3 ms·

oh god, are you that guy who can't shut up about the football game last weekend? do you know how hard it is to keep smiling when you accost me every Monday m

by lsc 16y ago

oh god, are you that guy who can't shut up about the football game last weekend? do you know how hard it is to keep smiling when you accost me every Monday morning with the news about your team? At least let me finish my coffee first. (I'm mostly joking... but there really is a pretty big cultural divide here between people for whom this is a job and people for whom this is their identity.)

ganley 16y ago
You nailed it with that last sentence, and the OP would seem to be looking for the latter class of people. What troubles me is the constant either-or mudslinging between the job people who think the identity people have no lives, and the identity people who think the job people are nothing but seat-warmers. As with all such false dichotomies, the truth is a long spectrum between the two, and using a single, simple measure such as whether the person programs for fun to measure passion is heuristic at best.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Resolution: All measures of job fitness applied during the selection process are heuristics at best, and cargo cult practices at worst. Discuss.
raghava 16y ago
>>a pretty big cultural divide here between people for whom this is a job and people for whom this is their identity Precisely. :) Still, as ganley points out, "truth is a long spectrum between the two". Simply put, question is whether the candidate is passionate about programming and software systems (and if so, is he competent enough ;)) or not. For few it is their identity, and for many, it is just a job. Even those who loathe(or do not care a damn about) programming/software/computers/technology could be given fancy designations and be employed in IT, thanks to that thriving segment in the industry (yeah, the one that provides 'cost-effective means to get anything done based on a checklist'). Real fun (read 'misery') is when there is a misfit around; i.e. like when there's a guy totally passionate about programming/computers with a bunch of 'I-won't-even-touch-computer-outside-work' types who abhor programming. /* yeah, the latter ones are for real. :) */

by lsc 16y ago

ganley 16y ago

You nailed it with that last sentence, and the OP would seem to be looking for the latter class of people. What troubles me is the constant either-or mudslinging between the job people who think the identity people have no lives, and the identity people who think the job people are nothing but seat-warmers. As with all such false dichotomies, the truth is a long spectrum between the two, and using a single, simple measure such as whether the person programs for fun to measure passion is heuristic at best.

raganwald 16y ago
Resolution: All measures of job fitness applied during the selection process are heuristics at best, and cargo cult practices at worst. Discuss.

raghava 16y ago

>>a pretty big cultural divide here between people for whom this is a job and people for whom this is their identity Precisely. :) Still, as ganley points out, "truth is a long spectrum between the two". Simply put, question is whether the candidate is passionate about programming and software systems (and if so, is he competent enough ;)) or not. For few it is their identity, and for many, it is just a job. Even those who loathe(or do not care a damn about) programming/software/computers/technology could be given fancy designations and be employed in IT, thanks to that thriving segment in the industry (yeah, the one that provides 'cost-effective means to get anything done based on a checklist'). Real fun (read 'misery') is when there is a misfit around; i.e. like when there's a guy totally passionate about programming/computers with a bunch of 'I-won't-even-touch-computer-outside-work' types who abhor programming. /* yeah, the latter ones are for real. :) */