2009/8/26 tedd <tedd.sperling@xxxxxxxxx>: > At 2:12 PM +0100 8/26/09, Stuart wrote: >> >> 2009/8/26 tedd <tedd.sperling@xxxxxxxxx>: >> >> > And, we all need a holiday... >> >> Apparently a holiday is out of the question, so I've decided to change >> jobs instead. A new environment, that's all I need. >> >> Loving your view of this list as a hierarchy of idiots btw, I think >> that works as a description for a lot of places. >> >> -Stuart > > > -Stuart: > > I hope your new job still includes this list. Unfortunately I've already had to cut down a lot on the time I spend doing stuff like this list in my current job, and that's unlikely to change when I take up my new role. I dip in when I can, and still try to have fun with it ;-) > As for the "hierarchy of idiots", but of course -- if we weren't idiots we > would be doing something that made lot's of money. > > I had a client say to me once "If you're so smart, then why aren't you > rich?" I answered quickly "What makes you think I'm not?" But privately his > comment cut me to the quick. There was no question that much dumber people > than me (according to me) were making far more bucks than I was. > > So, who's the smart one? Is it the guy that went to college to get three > degrees to work his ass off for a moron who pays a a fraction of what he > makes on the deal? Or is it the moron who sniffs out the deal and gets > idiots to work for him? There are some *very* lucky people out there who get away with doing and/or knowing very little, with minimal intelligence but who manage to get paid over-the-top amounts for it. In my experience they are the type of person for whom money is the goal. I hate that attitude and it says more about society in general than such an individual. For me money has never been a core driver in my life, mainly because I've been fortunate to usually have a job that pays well enough to provide me with everything I need, but so far I've never felt it was excessive. IMHO the richest person in the world is the one who would still do what they get paid for after they've won £100m on the lottery. Having a job you love so much that you can't imagine not doing it is the holy grail. I reckon I'm pretty close to that because I love my job (both current and new) and the only thing I would change if I could would be to own the company rather than work for it, but that would change little in my day-to-day activities. > It appears that the world is made up of morons and idiots -- the problem is > that idiots do all the work and morons make all the money. The smarter the > idiot, the more work that's available. The craftier the moron, the more > money they make and thus the more idiots they hire. If you ask me you are essentially describing engineers (or doers) as idiots and salespeople as morons. I won't debate the labels but unfortunately it's a fact of life that most "management" types in this world are ex-sales because they're the ones who know how to use their skills to further their career which them in a position to favour sales over engineering when it comes to salary and rewards. I've worked in a number of organisations where the sales staff were treated like rock stars and the people who did the actual work were treated like commodities - easily replaced. I've also worked in (and now insist on only working for) organisations that recognise that building stuff is as important, if not more so than being able to sell it. When it comes to software, especially since the (and I really hate the term, but) Web 2.0 label took off it's become increasingly clear that a good product will sell itself through personal recommendations many times more successfully than a glossy ad campaign. It's also being recognised that a fair proportion of the public now object to being sold something by pretentious, over-confident, pushy salespeople, and it's fairly likely they'll be put off buying whatever their selling regardless of what it is. This, I think, is the source of the recent switch in focus from polished advertising to polished products. This switch coupled with the low cost of distributing software via the internet has created the perfect environment for small companies to create great products and compete effectively with traditional shrink-wrapped software publishers. And long may it continue. Better quality software is better for everyone, users and developers alike. Incidentally, I should say at this point that if PHP has one weakness in this brave new world its that the barrier to entry is far too low. It's just too easy to do it wrong and get away with it. Most languages specifically aimed at web development suffer from the same problem, but PHP seems to have special skills in this area. I've been recruiting for my replacement recently (drop me a note if you're interested in a lead developer role in a financially stable UK-based company) and as with every time I recruit PHP developers it scares me the number of people out there commanding decent salaries when they really don't know what I consider to be the basics of software development. I think I've worked out why tho... what they make works, and if you don't look too closely or with a trained eye you'll never see that it's riddled with security holes and is generally a nightmare to maintain. Maybe it's just me but any developer who doesn't care about the quality, security and maintainability of their work will never get a job from me!! Ok, that turned in to a bit of a rant. Sorry, and thanks for reading it (I assume you did since you're reading this sentence - if you're just skimming it then this still applies, but less so). > As for me, sometimes I'm an idiot and other times I'm a moron. But what I > really would like to be is retired so I could do this for a hobby. *raises a glass of hot cocoa* Here's to that day! -Stuart -- http://stut.net/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
