never used one before, you will see that they get very confused on what does the right click and the left click does) however over time Apple first started to add windows like support for 2 button mice if you add a PC mouse to your Mac, then finally they made a mouse that handles left and right click, and they did it in a way (I think way too late, and kinda overdone) that they didn't apologize for what they did in the past but recognize the need for more features.

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[drinkypoo]

Chrome was designed a certain way, if you don't like the design, then don't use it. What next, you are going to file bug reports with Ford because you want only 2 wheels on your car and four is a bug?

The difference is that if a lot of people told Ford they wanted Ford to make a small car that didn't blow chunks like an Escort does, they'd ask for it, and Ford would eventually develop a Focus, and if people told Ford they wanted a rustang with IRS they would eventually sell one (a couple actually, but they priced them out of reach because they secretly wanted to go back to 1800s technology) and if people told Ford they should make a supercar they would eventually make one and if enough people were stupid enough to tell Ford that they should make a motorcycle they would probably make one of those, too. But tons of people are asking for the developers to make a change which they are capable of making as an optional configuration item and they won't. Your comparison is a total failure.

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[Coren22]

Why would I buy a Mustang with the Internal Revenue Service included as a feature? You do realize this isn't the car talk forum, and we might not actually know what the hell IRS is? And since I can't even find it via Google, it must not be a very common one.

Independent Rear Suspension? Seems like a difficult problem with rear wheel drive cars, as the differential would take a good amount of torque when you had it setup that way.

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[drinkypoo]

The differential is the same whether it's carried in an IRS or live axle setup.

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[Coren22]

Perhaps I didn't make it clear enough, IRS means Internal Revenue Service. I am not a gear head. Now, what I was speaking of, I guess is called the rear gearbox. With independent rear suspension, it would be in a relatively fixed location of the car, with a live axle, it is designed to bounce up and down with the rear tires? But mainly I was being sarcastic at your use of an oblique acronym for a car part on a web site not geared (lol?) for car nuts :)

Re:And of course the user is never a whiney bitch

[drinkypoo]

There is nothing on a car called a rear gearbox. You could have a transaxle, which is basically a rear gearbox, but it contains a differential too.

Damn

[Anonymous Coward]

It's me you're talking about, right?

You are the problem, a big one sadly.

[bogaboga]

When I remotely monitor their computer screens, for example, I often see 1 or 2 minutes at a time when code is not being typed into the terminal. There is no excuse for such laziness.

So you'd rather have a programmer write junk so that the terminal appears busy? Let me inform you that I can write a script to populate my terminal regularly, so that people like you get satisfied, while I continue to do what I want.

Remember that a big portion of getting good code written takes place in the head, not at the point of typing.

I remember times I had to think and obtain a particular solution while driving home, then get it implemented the moment I am at work. So as I am refreshing my mental faculties, people like you think I am wasting time! Coding is not that simple. Trust me. Why do you think there are bugs in software that are decades old? Is it because programmers are "lazy?"

Re:You are the problem, a big one sadly.

[MichaelSmith]

GP is satire. Not even a troll.

Re:You are the problem, a big one sadly.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the problem, a big one sadly.

Dude, the fact that you can't tell satire from reality just gives credence to the prejudice that programmers lack "social skills".

The use of the word "socialist" alone should have Godwin-ed a hint at the whole reply. Though I should have put in that I base pay raises on the amount of code per page produced, or some other bullshit.

Yes it's true people really are like that fake HRM, but that's what should make it funny: when you can't tell ridiculous and absurdest humor from reality.

Re:You are the problem, a big one sadly.

[jginspace]

o <-- joke here

.
.

o <-- you here

Re:You are the problem, a big one sadly.

[lightknight]

Hush. Use market discrimination, as they teach in microeconomics. If your market is filled with people who might have trouble locating the ON switch to their machines, use lots of pastels in your program, and spend half your time polishing the UI (yes, you need a GUI, in this instance, it's not optional). If your market is filled with people who know how to program, focus on the background stuff, and use a CLI (unless you like GUIs, at which point, go with that).

And programmers do appear lazy to people of other fields -> more than half your programming career is spent in your head, trying to solve a problem or trying to break your program. Why? Because using pencils and paper is too slow. There isn't a programmer alive whose brain (outside of a terrible accident) isn't the equivalent of the latest generation CPU overclocked to dangerous levels. Other people just see you sitting in your chair, lightly pampered, with a comfortable salary and / or stock options (back in the day), speaking in gibberish and getting awfully excited about things that 1.) they don't understand, 2.) they do not care about, and 3.) are not POPULAR. Popular amongst programmers, yes, but popular amongst the populace, I think not (unless you've styled yourself as a h@x0r). As a programmer, you don't even get real vacations; it's almost impossible to leave your work at work -> it's all in your head, and your mind will keep trying to solve that one annoying problem even on a beach filled with a plethora of naked women and copious amounts of alcohol / weed / whatever. Kind of like Watchmen, with Dr. Manhattan -> you can be physically there with your girlfriend, but mentally in another universe. Most of the time without trying (not because you're bored, but because you're watching a movie and she has her back to you; your brain just schedule stuff into every free time slot it can acquire).

I'm going to use a religious comparison here, and say that people want from programmers the same thing they want from their gods -> they want a show. If the Almighty were to take a stroll amongst the people today, they'd be peppering him with requests for parlor tricks (make water into wine, walk on water, break out the 12 plagues or whatever); the same currently applies to programmers -> the people want a GUI that sings and dances, that has little bouncing icons and transition effects, dancing babies and farting pigs; they do not care about anything else. Bread and circuses.

   

Sales sucks, regardless of its necessity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Salespeople think that techies are ten a penny and they prattle on about social skills, as though having a conversation is some sort of talent.

I would argue, at considerable length and with many resources to back me up, that knowing how to code properly and deliver working software applications is a significantly harder skill to master than reading through what competitors have to offer and simply know what else is available in the same field. The programmers generally know all this stuff too, it is after all their job to produce it, they just don't want to tell people about it because if you are looking to buy something... and this is the clincher... why don't you already know about these things yourself?

I am amazed that people actually listen to sales people. When I want something, I research it, find the best price and buy it from the best looking combination of reputable dealer / lowest price. Very simple. If all people did this then there would be no need for sales at all. As is fairly obvious, I am a programmer, but I also run my own company. My sales team is constantly changing because they keep failing to meet the sales numbers that I used to get when I was starting up. Even with a start up I could out sell these "veteran salesmen". When people used to call me and ask the same questions over and over about my software, I used to just send them the catalog and tell them what else was available. It is very simple. Do it with a smile, give a cup of coffee when they come in, take them to the nice room in the office with the potted plant and the meaningless nonsense on the walls and hey presto! An idiot bought something that they already wanted and, for some reason trusted someone, who is making money off of them only when they buy from him, to tell them what is the best option.

Therefore, sales people exist because most people are stupid. It is no wonder that the sales staff hate the programmers. They generally incapable of doing the programmers job though lower IQ and capabilities (you know it's true). They also realize but openly deny that most programmers simply refuse to speak to customers because customers ask the stupidest questions that don't warrant a reply, instead insisting that all techies are autistic troglodytes. Sales also have to deal with idiots asking the same questions day in, day out. Knowing all this, and dealing with all that they deal with, it is no wonder they get pissed off at the people who are capable of actually creating something useful, who get to sit away from the idiocy of the consumer, in their own little world where they actually get some level of job satisfaction.

I imagine the pay difference also adds a little salt to these wounds.

Sales sucks. It is the refuge of people who think that being able to get people to buy something they already want is a skill.

It's not a bug

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank god for that, I've always hated those moveable bars, they always get messed up. I wish someone would choose the best place for them and keep them like that. So I agree with the design choice of the Chrome team.

The worst possible design is where you make it configurable, then people mess it up, so you create an option to make it lockable. a-la Windows start bar.

Good for them

Re:It's not a bug

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be... Steve... is that you??

Scammers and psychopaths at the top

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it ever occurr to the guy that he was being conned? I mean: he gave marketable software code to a board member he never heard from again?! I wonder how much he made selling the code to the competition...

Re:Scammers and psychopaths at the top

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought about something similar. Is the programmer actually authorized to reveal that code to just anyone in the company? Can a developer actually take all his code, put it on a memory stick, and give it to the janitor? Highly unlikely. I would never reveal code from a project I am working on to anyone else not in my team.

Re:Scammers and psychopaths at the top

[BVis]

"You're fired." - C-level executive who just flexed his ego at you, to which you responded by saying "that's against the rules".

C-levels don't get to C-level by following rules. They get there by screwing over the other guy, rules be damned. When I used to work in corporate desktop support, almost on a daily basis I would answer a question with "I'm sorry, I can't do that, it's against policy," only to have said C-level call my boss and demand that I be fired for refusing. Nevermind that the rule was based on logic or reason (or in some cases, legality), when The Vice President Of Things That Start With H On Alternate Tuesdays decides that the password policy doesn't apply to them, they expect you to ask 'how high' when they say 'jump'. Forget that you don't have the power to override the policy, forget that the policy exists for a damn good reason, forget everything except the fact that said VP or C-level can fire you on the spot.

Know it all bosses = more pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a boss that thought he could configure a Cisco switches for an after hours rollout. He bragged about how he had budgeted 3 days to do the configs but finished them in 4 hours and spent the rest of the time watching anime. We get them installed and he had done the DHCP config wrong. Meanwhile 3 of us are waiting for him. This goes on for a few hours then he decides to use Windows 2K3 for the DHCP. He wouldn't even let anyone else look at the configs. I was a contractor but the other 2 guys were salary. They were pissed at having to wait around from 7PM to 11PM after a full work day (no O/T, no comp time). I was the hourly contractor on the team that was getting overtime so I was happy. I seem to run across the know-it-all bosses quite frequently at small companies. I think at larger companies management is more specialized so you have a business admin type vs. the promoted sys-admin or network-admin at smaller companies.

This is just a general problem with people

[Sycraft-fu]

They assume anything they don't know how to do must be easy. Programmers are just as vulnerable to it, perhaps even more so. Many programmers suffer what what I call Smartest Motherfucker in the Universe Syndrome. They seem to feel that they are way smarter then everyone else, way better at what they do, and as such could do anything better.

You can see it all the time on Slashdot when you see people whine about why a company won't just magically make everything secure or bug free. These people falsely assume it is easy to do and that if they were the ones in charge they could do it easily. They either falsely believe their own code to be completely bug free or more often believe that what they do is really hard, but what the other guy does is easy.

It just seems to be a human condition for many people. When someone else is responsible, they figure it is easy to do and cannot understand why that person won't just do it.

So that bosses have it too is unsurprising, but let's not pretend like it is just a management problem. Heck, you can see the problem manifested in the attitudes many people have towards management. They think it is easy and/or useless and they could do it better. Actually being a good manager is quite difficult and hence there are plenty of bad ones, particularly since it is a different skill from being a good worker. You can promote a good worker in to management and find them a bad manager because it is a different skill, one they aren't good at.

Re:This is just a general problem with people

[Ynot_82]

You can see it all the time on Slashdot when you see people whine about why a company won't just magically make everything secure or bug free

When you see reports of some company having their customer database stolen, and all the record fields (inc. account password and financial info) are stored in plain, readable text; you're saying this is acceptable, are you?

I can accept the fact it may be "hard" to do something properly
Perhaps you've been doing it wrong for a long time, and many inter-connecting processes within the company depend on this "wrong" operation
But seriously, when you're talking about the security of your customers, if you can't do it right because it's "hard" (oh boo-hoo), then shut the system down.
You've proved yourself incompitent to do it properly, it's obviously hard for you to do, so don't do it
Do something else you're actually good at

Re:This is just a general problem with people

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent advice. As a long time Architect about to be promoted to the executive ranks, I recently read "The First Time Manager", which can still be found on USENET I'm sure. Your advice could have come right from the pages of that book.

Re:This is just a general problem with people

[jellomizer]

I seem to make my career as a Pseudo-manager, Normally with titles that start with Sr., Chief, Lead... You know, I find it it really depends on the person. Sometimes when they start they see my MBA degree and they assume that they are so much smarter then me at first. So I need to spend a little extra overtime and do work that they said will take them a week to do in a few hours, just to show I know my stuff, and I have been doing it for a long time. Also I will pull seniority/I am the boss card if there is a disagreement just to keep things in perspective. However other programmers feel so intimated by these hotshots and actually they are quite talented so I will coach them, and even give them some interesting problems, if they disagree with my approach, but their view has a good method I will go back and let them do it that way to get confidence up.

I find in a few weeks after Humbling the one who Exult themselves, and Exulting those who Humble themselves, they get into a good position where they are motivated to do the work that is at their level.

Now I have been Humbled and Exulted many times myself and it still happens (For example a Programmer right out of college, impressed me with his Java Skills, when I learned Java back then it was much more complicated to program, and when taught OO I did it in C++, where I learned to dislike OO, but his skills with Java and OO really showed me some really cool and new stuff, I was quite humbled and he changed my opinion on OO and Java). But when you are the Boss you need to show that you know enough not to be BS by those you are paid to manage, also to know enough to help keep the projects and operation run smoothly.

Re:This is just a general problem with people

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it just whooshes over your head that fixing bugs and making everything secure is the ETHICAL thing to do. But I guess all you care about is how easy it is or how much short-term profit it takes away.

Or a fourth possiblility...

[Maow]

From TFA:

Give the code to him, advises Winer.

1. 1) If he pulls it off, even poorly, at least you'll know what he was asking for.
2. 2) And if he fails, well, he might be more patient about explaining what exactly he wants, and perhaps even appreciate how hard your work is.
3. 3) Or — more likely — you may simply never hear from him again.

Or, 4) he cannot understand the code, blames the code and, by extension, you, and you life gets more difficult. Personally I agree to give the code - who knows what their hidden competencies are, but option 4 is possible. Them's the chances you take...

Re:Or a fourth possiblility...

[jginspace]

Read TFA, this is a company that had just been bought out by Symantec. Quote: "I had already been sidelined ... it was a constant struggle for me to get the features I wanted in the product from a devteam I built. And a codebase I wrote, but no longer managed." - nobody is going to blame you in this situation.

Re:Or a fourth possiblility...

[Anonymous Coward]

5) Or the boss used to be a rock star developer who was promoted despite his or her say in the matter and completely and utterly dominates your pithy attempt at software development.

Re:Or a fourth possiblility...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

nobody is going to blame you in this situation.

Except you got the situation incorrectly. He advised his replacement, his own brother, who still worked at the company, to do this.

Re:Or a fourth possiblility...

[Maow]

Read TFA,

I *did* RTFA.

this is a company that had just been bought out by Symantec.

Sure, but the story's relevance is not only for people who've just sold their company.

nobody is going to blame you in this situation.

Nobody reasonable. This isn't about a reasonable response.

Bosses define 'better'

[Anonymous Coward]

Your boss gets to define what 'better' is, so it's a battle you can never win.

Last project I had, I wrote 80% of my teams code, was involved in all aspects of the design and the end product was a big success as a result. What do you imagine would happen for the next version?

a) I am empowered.
b) I am dis-empowered.

Yep, b), excluded from design meetings, told my input isn't wanted, and that I was exaggerating my contribution. I decided the best thing to do at that point was to leave. I could see some of the choices they'd made were train wrecks. Although I offered them alternatives that would deliver the same feature in a way that wouldn't break the product, they weren't even discussed. The meeting had already taken place, the people 'in-the-know' had made their choices and entrenched their positions.

What did I know, only all the algorithms they would break by their bad choices. If only the people making the decisions had been the type than can understand algos, I, or one of the other programmers could explain it to them, but they weren't and we couldn't.

I hear I am to blame for the current mess in the project. Bosses are always right, and just re-write history if needed.

'better' is defined by you boss right up until his project is cancelled.

Re:Bosses define 'better'

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know your personal situation or the details of what went on. But don't you think it's worth considering as even the smallest possibility that if all this has happened, maybe some of the problem is with you? Maybe you didn't realise it, but some of the things you did or said were taken the wrong way.

Re:Bosses define 'better'

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds familiar.

last time that happened to me the boss lasted another year at the company before he was basically forced to leave or face being fired for incompetence.

Re:Bosses define 'better'

[jmottram08]

Lets see... an AC posting that they are Gods gift to man. . . then they dont get invited to meetings because they were exaggerating their contributions. Sounds to me like -someone- whined and complained and gloated to everyone that would listen how great that they were until the point that everyone had enough and didnt even want that person in meetings.

Are you a good programmer? Maybe. Are you a good worker? As in, are you a person that gets a job done in a team? No, not at all.

Maybe if you had been just a bit less egotistical you would have been invited to the meetings and you could have shared your views in a way that didnt make everyone hate you. Would your boss have listened? Maybe, maybe not. Worst case is that everyone remembers you as the guy that voted against the idea that turned into a disaster, best case is that you are the guy that proposes the good idea.

Not exactly.

[khasim]

Sales and marketing is mostly finding out what a person needs, why he needs that and how they can help the person with it.

Not really.

Sales/marketing is about finding out what a customer WANTS ... and then convincing the customer that he (she) NEEDS your product to be able to get whatever they want.

Radiate rockstar vibes all day long from the moment you hit the shower with AXE shower gel.

http://www.theaxeeffect.com/

You've probably seen the ads if you're in the USofA.

I've stumbled upon many programmers who are trying to sell their products to customers but they lack total understanding of it.

More likely they are trying to sell the product based upon the product's capabilities.

Not by claiming that it will provide (for example) the ability to "radiate rockstar vibes all day long".

They want to spend time with the product, and almost loathe customers (which is shared feeling between lots of geeks and programmers).

Not really. But it gets back to the "rockstar vibes" and the radiating of such for the duration of a day. The programmer is selling a product that he (she) has a concrete understanding of. Does the customer NEED the features in the program?

Meanwhile, the salesguy is selling the image of being a rockstar in industry X and how such a rockstar would need this program to achieve that. Whether it will actually accomplish anything like that or not.

You need to figure out and tell the customer what he would gain by buying your product or service, from the customers point of view.

Again, that is easy to do for the programmer.

But that is not how marketing/sales works. See the above Axe example.

Which is why the golf course is so often featured in the sales/marketing plan.

Re:Not exactly.

[olau]

Consumer-oriented sick TV ads are really only a small part of the picture, although that's what we mostly see.

It's the same with software development. Most people only interact with a few standard consumer software systems daily (like the OS, email program), but the reality is that most programmers aren't writing that kind of systems, they're writing custom software for businesses.

Re:Not exactly.

[umghhh]

meanwhile I work a big (still albeit managers are trying their best) software company and what I see is that my customer is a so called product owner of which I constantly have to ask what he means and how he wants it to be delivered. Swearing at the poor guy makes no sense so we negotiate and waste a lots of time. It could be better if we could communicate in formulas abut it is as it is. I guess society based on efficiency would be very tough to live in: no friends, no family and no other things that make up life because they are inefficient. The other end: nice people with social skills but incapable of averting the danger of being eaten by a tiger, hit by an ice berg etc is possibly hell too.

What counts is a common sense and finding a middle way. Running generalizations like: IT engineers are low on social skills is mostly taken from basic and generally available in most interlocutors inability to use brains and logic to understand technical issues they want these engineers to solve and blaming this inability on engineers (who else). Geeks of course do not help but openly explaining that customer is an idiot (which may be true but does not have to be said).

Re:Not exactly.

[pla]

Meanwhile, the salesguy is selling the image of being a rockstar in industry X and how such a rockstar would need this program to achieve that. Whether it will actually accomplish anything like that or not.

THIS.

Sales and marketing does indeed have a "hard", finely-honed skillset - At self-deception. They need to convince themselves that their customer "needs" rockstar vibes, before they can convince the world of it.

A lot of this goes back to the old stereotype of a salesman - Any Marketing 101 class will tell you on day-1 that a good salesman doesn't try to sell refrigerators to Eskimos, because Eskimos don't need refrigerators; then on day-1 of their first post-college job, these poor deluded folks learn that they have a quota for how many refrigerators they need to sell to Eskimos per week to keep their jobs.


I know what I need, I know where to get what I need, I know how to compare similar products to find the one that will best suit my needs. I don't need phone calls, junkmail, spam, product placement, or even sales drones offering to help me once I find it unavoidable that I enter their personal domains of power (just one of many points that makes shopping online far, far less painful than going to a brick and mortar).

You want to help me, as a marketer? Make sure your website has detailed, meaningful specs easily accessible for every product you sell. No, I don't care about your damned sales brochure. I don't want a reiteration of the selling points already listed on the box, or how your choice of palette supposedly appeals to my demographic. I care about Watts, I care about MHz, I care MPG, I care about capacities, I care about durability when gnawed on for a while by a rabid rottweiler. I don't care about "vibes", I don't care about colors, I don't care about how many other people use it (unless more people makes it more useful, such as with something like Facebook - Which I don't use), I don't care that nine out of ten dentists will take your money to admit they tried it once.

Re:Not exactly.

[Luckyo]

Problem is, people tend to focus on the aspect they're strong at, ignore one they're weak at and think those who are weak at their aspect of choice are idiots. Of course, these people think original person is an idiot at their chosen aspect.

So everyone thinks everyone who has different focus from them to be an idiot. And everyone is right.

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

A thousand times this. I worked in sales and marketing for a year and hated myself every minute of every day during that time. We actually sold a decent product but we were trying to sell it to those who either

A. Did not need it
B. Could not afford it

Quite often I was berated by management because I told potential customers exactly what the product was and exactly how it could be applied to their lives (with a somewhat happier overtone, of course) but this honest approach wasn't paying the bills. In our most basic sense, no one needs more than food, water, and shelter. Everything else is optional but sales people try to convince us of otherwise.

Re:Not exactly.

[TrailerTrash]

Dramatic oversimplification, but that's common in armchair marketers. After all, everyone's an expert in marketing, right?

Not so much.

An antecedent post got it right - marketing is assessing customer needs, assessing product features, communicating how they align, and influencing product development when they don't. Examples like Axe are fine in the consumer packaged goods industry, but you don't sell corn on sexy. You don't sell industrial supplies on rockstar vibe. You don't sell ERP systems on hipster cool. You do sell iPads and shower soap that way, true; but that isn't a representative sample of the world economy.

Sales is convincing you to buy. Very different skill set than Marketing.

I was a programmer for years, then wrote a marketing system for my employer, who promptly moved me to Marketing to make me eat my dog food. It was great, until we were bought by new corporate overlords who gutted us for our manufacturing plants and closed us down... 25 years and several company moves later I'm a VP in Marketing in a Really Big Company. Been on both sides. And dealing with programmers is still frustrating to me as well as my peers who do not share the same background.

Why? Because the programmers are typically condescending, do not value what their clients do, and take the fashionable mentality of "Tell us what problem you are trying to solve and WE'LL design your solution." They inevitably return with something very powerful, horribly ugly, and far too complex for our employees to use. IT departments need to do a little marketing themselves - and develop in partnership with their customers. Understand our needs, yes, but work with us on designing our solutions. An unusable power solution that doesn't get used did not solve my needs.

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I WANT to radiate rockstar vibes all day long!

Re:Not exactly.

[StuartHankins]

Please mod +9000 Insightful. "Show me the specs!"

Re:Not exactly.

[Machtyn]

It's interesting. The AXE commercials are very interesting and entertaining, but they have yet to convince me to buy their product.

Re:Not exactly.

[V for Vendetta]

This whole "low on social skills"-phrase is a badly camouflaged euphemism for "bad at lying". Thank you very much for that compliment!

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think perhaps you miss a primary goal of sales/marketing, at least in your example about the programmer having a concrete understanding of the product.

This, in some ways, is a BAD thing. The programmer designed product around specific goals. He is not objective enough to see alternative uses for the product, and is in all likelihood discounting the potential of some market segments.

Now, of course, round holes should not be sold to square pegs, but most companies would rather have a separate department who's job it is to find new places to sell your product than to completely miss out on opportunity, simply because the designer didn't think about it. The issue isn't having sales/marketing, the issues are not being able to say "no" to them effectively and consistently AND to be able to see valuable opportunities without egos getting in the way, when appropriate.

We all get pissed off when the salesdroids ask us if product X can accomplish crackhead feature Y, but from a bird's eye view, challenging these boundaries is a good thing. After all, I'm almost positive the salesdroids get together on the golf course and talk about the engineers as brilliant grumps who really should receive one hug for every new feature they add to a product. The goal is to eliminate these stereotypes and work together on finding what a customer wants, doing it, making money and ruling the world (one feature at a time).

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree - trying to compare selling shower gel to a software product is idiotic.

Re:Not exactly.

[radtea]

You want to help me, as a marketer? Make sure your website has detailed, meaningful specs easily accessible for every product you sell.

Including the price. Nothing puts me off a product more quickly than a website that has all the details except the most important one: how much the product will cost me. Want me to enter an e-mail address for a quote? Sorry, not gonna happen, so you've just lost a potential sale.

The best book I've read on sales is called "Getting Into Your Customer's Head", and describes a selling process that recognizes your prospect's needs and knowledge of their own industry/requirements. I highly recommend it. As a business-person I never sold anything I didn't believe would make my customer's lives better, and while I didn't make a gazzillion dollars I did perfectly well and never had much trouble sleeping at night.

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed about the fridges to Eskimos. Just like a programmer shouldn't have to put up with writing in COBOL or FORTRAN if they don't want to, that salesman should jump ship. A quota should help a salesman achieve goals, not be used as a beating stick. We talk about IT departments that have no control and no budget and we tell folks to run, and run fast. Well, the fridgeskimo sales guy should run, and run fast.

As for your suggested marketing changes: that's great for you (and for me, following snark notwithstanding). But what about the somewhat significant percentage of the world's that's NOT you (or me)?

Can you speak to the most effective (as in, makes people buy the most shit when implemented compared to cost to implement) way to market to the rest of them? I betcha if you researched this topic and then set forth a procedure, it would be eerily similar to the way products are marketed now.

This concept is one we need to get through our egotistical heads. If the marketing pisses you off, you weren't the target.

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

But Eskimos actually need refrigerators. It keeps things from freezing. It is freezers that they don't need as much.

Re:Not exactly.

[schlachter]

Often engineers..

1) delve into unnecessary technical detail and lose the customer.
2) don't listen to the customer's problems
3) don't understand the customer's problems
4) don't explain how the software will solve the customer's problems/concerns

It's like they never get the big picture to address the customer's needs properly.

Re:Not exactly.

[budgenator]

Then drink more Tiger Milk, preferably straight from the nipple, it worked for Charlie.

Re:Not exactly.

[TheRaven64]

Totally agree on 1. People care about what your product / service does, not what how it does it. 2 and 3 are more difficult, because often the customer doesn't know. The relevant Henry Ford quote is 'if I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse'. The worst thing you can do when trying to design a system is start with a solution. You need to start with identifying the problem: in Ford's case, you want to go from A to B quickly and efficiently. Then you move on to the existing system: a horse and cart. Then you identify what current technology allows you to do to improve it: replace the horse with an internal combustion engine.

Often, if you ask your customers what they want, they will have a good understanding of their problems, and a bad understanding of potential solutions. They will give you a list of really bad ideas for improving their system. If you actually give them what they ask for, they'll hate you. If you give them what they want, they'll love you. Working out what they want is the difficult bit.

Re:Not exactly.

[TheLink]

In our most basic sense, no one needs more than food, water, and shelter. Everything else is optional but sales people try to convince us of otherwise.

1) That's not true for most humans. Most humans need "intangibles" like hope. Otherwise they wouldn't bother surviving to the next day just to find enough food, water and shelter to survive another day and so on till they eventually die...
2) It's not even true from an evolutionary perspective. If the entire human species was satisfied with mere food, water and shelter it would go extinct. You can say the urge to reproduce is only a want. But then the urge to breathe[1] is only a want, you eventually need to breathe if not you die, whether or not you feel the urge.

3) Need and want is often not that "black and white". There are people who have a very strong "need" to never ever have to eat from garbage dump again, they might rather die first. So do we "need" that much $$$? If we're posting on slashdot it's very likely that billions in the world survive on less than we have. But if we "need" that much $$$, then clearly we need to find people who "need" something we can give them or do for them so that we can get our $$$.

[1] BTW I guess breathable air comes under shelter?

Re:Not exactly.

[Alpha830RulZ]

Somebody mod this guy way up.

Re:Not exactly.

[Toby Tucker]

I care about Watts, I care about MHz, I care MPG, I care about capacities, I care about durability when gnawed on for a while by a rabid rottweiler. I don't care about "vibes", I don't care about colors, I don't care about how many other people use it (unless more people makes it more useful, such as with something like Facebook - Which I don't use), I don't care that nine out of ten dentists will take your money to admit they tried it once.

BZZZT, durability is a dimension in the marketing-speak domain, not the specification/fact one.

Re:Not exactly.

[s73v3r]

Why? Because the programmers are typically condescending, do not value what their clients do, and take the fashionable mentality of "Tell us what problem you are trying to solve and WE'LL design your solution." They inevitably return with something very powerful, horribly ugly, and far too complex for our employees to use.

Well, you are asking them to solve your problem. If you didn't need someone to solve your problem, you wouldn't be talking to the programmers in the first place.

I won't argue that a lot of programmers could use some help from a designer and a UI/UX expert in designing the interface

Re:Not exactly.

[Savantissimo]

Absolutely - the price is the most important information about nearly any product. If the price depends on various factors, the company website should be able to calculate it - packages, specials, volume discounts, shipping, credit, options, whatever. And it should make it easy to find and compare similar and related products.

So many companies think they are enticing you to call their sales-weasels by acting coy, but in reality they do nothing but repel 90%+ of their potential customers.

Re:Not exactly.

[Savantissimo]

Where did you get that idea? It is a listed numerical specification on many parts - tires, mechanical switches, camera shutters, and supercapacitors, for example.

Re:Not exactly.

[KhabaLox]

You don't sell ERP systems on hipster cool.

That's not what the iERP sales guy told me.

Re:Not exactly.

[Bob9113]

Sales and marketing does indeed have a "hard", finely-honed skillset - At self-deception. They need to convince themselves that their customer "needs" rockstar vibes, before they can convince the world of it.

Reading that, I can't help getting an image of Gil Gunderson. A sales guy who has spent his life convincing himself that shit is Shinola. Waking up each day, stiffening his spine, and going out there to do it one more time. Each day, the wall around his soul wearing a little thinner and his ability to ignore the truth getting a little more frayed. The lines in his forehead growing deeper as the shame becomes unbearable.

Maybe Willy Loman is a better icon on which to hang the image.

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Every so often my boss has to talk a customer out of our product because some new guy in sales convinced them that it would help. Then we go out of our way to help the customer figure out a more cost effective solution outside of our product.

Re:Not exactly.

[CAIMLAS]

Is that so, truly?

I may be the exception (and, from what I can tell, I am), but I see a lot of shit work. I see a lot of really good work, too. I'm able to distinguish the difference, both in myself and others, possibly because I've done a lot.

I've done stone and brick work (and I've got masons in my family who I've talked with and learned from). I can tell when someone did a shit job on a project, and I'm able to acknowledge really good work in the field. When someone poorly lays granite, I can tell - because it's cracking around the edges or it doesn't set up level. I see they didn't gravel and sand properly, and used the wrong type of mortar (because I've done that, too - and know I could do better, having fucked up only once).

I interact with a "rockstar developer" on regular occasion for work. The man is an idiot. Not only is he not good at my skillset (sysadmin), he's bad at it because he thinks/approaches problems like a typical programmer/developer ("let's make it more complicated and get it done quickly", basically). He turns out a lot of code, but I've seen the code, and it is shit - as my suspicions were in the first place. Not only is the code shit, but it rarely works quite properly (even though there is a lot of it). I know I don't know things he knows, but the likelihood that I am correct in him being a marginally incompetent idiot with a high LOC count is fairly high.

I've written a book. I know what I like to read, but at the same time, I'm able to tell when someone is a shit writer: poor character development, lack of vision, lackluster plot. I'm not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination (you probably haven't read my book), but I can say "this book is shit" - as most people can, and often do. That's what happens when you're a consumer. There are actually people out there who say, on a daily basis and for a living, "this book is shit" - and they may have never written a thing in their life.

Re:Not exactly.

[datavirtue]

Like me, I would rather fall on a sword than work at MacDonalds. Is that rational? No, but neither is wasting your life away while making MacDonalds' residual claimants prosper.

Re:Not exactly.

[datavirtue]

Don't bother. Their products are cheap garbage. On the drastic low-end of the scale.

Re:Not exactly.

[LongearedBat]

In this age of global warming, eskimos really do need fridges. Maybe even throw in a freezer as well, for a reduced price of course.

Do you think I have a chance of becoming a good salesman? ;)

Re:Not exactly.

[Ol Olsoc]

Well, you are asking them to solve your problem. If you didn't need someone to solve your problem, you wouldn't be talking to the programmers in the first place.

No one could have made his point better than you just did.

Too many programmers think that they are doing people a favor when they should be thinking that they are just doing their job.

Re:Not exactly.

[Ol Olsoc]

It's like they never get the big picture to address the customer's needs properly.

Yes, yes, yes. So how can the problem be fixed?

In the technical fields especially, there is a huge gulf between the engineers and programmers and the marketing/sales and management. None of them have any idea of what the others are doing.

This is a day and age where managers especially, have no idea about what the company does. They went to school to learn how to be a manager, not that "weird technical stuff".

We'll just leave that as monumentally stupid, as decisions made without any technical knowledge are as likely as not going to be wrong. And as we all know, no job is difficult for the person that doesn't have to do it.

But it isn't all on them. Way too many programmer and engineering folks are only too happy to focus on only their specific jobs, and if they can avoid interaction with other people - especially those "weird Sales and marketing types", then all the better. So we shouldn't feel like we're not part of the problem.

Point is, sales, marketing, and management should have a fair amount of technical knowledge about what they are actually selling. And the geeks need to learn how to interact with other people properly. Someone's going to rediscover that one of these days.

Re:Not exactly.

[Anonymous Coward]

>programmers are typically condescending, do not value what their clients do, and take the fashionable mentality of "Tell us what problem you are trying to solve and WE'LL design your solution." They inevitably return with something very powerful, horribly ugly, and far too complex for our employees to use.

Rather than simply handing it off to the programmers, you need first to identify a good project manager, who will work with you the sponsor to define the scope and will follow project management good practices to complete the project to that scope while involving the stakeholders and considering the risks to reduce risk to the project.

Re:Not exactly.

[Toby Tucker]

Where did you get that idea? It is a listed numerical specification on many parts - tires, mechanical switches, camera shutters, and supercapacitors, for example.

The very tenuous description of durability provided by spec sheets in the form of MTBF, and other such specifications, has a tenuous at best relationship to actual durability of the item in question. Most certainly, dog gnawing, hard treatment, liquid incursion, and other such problems, are not factored into any figures. Sure, there are things like the Ingress Protection Rating codes which might say something (but not about mechanical switches, camera shutters, or supercapacitors). Still, I have some pretty flimsy IPX7 rated hardware laying around... Also, when is the last time you have gotten 50,000 miles from 895 treadwear rated tires? Our product is great, and will last forever* *individual results may vary.

Personality and priorities

[Archtech]

The way I see it, the human race evolved with certain abilities - but not everyone has all those abilities and inclinations to equal degrees. Thus, we have the familiar broad categories of extrovert and introvert, for instance. Everyone has seen extreme cases. Like the extrovert who can't be happy unless surrounded by people, talking, winding each other up, having relationships... always something happening. Or the introvert who hates social occasions because it's so hard to get a word in edgeways, and even then the wrong words somehow seem to pop out of your mouth so your clever pick-up line comes out as an offensive slur, or your clever joke falls flat because the timing is off. Much easier and better to stay alone reading, coding, watching moves, and maybe drop someone an email from time to time.

Guess what? Sales and marketing people tend to be extroverts, and programmers tend to be introverts. It's not a perfect correlation, of course - there are outstanding exceptions, and some perfectly bloody people seem to be good-looking, sociable, popular, good at sports, clever, and able to accomplish huge amounts working either alone or in a team. But it seems to me that sales and marketing are merely extensions of a natural human ability that most of us have to varying degrees: the ability to persuade, to manipulate people, to make oneself liked. Most really good salespeople know the important rule that the first thing you must sell is yourself; once clients like you, they want to help you and do what you suggest, and half the battle is won. (Incidentally, politicians tend to be consummate salespeople, which is why so few of them are introverts - and those few who are don't usually get very far).

Meanwhile, a lot of introverts end up studying and working a lot - because they don't have the urge to be partying and socialising - and become experts in relatively solitary subjects such as science, math, and programming. In the process, they learn the central importance of intellectual integrity - in other words, respect for objective truth. To an engineer building a ship or a bridge, or a programmer developing a suite of code, the facts are mostly clear, solid, and not up for debate. This is the core running gag in Dilbert: the engineers share a vast body of scientific facts and figures, which is their common heritage. In contrast, the PHB is a quintessential salesperson/manipulator. To him, it's hardly important if something is true or false; all he cares about is whether it will get him what he wants.

Our future - if we have one - depends on developing our ability to think scientifically. That means logically, honestly, objectively, and with intellectual integrity. Everything you think you know should be open for discussion, and when someone else demonstrates that one of your opinions is wrong, you should be pleased because now you know more and you have shed a false belief. Unfortunately, clear honest objective thinking is as alien to human nature as breathing air is to the average fish. Long ago, as we know, some primitive fish scrambled out of the water and gradually gained the ability to breathe air and stay on land for longer and longer periods - and from them sprang the whole immense diversity of air-breathing life we see around us today. But even air-breathing land-living mammals still enjoy a refreshing swim (providing there aren't any man-eating sharks around). Just so, even when people have learned to think regularly, clearly, and honestly, that doesn't mean they will lose their emotions and the ability to "groom" one another and enjoy socializing. But it does mean we'll get our priorities right, and decide important issues by scientific thinking, not by crocodile-brain manipulation of other people's emotions.

Re:Personality and priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic perspective! With regards to our future, here's some 'code reuse' to demonstrate the same themes...

“He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth.” Proverbs 10:17

“Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish.” Proverbs 12:1

“Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die.” Proverbs 15:10

“He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding.” Proverbs 15:32

“He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” Proverbs 29:1

“Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured.” Proverbs 13:18

Re:Personality and priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the introvert who hates social occasions because it's so hard to get a word in edgeways, and even then the wrong words somehow seem to pop out of your mouth so your clever pick-up line comes out as an offensive slur, or your clever joke falls flat because the timing is off. Much easier and better to stay alone reading, coding, watching moves, and maybe drop someone an email from time to time.

That is nothing like what introvert means, though fears like that could make someone who is not an introvert appear to be an introvert. An introvert is someone who does not require other people's company as much as the average person does to feel OK. Introversion is a personality trait, it is not a behavior. An introvert can make himself behave exactly as an extrovert does, he will just be miserable while doing it. It has nothing to do with fear of making a fool of yourself in public. It's like saying that extroverts have an irrational fear of their own company - that's not what it's about, it is just that extroverts need that company more than the average person does.

A lot of jobs are like this

[jht]

I think Winer's story extends out to a myriad of professions (mainly technical ones, but plenty of others). If an observer doesn't understand the work you do, they think it can't be too hard. Most folks overestimate their own abilities. I run a small IT company - we've got a few employees of varying skill sets but all pretty good at solving network issues. But I still regularly see clients complain about how long a task takes, or how a five-minute fix couldn't have been that hard. Car repairmen still get bitched at by people about a $200 bill to replace a tiny part.

There are good programmers, there are great programmers, and there are assuredly mediocre programmers. But that's what they do - and they are guaranteed to know more about it than virtually any layperson. Just because your car runs does not mean you know how to build a car. If your lawyer gets you off the hook for a crime you didn't commit, does that mean you could be a lawyer?

It takes very little skill to stock shelves in a grocery store. But a person who is doing that for a living definitely is better at that task than we are. More people need to understand this basic fact.

Of course, then people would be convinced that they were better at understanding facts.

Re:A lot of jobs are like this

[Anonymous Coward]

TV is to blame.

My father used to build kitchens. His customers could never understand why a simple kitchen table would take a week to build.

"I've seen it done on the TV within 30 minutes"

Forget the procuring, the preping, the cutting, glueing, curing, staining, varnishing, polishing, dismantle, delivery, re-assemble...

30 minutes, as seen on TV.

Re:A lot of jobs are like this

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are exceptional offenders. It's not uncommon for outsiders to see a task and then to say "It's Simple, All You Have To Do Is..." In fact, most of the annoyances in the realm of unpolite political discourse start out with that deadly phrase.

But in the case of software, it's not just the outsiders who suffer from the AYHTDI effect - even the managers and programmers do. They forget that computers are not intuitive and they unconsciously base their expectations on what it would take to get human beings to be able to do the job. The work estimates thus produced are highly flawed because they didn't allow for the extra overhead required to do all the detailed operations and handle the unexpected conditions. Aided and aggravated by the fact that the users pressure for unrealistic timelines to begin with. After all, "It's Simple..."

Re:A lot of jobs are like this

[tomboalogo]

One day a whole roomful of General Electric's most expensive machinery went out of order. By this time Steinmetz had retired, but the company's baffled engineers called him back as a consultant. Steinmetz ambled from machine to machine, taking a measurement here, scribbling something in his notebook there. After about an hour, he took out a large piece of chalk and marked a large 'X' on the casing of one machine. Workers pried off the casing and found the problem at once. But when the company executives got Steinmetz's bill for $10,000, they were reluctant to pay it. "This seems a bit excessive for one chalk mark," Steinmetz was told. "Perhaps you'd better itemize your charges." Within a few days, they received the following itemized bill:
Making one chalk mark $1.00
Knowing where to make one chalk mark $9,999.00

Re:A lot of jobs are like this

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes very little skill to stock shelves in a grocery store. But a person who is doing that for a living definitely is better at that task than we are. More people need to understand this basic fact.

Is 'higher education' REALLY necessary?

If not, can it be factored out of the cost of EVERYTHING properly so the prices can come down on EVERYTHING and EVERYONE can benefit?

http://inflation.us/collegebubbleburst.html

http://inflation.us/collegesdeceivingmythshoaxes.html

http://inflation.us/collegeconspiracyreleased.html

http://inflation.us/mainstreammediacollegebubble.html

Re:When a bug report is filed...

[TaoPhoenix]

There's a whole angle you guys haven't covered yet.

There's tons of companies with aging products, but there isn't a next-generation replacement for them yet. So then really funny things happen in reverse. The sales side knows their product has horrible flaws and tries to weave smoke and mirrors to sell it anyway. Then they yell at the software team "why isn't that bug from last year fixed already?"

I'm not even talking about cool features of the week. A certain enterprise accounting package I use at work had a bug so bad that if you chose the wrong report menu option it crashed the entire program including the paid license allocator. It didn't get fixed for six months because the vendor only issued two update releases a year.

Less party-story side, that same package has a creaking 20 year old code base that they are desperately trying to overhaul while they (vendor) tries to put silk togas over the front of the pig hoping that it might still be Some Pig. The Vista switch nearly drilled them.

Interessted in code?

[XrayJunkie]

My boss is not interessted in code. Just if there exists enough/sufficient tests. He assumes that the code fulfills all requirements (e.g. maintainabilty). Why should he read through it?

as a manager

[Phoenix666]

This solution works for me too. Hand the code over. If it's clear you know what you're doing and have covered all the angles, I'll leave you alone. But even if you do know what you're doing it often helps to get perspective from someone who isn't so close to the work. And sometimes the boss has seen a lot of stuff you haven't and can open up new approaches for the experienced coder, too, because most people only learn what they have to know to get the job done and move on, so it's possible the boss has seen things that have been outside your critical path.

However, there are also a great many coders out there who honestly don't know their ass from their elbows and program by rote. This phenomenon has grown exponentially since the tech industry decided to outsource all work to India and China and insource H1-B's from India and China. So having a boss closely manage code development is often the only thing standing between endless spec minutiae and getting something to market.

Your mileage may vary.

Bad advice!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Give the code to him, advises Winer.

I did that. Gave my sweet PHP code to him.

What I got back was a rewrite in JSP... :(

Re:Bad advice!

[jellomizer]

Perhaps it was because the requirements was for you to write JSP code and not PHP code.

But you say, PHP is so much better then JSP for all these reasons....

However all the developers know JSP and in that location it is easier to hire JSP developers. Or their customer base looks at something in Java as more professional the PHP.

When you are the Boss you have to think of other problems and code efficiency, is only a small part of the bigger picture you need to meet.

communication failure

[metrometro]

"Or — more likely — you may simply never hear from him again. Win-win-win."

Only on Slashdot would a breakdown in communication be described as a best-possible outcome. Making nice things requires talking, usually.

Re:communication failure

[BVis]

Making nice things involves communicating. If it's clear that your boss is not interested in communicating, only ordering you around, then give him enough rope, and dust off your resume.

Done both in my life 4 years: Which is harder?

[Anonymous Coward]

Programming, by far. Any fucking FOOL can be a sales/marketing stooge. I've done the business education and comp. sci. education and the latter is far more difficult. By far. The truly "hardest part" of sales/marketing's this: Dealing with people! However, that's easy with 1 single principle - give them what they want (and yes, they want it, they'll pay for it). A truly good product also doesn't really need "advertising", it sells by itself, and usually via word-of-mouth. People DO talk to one another you know. You're doing it now in fact (new news right?). In fact, to be very forthright and rather blunt about it?? Most of the stupidest undereducated fools I've ever met in this life ended up in sales/marketing jobs (where crooks abound beyond belief as well - which makes it doubly sad that yes, they make the most in any company and usually rise to CEO titles, because of the power of money & their "innate ability" to make "cliques" to crush opposition whether its correct or not (politics are for weasels people, face it)). Yes, I was an extremely successful salesperson in my day selling very high price/ticket items in fact, but it demanded dishonesty (which I was not comfortable with at all) and I also knew it was selling myself short. I wasn't living up to my full potential doing it. I had to change careers and always respected computer geeks. Sales didn't take intelligence. It required more guile and 1/2 truths at times than intelligence and education. I'm now and have been for the past almost 18 yrs. now a successful many time internationally published software engineer. I've been on both sides of the fence here, and I know what group has more intelligent, better educated, and BETTER PEOPLE OVERALL in it, and it's not marketer/sales types!

Meh. Nice problem.

[Fished]

My problem isn't that my boss asks for my code, wanting to implement features themselves. My problem is that my boss doesn't know what code is, nor do they care to know. They regard what I do as deeply mysterious, dark magic, and are just glad it works. This might sound like heaven, but it's really kind of a PITA when I need them to go to bat for me with another department and they don't understand the issues involved.

As a boss

[Enry]

It's a difficult balance. I used to be them a few years ago before I was promoted and they're doing some of the same work I used to do (sysadmin rather than coding). Thus I have the technical skills to know exactly what they're doing and how they're implementing it. I always have to remind myself when they go a different course that it's no longer me that has to implement and maintain, so they can do it however they want as long as the project gets completed.

To answer the question

[Anonymous Coward]

Always call the boss' bluff about knowing stuff. If they know, then now you know. If not, then they will learn not to keep doing that. If they don't learn not to keep doing that, then you'll either get to be the boss or you'll eventually get a better job somewhere else.

So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-can

[sqldr]

So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better boss?

Challenge the fat fuck to a game of squash.

Everyone works in Silos

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone works in Silos and only wants to trouble themselves with what is required to complete the "task" at hand and be done. Few, if any, reach out to understand the details. Bosses in my opinion are required to do this, but they don't. Everyone is supposed to reach up to their bosses to explain what they are doing, and most of us don't. So there is a constant disconnect and with that comes issues between the levels. Nevertheless, your bosses job is also hard. He/She is probably not going into the details of the real reason why they are making up these tasks, which does not make much sense to you. At some level up there, someone is directing this show. If the top most guy is smart then things always trickle down well - if not, they just don't. If you want buy the stock for a company, one quick way to determine if this company is in fact worth your investment, call their customer service or sales department. Ask them meaningless questions and see how well they respond. A good company will have employees who are patient and have great morale. This is a reflection of exactly what the top has and you can be fairly certain there is clear communication, feedback, ethics, etc. Coming back to the topic at hand, if you do your part to communicate up, then it is mostly appreciated and you are mostly covered. It is hard to change the world around you into a well oiled machine, but you do this at your level by setting your targets right and shooting straight. Don't get pressured, don't get sloppy, don't lose quality - we do this all in the name of "My task was unreasonable to begin with". Or the familiar excuse is "My Boss does not understand". Sure he/she does not. May never will. But who cares as along as you tried. Return negative sentiments with positive logic. Return unreasonable requests with more logic - be it work life balance, or just work - work balance ( as in dealing with customers, colleagues, vendors, etc). Management will take heed and leave you alone, so you can go back to doing the hard work you just explained to your boss.

Do needful and revert same

[Hognoxious]

If he can't explain the required changes to you, then no way is he able to explain them to some Indiot who needs spoonfeeding and can't write "Hello World" without asking on the web in SMS-speak and marking it "***URGANT!!!!".

Re:Do needful and revert same

[lightknight]

He doesn't know that. Nor does his boss.

Re:Do needful and revert same

[Hognoxious]

Is Donald Rumsfeld involved?

How to become a boss

[Anonymous Coward]

Bosses become bosses when they fail with technical stuff. They fail and they are transferred to production because they have "people skills".

Your premise is wrong.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You just assume the bosses are under the mistaken impression that they can code better than their underlings and they can be persuaded to change this easily.

Most bosses who can't hack code, or whose development environment has become obsolete, know they can't really cut it. They would talk as though they are better hackers, just for the effect. If you really try to give them code, they won't take it. Or implement a version that works on one particular use case using hardwired codes and logic, throw it back at you and say, "do the rest and handle other use cases". And they will open every meeting with, "I have already implemented a prototype X days/weeks/months ago. My resources are working on tying the loose ends".

I am that boss

[mrthoughtful]

Well, so for me - and this is an SME - I employed people when I found myself stretched. "I can delegate", I said. I delegated. Now there are ten people doing what I used to do on my own. The company has grown, as it was the skills supply that was at shortage, not the demand.

Most of those who have been employed were graduates trained by me, or by others in the team. Not all - certain aspects of the job grew beyond my expertise. Those aspects, I would never consider myself to be better than the experts that are hired. I know my limits.

But maybe 80% of the workflow I can do better, faster, if I had the time. The point is that I value my team completely - they do their best, and they know that I know that. When one of them gets out of their depth in an area of my expertise (software development), I show them a few solutions. They go away - hopefully more skilled. Doing the work for them completely misses the point. They are hired in order to take the work from me. Sometimes they think that I am way too conservative. I am, sometimes, conservative.

It's not because I am the boss, or get more money. I hired people to take on the skills that I am good in, or who can extend those skills.

Bosses are the best

[Anonymous Coward]

at being incompetent and being rewarding for it.

I, myself, am the Boss!

[Maljin Jolt]

Since the moment I recognized I can write much better code then any of my programmers, I fired all of them!

Third Option

[Anonymous Coward]

You give the code to the boss and, because he can't do anything with it, gets another coder to implement his fix (it would be embarrassing to him to ask you for help).
Now the boss is indebted to another coder and has your code. Hmmmm, what will happen?
Nothing good comes from sharing your code with the boss. NOTHING/ Keep it to yourself and insist the boss use his communication skills to tell you. If he can't or won't it's no skin off your back.

Bosses Code? Ridiculous!

[echusarcana]

The notion of my boss coding, much less a senior manager coding, is ridiculous. It would be like asking a walrus to ride a bicycle. In fact, I've never known any manager of our department in history to ever even read a piece of code. What planet are you working on?

Re:So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-

[Overzeetop]

If weren't aware that "squash" is a game similar to handball that required a great deal of cardiovascular fitness, I would suggest that a game named "squash" is exactly the game a skinny guy does NOT want to challenge a fat guy to play.

Back when I was an engineer working at HP

[mark_reh]

and stuck in a cubicle smaller than a prison cell, I had a boss who always knew more than anyone else in the room about whatever topic was being discussed. And he was an expert on all things operatic. And classical music, and art, and mountain biking, and skiing, and etc. This guy knew all there was to know about every worthwhile human endeavor and was an expert at every sport imaginable. Let's not forget that he was also a gourmet cook and an oeneologist!

He was a short little guy, with a big belly and a bacchanalian beard- a jolly looking elf! He had a couple personal habits that drove others around him nuts. First there was the snorting. All day, every day at 30 second intervals he would snort like he was getting ready to hock up a big loogie, then swallow. Then there was his flatulence. Each and every time that clown came into my cubicle to point out where I had made some spelling error on a data sheet or application note he had to fart. I quickly learned to subconsciously keep track of his location by the sound of his snorting so that when I detected he was heading in my direction I would stand up in the narrow entrance to my cubicle and prevent his entering.

The wine crap used to bug me more than anything else. I recall a few occasions when my coworkers and I would go out for a pint after work and end up having dinner at some grubby place. We'd order our burgers for $5 each and this ass-hat would insist on ordering a bottle of wine to "match the food and the spirit of the occasion". Food bill for 5: $30 or 40. One bottle of wine: $90.

We had department meetings on Monday mornings. It quickly became apparent to all who attended these meetings that anything brought up in a meeting would ultimately be done his way because it was always better to do things that way. After a while people stopped saying anything in the meetings. The rest of the department would go out to lunch on Mondays (making sure he was left out of the loop) and hold the real department meeting where things were decided without him. We used to toss around ideas about what to do to get rid of him and someone eventually came up with an idea to get him promoted (out of the department).

We spent the next 6 months doing everything we could to make him look great to his boss. In the end he was promoted to a position as an "individual contributor".

Right about that time I took a much better job at Fujitsu for about 50% more pay.

It's your boss...

[sureshot007]

...and you do what he asks. He pays you to do what he tells you to do, so I don't understand why everyone is so against these sorts of things. Just make sure to cover your ass and document that you did exactly what he said so he can't throw you under the bus for anything, and then collect your paycheck.

Re:It's your boss...

[colinrichardday]

He pays you to do what he tells you to do

Your company pays you. If your boss owns the company, then he pays you.

Re:It's your boss...

[arbarbonif]

My boss doesn't pay me anywhere near enough to just 'do what he tells me to do'. He pays me enough to do what is right and to solve the problems that the users need solved. I'm an expert at what I do. I am paid to be an expert at what I do.

Risky Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the boss looks at your work, doesn't understand or like how it was done, and then asserts that your work is shit and that you should be fired?

How timely!

[ErikInterlude]

We deal with exactly this type of boss where I work. He often flies into a rage when we update him on progress on the website. He seems to think that everything we do can be done in a few days no matter how complicated or how many times he changes his mind on something. It got to the point where the webmaster/programmer started saying "Show me how. I'm willing to learn." The boss didn't have an answer for that and now the webmaster doesn't get invited to meetings on the website anymore.

And then there are who realize it's both

[Moraelin]

When a bug report is filed, the experienced programmer thinks "Oh shit. What did I miss."

The junior programmer thinks "Damn users. Always complaining. They don't know how anything works."

And then you see bugs like "It doesn't work" or "I get an error", without even the faintest clue included as to what doesn't work, what were they trying to do, how to reproduce whatever unspecified error was popped up at them, and so on. And then it turns out that -- I kid you not, true case -- the user had read some blog about hackers and installed some firewall on her workstation, effectively forbidding the client program from talking to the server.

Or then there was the case of my friend who wrote a database application for some small company which shall remain unnamed to protect the idio... err... innocent. He gets a call to the effect of "this crap stopped working completely", goes there, checks the ini files, then finally has the insight to look for the database tablespace files. Missing. He asks those guys. Their answer: "Oh, that huge file? We deleted it 'cause it was taking up all the space on the machine."

Or in the spirit of TFA, the boss who thinks he knows everything better than you anyway. So a long time ago, in a galaxy far away... err.. just a long time ago, I make a program for some guys, and let's just say that one part involved uncompressing some data using a sliding buffer. At the start, the buffer was initialized with all zeroes, and the algorithm actually depended on that. So at some point I get a phone call passed to me from their PHB, who's pretty much foaming at the mouth about how the crap just stopped working, and he's going to sue us for millions of dollars, and so on. Turned out he decided to look through the sources (which he had received as per the contract) and "optimize" it himself by removing that buffer initialization. And that was C, not Java, so no zeroing happening automatically either. When the program promptly started producing crap, instead of coming to the idea that maybe his changes made it stop working, he decided that obviously the program had been defective all along. So he calls and threatens to sue.

Or then there's stuff like change requests disguised as bug reports, apparently as someone's idea of being "smart" and trying to not pay for the changes. Or the guy who, when asked why he did a certain thing in a certain way (which incidentally was very very stupid), breaks up into a whole rant about our stuff lacking documentation and how much it sucks that he has to do that by trial and error and generally poor little him and evil us for not giving him documentation... except actually there was ample documentation, including the very specific case of what he was trying to do, and he had been given it too. Or as a more extreme example of that, the PHB who it turned out, didn't read more than the first paragraph, because more than once he did the exact opposite of what told to do or not to do in the second paragraph of an email. And then it turned out he genuinely had no idea of anything that was in the rest of the text.

Etc, etc, etc.

Yes, we make bugs, yes most of us start from the assumption "what did I miss?" but a LOT of times it turns out that the user actually IS retarded. And don't get me wrong, I don't expect the user to be a Linux kernel programmer or anything. But when you hear someone ranting about how much it sucks that action X does nothing whatsoever... when he hits "Cancel" on the second page of the nicely designed GUI wizard for action X, instead of actually continuing... but it's still somehow the program's fault... well, you just have to wonder how few neurons someone can have and still not stop breathing.

Why not?

[wygit]

Why on Earth WOUNLD'T you give your code to your boss if he/she asked for it, no matter how offensively?
It's a copy, for Pete's sake. What are you afraid of, that they'll print it out and scribble on it? (Well, mine might.)

Re:Why not?

[geekoid]

No, they fear is they wills tart making changes assuming the understand everything.
Of curse, then they will blame you.

Re:Why not?

[Imagix]

Go nuts. That's what source control is for. You can revert any change made by them.

My former boss...

[geoffrobinson]

I had a boss right out of college who didn't want to use local variables or parameters. He explained to me that this was how it was done in the mainframe days.

Oddly enough, my aunt was a computer programmer, starting in the mid 60's. She was working when IBM came out with a computer that had the same assembly language as the previous one. (Progress!)

Anyway, she confirmed my suspicions that my boss didn't know what he was talking about.

It's one thing to work for a boss who has to have every idea be his own. It's quite another when that is combined with someone is flawed technically.

nice button...

[chanio]

Anecdote:

I used to work as a qualified data entry guy that had to collect all the household analyzed rating data and parse it into some excel sheets. After lots of graphs resulting from the data filtered by several customers targets, the result was one +200 hundred pages printed book personalized for each customer. Totaling near a thousand books every month.

The number of different results was so high that the algorithms should be heavily watched constantly. And I was never as sure as to not expect to find any possible mistake in any output. But from outside, my boss would only see a funny guy that was mostly always sitting down and doing nothing. ..
The idea that such a heavy and responsible job would look as doing nothing made me laugh a lot.

So much so, that I created a very nice button at the starting page of the Excel sheet that would do all the job without any hesitation. Without human checking any results before hand! But it was so tempting! It was my boss's point of view of my job...

As I expected, later I got fired. But then, I found out that that nice button caused them the lost of a lot of customers, until they decided to start doing all my work again from scratch...

And finally new that mine was really a busy job...

Not sure about that

[bigsexyjoe]

There are arrogant programmers to be sure, but my observation is that programmers either don't believe they can do the other jobs or don't care about them. I find the "skilled" workers (programmers and designers) usually don't step on other people's toes. Programmers usually feel that they can't or certainly wouldn't want to talk to customers. When they argue over features, it usually is the situation in the article (the request is too vague to translated to code) or one where the programmer is worried about unintended consequences.

Now there is actual research to prove that the bosses are arrogant. When I've talked to managers kind of jokingly, "You should be a programmer and I'll talk to the client for you." What I realized is they really thought they can do my job. When I mentioned that you need to know a lot to do what I do, it was clear that she honestly didn't believe it.

My experience is that the tech vs. non-tech feud boils down to the non-techs thinking that knowing the system is an unfair trick and thinking that the techies are lying when they disagree. The non-managers are jealous of the techie pay, and the managers just plain think they are better than the techies. I often think the problem is techies being low key and NOT showing off their knowledge to others.

I always ask for the code....

[Panaflex]

Because even though I am sometimes the Boss, I am also in charge of code quality, integration with other units and long term support. I'm also a full-time coder so I fully believe in "more eyes on the code begets better code." Secondly, us programmers have a propensity to procrastinate and generally get hung up on the interesting bits, ignoring the boring bits. Having someone that can understand exactly what you're stuck on is always "a good thing." Lastly, there's immediate backup if Timmy gets hit by a bus. Sorry, but it does happen.

It's really difficult to get developers to open up and share code... you have the "hero" guys and you also get the "afraid to be embarrassed" types as well. The faster you can get those types sharing the better your code quality will be - at least that's my experience. A code review with lunch can be a fun experience to kick that off. Giving the programmers some latitude to have their own 30 minute code review sessions with minimum management is good stuff too.

I always and for, and share my code...

[Panaflex]

Because even though I am sometimes the Boss, I am also in charge of code quality, integration with other units and long term support. I'm also a full-time coder so I fully believe in "more eyes on the code begets better code." Secondly, us programmers have a propensity to procrastinate and generally get hung up on the interesting bits, ignoring the boring bits. Having someone that can understand exactly what you're stuck on is always "a good thing." Lastly, there's immediate backup if Timmy gets hit by a bus. Sorry, but it does happen.

It's really difficult to get developers to open up and share code... you have the "hero" guys and you also get the "afraid to be embarrassed" types as well. The faster you can get those types sharing the better your code quality will be - at least that's my experience. A code review with lunch can be a fun experience to kick that off. Giving the programmers some latitude to have their own 30 minute code review sessions with minimum management is good stuff too.

alternate approach, prototyping

[v1]

Sounds like the boss may like to code, or may find it easier to express design in implementation than words.

Hook him up with a rapid prototyping language like VB. (specifically even if you don't use VB) The point is that it takes a handful of minutes to flesh out a gui in the VB IDE. And that's probably the point he's trying to get across to you. It doesn't have to be functional, there doesn't have to be even a line of actual code behind any of the events or button clicks. Just the physical layout and control behavior may be what he's trying to get across to you.

You may also want to consider him to have the viewpoint of closer to a "real user". As a coder I can state from experience that it's easy to get tunnel vision as to "how it's supposed to work" and lose some sight of "how the user wants it to work". At the end of the day your job isn't to solve any stated problem, but to give the user what they need. Not what they want. Not what they asked for. Not what you think they need. The most valuable tool for that is watching a user interact with your code. Treat the boss's request like user feedback. You almost certainly will learn something from the experience that can be applied to improving the performance of the product.

Some of the most important changes I make to my code involve changing behavior based on watching a user deal with a problem they simply have no idea that is changeable or that any alternative exists. I've lost count of the number of conversations along the lines of "this looks like it's getting the job done but wouldn't it be easier if it xxx?" "Well ya, I suppose so.... actually that'd be great if it worked that way. You can DO that?" The boss presenting you with some ideas in gui form may work like that but in reverse, showing you some insight you never even considered. Those are gold.

(once you've become used to a complex process it no longer stands out as something that could use improvement, this applies to both coders and users, and is most quickly identified by someone with fresh insight)

Re:alternate approach, prototyping

[Anonymous Coward]

NOOOOOO!!!! Then there will be a "prototype" GUI that will be handed off to the programmer to add the behind the scenes logic. And that of course will be a five minute task at tops, since making the GUI is already DONE

Doesn't matter that it is missing keyboard accelerators, tab order, validation logic, proper layout to handle different font sizes or monitor DPI, etc.

Dude, its all in the repository...go for it

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, if the boss doesn't know where the repo is or how to access it then point him at the correct documentation. remind him unit tests are required and tell him to come ask questions if "he can't figure something out"

Missing option

[PPH]

4) The boss (barely) manages to crank out some working code. Which she/he will check through subsequent revisions of the product. Just to make sure its still there. And you'll have to maintain around it for the rest of your life.

There's a story that went around Redmond for some time: DOS/Windows sucked because there were a few snippets of code originally written by Gates that no one dared touch until after he retired.

I wish sales/marketing was all commissions

[Envy Life]

If Sales and Marketing staff was all commission based then they'd actually do a lick of work to keep themselves relevant. At one IT company I worked at we'd replace our Sales/Marketing guy at least once per year (the latter part of the title gave him a decent salary and the former gives him commissions on top of a decent salary). They were tasked with selling our product as well as finding needs for customers so we could augment our product or build new for those with need. Lets just say we never found someone who was actually good at doing either, but they had a nice base salary while they were at it.

A buddy of mine was also a salesman in the health care field for years. He'd negotiate a nice living salary with commissions, work about 10 hours a week, and change jobs every 6 months because... well... each company has a level of tolerance for lack of sales somewhere between 3-12 months. He brings in his regular set of customers initially and when new sales quotas don't quite make it (primarily because of his work habits) he'd just move on and someone else was more than happy to make it.

I'm talking 6 figure pay in both cases, yes I was jealous, but I have higher ethics than allows me to take a job like that.

The first step here

[Anonymous Coward]

The first step to getting us all more respect would be for you IT technicians to take offense and EXPRESS that offense whenever someone refers to you as "computer guy".

I know most of you lack the spine, but you won't get under appreciated or disrespected again the first time you take someone else's profession and simplify it down to a "guy".

It works with all sorts of prestigious professions: Law Guy, Medical Guy, Money Guy (I recently asked a CPA if he would like to be called that, and he actually told me "his title is a little more important than someone that just knows computers". I walked off the job site), Phone Girl (for receptionists).

You'll find one of two things in every case: 1. They realize that day that they should show you the respect you deserve and from then on appreciate IT workers. 2. They come right out and admit they don't respect your job and actually consider it no more difficult than a postal carrier's job [see "mail man"]).

What's worked for me

[jacobsm]

I once had a manager ask me about a systems outage. I responded in general terms about the event. The manager wasn't satisfied with my responses and wanted further details.

I provided said manager with all the gory details, down to bits/bytes/control block overlay information, with a detailed action plan involving lists of PTF's to be applied, modules being effected, and so on.

Said manager walked away with a stunned look on his face. Never asked me again.

Niave

[geekoid]

The [person who fails will find a way to mae it your fault. It won't even be malice,. It's just human natutre, and not a low of people train them selves to rise above their nature.

IT will be because:
1) You use too much OO code
2) You sue to little OO code
3) You're 'style' is wrong
4) It's too waterfall
5) It's not waterfall enough.

It's not different then when someone thinks the are 'haunted' and you explain, no, that sound came from a beer can in your vent the contractor left there*, they will find another excuse to confirm their belief.

If you have a boss that tries this, and fails and then says "Hmm, I guess It's harder then I think'. Keep that boss.

Is point about when something is easy for the user, people think it was easy to do is correct. The programmers best defense is documentation. If you have a lot of people treating you like all your work is is, it typing. Take the time to write copious documentation that you include in every release. Details and referenced to Computer engineering terminology is a must. Be sure to refer to sorting algorithms, normalization, and best practices. Don't lie, just be detailed.

*true story

Product Managers??

[Mr_Silver]

Marketing is far more than people sitting around designing posters or television adverts. Doesn't anyone here actually work with a Product Manager?

You know, those people that own the product, build the roadmaps, speak to clients and internal departments to get their requirements, prioritise those requirements and flesh them out into something a little more useful that can be fed into the technical teams for them to produce low level documentation (as well, as be used for feedback on edge cases and ambiguity).

Or do you think that the business requirements and direction for a product just get made up by someone in the technical team with no consideration to anyone or anything else?

Just Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Really? Does anyone think if you give your boss the code for your project to modify himself he's actually going to modify it himself? Not likely. More likely is that he or she will go shopping for a new brown-noser who they think will be more compliant with their "vision" of the project. Usually they will think they've found someone who can do the job because the boss isnt very good at explaining specific requirements or you wouldn't be in the situation in the first place.

If you ever give the project source to the project manager be prepared to meet you new team member soon.

Like you never met one before

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll pass the chore off to someone else. Their basement-child, gardner, janitor, etc. Who, possibly, might even do something practical - which the said boss will duly thrash and trash. Somehow. You do not understand the misery the multidimensional orbits of this pale near-defenceless orb are dipping it in. Savour the moment. What's left of it. And be optimistic. Its a bigger world, out there.

boss code

[codepunk]

I managed to be the lucky one to acquire a boss written system. I ran grep across the 200k lines of spaghetti php code, the word function did not appear once. Needless to say he got it back rather quickly as I departed. I am sure to this day he still considers himself a master at application development.

Re:boss code

[Cro Magnon]

Heh! My first boss used to be a programmer, and one of his early programs was an important and long-lived part of the system I worked on. He admitted that it was a very large plate of spaghetti, and a PITA to maintain. I think he got himself promoted just to get away from that monster. :)

re: sales and marketing, etc.

[King_TJ]

Actually, I've always felt like when doing corporate I.T., it's really a big part of my job to ensure everyone ELSE is able to do their respective jobs with a minimal amount of hassle or interruption due to computer-related problems. They all need computers these days, to varying extents, so I'm here to make sure those computers work as more of a benefit than a detriment during their workday.

Granted, I'm not a software developer ... I'm doing systems administration and PC support roles. But software devs should really approach it from the same angle. The company hired them for the same reasons. They're just taking care of the "other half" of the computing problem (software vs. hardware).

I've always understood that a company's sales or marketing staff is critically important to the functioning of the business. I mean, if we can't get our products sold, how is anyone going to pay MY paycheck? So in that sense, no, I don't think less of those people.

The reason I think you see people (myself included) poking fun at sales/marketing staff on sites like /. regularly has more to do with the polar opposite natures. Our sales staff where I work now, for example, consists of a bunch of guys who basically just want to come in to work each day, have some fun goofing around and laughing at each other's stories or jokes, and have a primary motivation of money and bonuses. The single ones often have goals of owning specific things -- new cars, boats, a bigger house, vacation trips, clothes, or money to spend on girls they want to impress.... whatever. The older ones with families are just motivated by having the money to pursue whatever their weekend interests are (such as hunting or fishing) while keeping all the bills paid ... putting a kid through college or what-not. They view their job as a means to an end, but they don't have any particular love of their work, itself. They don't like change very much in the workplace, and they're very much in the "now", in the sense of "What is customer X going to buy from me TODAY?"

I.T. and software devs are quite a bit different. Sure, many of us have goals of buying material things of interest too -- but most of us actually "live" this stuff outside of work. We own nice computer systems at home and spend a lot of time on the net outside of the workplace. Software guys tend to feel a sense of ownership of the code they're paid to work on. There's a sense of pride, similar to the contractor who can drive by a house and say, "I put the roof on that one." or "We installed that driveway." years after the fact. Network admins have a similar sense of pride in a network environment that runs well.

That creates sort of a personality clash, when sales people call demanding a problem be solved NOW and everything's critical to them because "I'm losing orders over here!" Meanwhile, I.T. or software guys can easily see that many times, these situations could have been avoided if they bothered to notify them of warning signs of the impending problem that they just blew off for days before. They often ask for seemingly simple things that computer people think "they should know by now", while they simply don't want to spend the effort to learn all that "techie stuff" that's not their thing.

Different skill set

[Anonymous Coward]

Points I've learned from observing both sides of the programmer/boss coin:

1) The skill sets required are as different as those required for chefs and mechanics. A person may have both, but they are very rare.

2) A good programmer should recognize when a task is beyond their skill set (usually some form of high-level communication) and involve their boss.

3) A good boss should recognize when a task is beyond their skill set (coding) and leave that to the programmer.

4) A good boss knows programmers like to be left alone, and should enable that, taking care of as much of the communication as possible.

5) A good boss has done at least some programming before so that he isn't oblivious, but is humble enough to know that his programmers are better at it than he is.

Worst day of my life was when I was promoted

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the best performance reviews for the past several years. So I was promoted. No choice. Here is your (small) raise. Here's your (slightly)big(ger) office. These (former work buddies) are you direct reports. Have at it. BTW, the dress code is suit and tie. Having two kids and a mortgage, in this economy, of course I took it.

The worst part? My former work buddies... some of them were not great coders, and I had to fix their shit. A lot.

I am back in engineering, but I had to threaten to quit to get back.

Happened just once.

[Hasai]

I had a pilot once who demanded to know EXACTLY what was wrong with his aircraft.

So, I told him.

After that, whenever something went wrong, he'd stay in the pilot lounge until I told him it was safe to come out.

Boss Killed Department

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine once worked for a very insecure boss who never wanted to take on projects he himself could not do. The end result was that the department never produced anything significant. The entire staff moved to other departments and the boss was left with one pre-degree intern. Needless to say, the department died.

Related to the boss-is-best attitude is the idea that skilled professionals should train cheaper people to do their jobs as a prelude to cost-reduction layoffs. The son of a friend of ours was in a company that produced and provided service for a highly-respected software package. A company from another country bought out his company and immediately wanted him to start training people in the other country to do his job. He went straight to a phone and called a friend in another company. By that afternoon he had a better-paying job and resigned. He started the new job the next morning.

The bottom line is, good people are hard to find and harder to keep. Such people need the confidence to move on when a situation begins to deteriorate or their present company does not offer further career advancement (however one defines that for one's self). This is especially the case when it is clear that a layoff is coming.

Call in sick!

[Anonymous Coward]

I deal with an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better boss by saying I have a wicked case of the flu and call in sick for 3 days straight. Granted, I come back to work and everything's a mess...but it puts 'em in his place.

What genius is.

[MarkvW]

Making the complicated simple is one of the hallmarks of genius. A lot of morons don't get that.

Re:When a bug report is filed...

[s73v3r]

Then they yell at the software team "why isn't that bug from last year fixed already?"

And the software team answers back, "It's because we spent all our time trying to cover for your worthless ass cause you kept promising shit without actually consulting with us first."

My boss is a F__ing expurt... just ask him..

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never been more micro managed than my current job... the guy freaks out over every little thing... i dont even know why he hires skilled engineers when he wont let them do the work..

-whatever.

To make the whole thing more efficient ...

[porky_pig_jr]

code in assembly language. And remember the rule: NO COMMENTS. Comments are for sissies.

supr srsly...

[Anonymous Coward]

> "So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better boss?"

Grow up.

Why be offended if your boss asks for the code

[Argon]

Just ask him to check it out of the source code repository? You have one don't you :-)? If your boss can figure out how to do that, make the changes, do UT and commit the code in, I'd say go for it.

Re:So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he didn't mean _that_ squash, considering the words chosen to describe the boss. Success, of course, depends on the preferences of the boss and your (or sqldr's) skill in that particular area.

Re:So, how do you handle an anything-you-can-do-I-

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in "that" squash, the fat fuck would have to catch you first.