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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.