7 ms·

As someone who works with a lot of state IT people, if they don't know how to hire programmers, they probably don't know how to manage programmers. In a bureauc

As someone who works with a lot of state IT people, if they don't know how to hire programmers, they probably don't know how to manage programmers. In a bureaucracy, if the administrators are making these kinds of unrealistic hiring demands in a crisis, it probably means that the administrators outrank all programmers and don't trust them to make their own decisions. This is not an environment to work in.

neaanopri 7y ago
This is a crisis, not a normal time. Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. That's worth enduring a bad boss for.
- renewiltord 7y ago
  Did you apply? I think it would be interesting to hear the story of what it looks like inside if you decide to work with them.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  Problem is, that's how they get away with everything. They fix nothing, then wait for somebody to need them enough, or have compassion enough to handle their mess. Basically here, they are saying: we didn't listen to all those competent people that told us we should have cleaned this system a long time ago because one day it will bite us back. We didn't think technical debt was a thing. It has always worked. And it's virtual. And IT is always exaggerating anyway. Now it does bite them back, and do they take responsibility ? No. They ask for competent people to have mercy and save the day because the situation is dire. Because this is special this time, unlike the other times. This is completely not like with the health care system that never got fixed and now the medical personal is paying for it so that the people don't suffer as much from this mismanagement. They will not pay more. They will no fix anything. They will not respect you more, change the way things are done, or take any responsibility for this. And in fact they will probably guilt trip you into give up your health to overwork on this with less resources and for less pay because it's an emergency. A friend of mine works in an hospital right now. She has been at work for 15 days straight. They already told her she won't get paid for the days she was not supposed to work but did. Then as a final fuck you, if this turns out ok, if the catastrophe is avoided, they will get the reward. The nurses or the programmers ? They will be forgotten in a week. Nothing will change. But for the mismanagers, their superior will thank them for managing this situation well. They may even get promoted and have more responsibility. So you have the choice between saving the money of poor people now and reinforcing the suck of the whole system, of letting people suffer for a chance of a redo and purging the ones that lead to this. This is a terrible choice to have to make. Especially since we have the empathy to make us discuss this, while clearly they don't.
  - KhoomeiK 7y ago
    Getting Atlas Shrugged vibes. Lots of parallels with this situation actually.
    - cvhashim 7y ago
      Seems like OP is describing the plight of the average worker who gets left to clean up the mess with no credit at the end of it all and less of the business leaders or executives.
      - mindslight 7y ago
        IIRC, the capable workers were the first gone to Galt's Gulch. The story dwells on slightly-less-bad business people running around like decapitated chickens trying to keep things working, but the real heroes just quietly noped out.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    Yes, don't forget there will also be some deniers calling it a fraud afterwards: https://twitter.com/TheKouk/status/1211123181051768832 https://twitter.com/TheKouk/status/1211123181051768832
  - TAForObvReasons 7y ago
    This is honestly a terrible take. NJ did try to modernize the benefits system in 2007, awarding the contract to a company that is now owned by HP. News article: https://www.nj.com/politics/2014/11/nj_ends_118_million_contract_to_boost_enrollment_in_obamacare_other_social_service_programs.html https://www.nj.com/politics/2014/11/nj_ends_118_million_cont... EDIT: surprised at the downvotes. Parent asserted: > we didn't listen to all those competent people that told us we should have cleaned this system a long time ago because one day it will bite us back. And the historical record showed that NJ made that realization at least before 2007 (which is when the contract was awarded)
    - v8engine 7y ago
- eru 7y ago
  > Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. That's worth enduring a bad boss for. In absolute terms, perhaps. But if you are moving away from taking jobs out of self interest, and into doing something for the public good; you might as well check out https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/ and pick the job that has the most positive impact. My guess is that working any kind of 'normal' programmer job and giving 10% of your income to an effective charity would beat out enduring the bad boss in New Jersey.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    10% of my salary wouldn’t be nearly as impactful as helping millions of people get unemployment checks quickly.
    - eru 6y ago
      You'd have to look at the marginal impacts. You working for them would most likely not push them from failure to success. It would perhaps make success marginally more likely, or perhaps decrease schedule overruns slightly. Or perhaps make not much of a difference at all, depending on how screwed they are. Of course, the estimate of impact also depends on how you value humans. If you value all humans fairly equally, then Americans who had a job until fairly recently (ie those eligible for unemployment insurance) are already fairly well off compared to the people who benefit from more malaria nets. Especially since their unemployment benefits would merely be delayed, not lost. Lots of people value those closer to them higher. The most prominent example are family and friends. But valuing compatriots higher is fairly common as well. Of course, you can give more than 10% of your income as well.
    - coribuci 6y ago
      Then why don't _you_ do it ?
      - scarface74 6y ago
        I didn’t say I would do either. It is a generic discussion about tradeoffs.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  They'll change their tune when they won't be able to find anyone. The free market is as honest as it gets. If you underpay and undertreat your employees, they will seek an alternative. It is simple opportunity cost.
  - eru 7y ago
    It will probably not be all or nothing. They'll probably find a few people who will give it a go. The result will probably be delays and failure. Business as usual.
- matheusmoreira 7y ago
  > Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. Let them get nothing. Then they'll call for the heads of the governors, the very people who couldn't care less about the system until it stopped working. They are the ones who could have made a difference but actively chose not to because it just wasn't that important to them.
- tomohawk 6y ago
  No. It is worth holding the bad boss accountable and firing the bad boss who put them in this situation in the first place.
- IanS00 6y ago
  There's a difference between a generic "bad boss" and an incompetent one. An incompetent one will kill the project. If NJ have failed to maintain legacy systems that good COBOL development needs, almost by definition they have incompetent management (and a Governor who can't even pronounce COBOL). They likely don't have the dev or test boxes that they should have. They will either put up barriers to the other systems the developer needs to understand, or will throw open the doors so that my fixes get broken by everyone else's fixes.
- DeusExMachina 6y ago
  This would work if we had only one problem to solve. Real people getting unemployment checks is an important problem for sure, but not the only one. It's better to direct our limited resources to better porjects with a higher success rate and/or impact.
- krageon 6y ago
  > That's worth enduring a bad boss for. A bad boss will absolutely give you burnout, and that lasts for years. You are of course correct, but at the same time I would never ask this of someone and I wouldn't subject myself to it either. Bad bosses will destroy your quality of life in the medium-long term.
d3ad1ysp0rk 7y ago
I would normally agree, but emergencies can create opportunities for improvements in the process. See healthcare.gov for example.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  "Chaos is a ladder" though it didn't turn out so well for that fictional character, his assessment wasn't wrong.

neaanopri 7y ago

This is a crisis, not a normal time. Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. That's worth enduring a bad boss for.

renewiltord 7y ago
Did you apply? I think it would be interesting to hear the story of what it looks like inside if you decide to work with them.
BiteCode_dev 7y ago
Problem is, that's how they get away with everything. They fix nothing, then wait for somebody to need them enough, or have compassion enough to handle their mess. Basically here, they are saying: we didn't listen to all those competent people that told us we should have cleaned this system a long time ago because one day it will bite us back. We didn't think technical debt was a thing. It has always worked. And it's virtual. And IT is always exaggerating anyway. Now it does bite them back, and do they take responsibility ? No. They ask for competent people to have mercy and save the day because the situation is dire. Because this is special this time, unlike the other times. This is completely not like with the health care system that never got fixed and now the medical personal is paying for it so that the people don't suffer as much from this mismanagement. They will not pay more. They will no fix anything. They will not respect you more, change the way things are done, or take any responsibility for this. And in fact they will probably guilt trip you into give up your health to overwork on this with less resources and for less pay because it's an emergency. A friend of mine works in an hospital right now. She has been at work for 15 days straight. They already told her she won't get paid for the days she was not supposed to work but did. Then as a final fuck you, if this turns out ok, if the catastrophe is avoided, they will get the reward. The nurses or the programmers ? They will be forgotten in a week. Nothing will change. But for the mismanagers, their superior will thank them for managing this situation well. They may even get promoted and have more responsibility. So you have the choice between saving the money of poor people now and reinforcing the suck of the whole system, of letting people suffer for a chance of a redo and purging the ones that lead to this. This is a terrible choice to have to make. Especially since we have the empathy to make us discuss this, while clearly they don't.
- KhoomeiK 7y ago
  Getting Atlas Shrugged vibes. Lots of parallels with this situation actually.
  - cvhashim 7y ago
    Seems like OP is describing the plight of the average worker who gets left to clean up the mess with no credit at the end of it all and less of the business leaders or executives.
    - mindslight 7y ago
      IIRC, the capable workers were the first gone to Galt's Gulch. The story dwells on slightly-less-bad business people running around like decapitated chickens trying to keep things working, but the real heroes just quietly noped out.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Yes, don't forget there will also be some deniers calling it a fraud afterwards: https://twitter.com/TheKouk/status/1211123181051768832 https://twitter.com/TheKouk/status/1211123181051768832
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago
  This is honestly a terrible take. NJ did try to modernize the benefits system in 2007, awarding the contract to a company that is now owned by HP. News article: https://www.nj.com/politics/2014/11/nj_ends_118_million_contract_to_boost_enrollment_in_obamacare_other_social_service_programs.html https://www.nj.com/politics/2014/11/nj_ends_118_million_cont... EDIT: surprised at the downvotes. Parent asserted: > we didn't listen to all those competent people that told us we should have cleaned this system a long time ago because one day it will bite us back. And the historical record showed that NJ made that realization at least before 2007 (which is when the contract was awarded)
  - v8engine 7y ago
eru 7y ago
> Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. That's worth enduring a bad boss for. In absolute terms, perhaps. But if you are moving away from taking jobs out of self interest, and into doing something for the public good; you might as well check out https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/ and pick the job that has the most positive impact. My guess is that working any kind of 'normal' programmer job and giving 10% of your income to an effective charity would beat out enduring the bad boss in New Jersey.
- scarface74 7y ago
  10% of my salary wouldn’t be nearly as impactful as helping millions of people get unemployment checks quickly.
  - eru 6y ago
    You'd have to look at the marginal impacts. You working for them would most likely not push them from failure to success. It would perhaps make success marginally more likely, or perhaps decrease schedule overruns slightly. Or perhaps make not much of a difference at all, depending on how screwed they are. Of course, the estimate of impact also depends on how you value humans. If you value all humans fairly equally, then Americans who had a job until fairly recently (ie those eligible for unemployment insurance) are already fairly well off compared to the people who benefit from more malaria nets. Especially since their unemployment benefits would merely be delayed, not lost. Lots of people value those closer to them higher. The most prominent example are family and friends. But valuing compatriots higher is fairly common as well. Of course, you can give more than 10% of your income as well.
  - coribuci 6y ago
    Then why don't _you_ do it ?
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I didn’t say I would do either. It is a generic discussion about tradeoffs.
0x8BADF00D 7y ago
They'll change their tune when they won't be able to find anyone. The free market is as honest as it gets. If you underpay and undertreat your employees, they will seek an alternative. It is simple opportunity cost.
- eru 7y ago
  It will probably not be all or nothing. They'll probably find a few people who will give it a go. The result will probably be delays and failure. Business as usual.
matheusmoreira 7y ago
> Fixing this system will make the difference between real people getting unemployment checks or nothing. Let them get nothing. Then they'll call for the heads of the governors, the very people who couldn't care less about the system until it stopped working. They are the ones who could have made a difference but actively chose not to because it just wasn't that important to them.
tomohawk 6y ago
No. It is worth holding the bad boss accountable and firing the bad boss who put them in this situation in the first place.
IanS00 6y ago
There's a difference between a generic "bad boss" and an incompetent one. An incompetent one will kill the project. If NJ have failed to maintain legacy systems that good COBOL development needs, almost by definition they have incompetent management (and a Governor who can't even pronounce COBOL). They likely don't have the dev or test boxes that they should have. They will either put up barriers to the other systems the developer needs to understand, or will throw open the doors so that my fixes get broken by everyone else's fixes.
DeusExMachina 6y ago
This would work if we had only one problem to solve. Real people getting unemployment checks is an important problem for sure, but not the only one. It's better to direct our limited resources to better porjects with a higher success rate and/or impact.
krageon 6y ago
> That's worth enduring a bad boss for. A bad boss will absolutely give you burnout, and that lasts for years. You are of course correct, but at the same time I would never ask this of someone and I wouldn't subject myself to it either. Bad bosses will destroy your quality of life in the medium-long term.

d3ad1ysp0rk 7y ago

I would normally agree, but emergencies can create opportunities for improvements in the process. See healthcare.gov for example.

Frost1x 6y ago
"Chaos is a ladder" though it didn't turn out so well for that fictional character, his assessment wasn't wrong.