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Is the boss a programmer? If yes, then yeah you should say something. If not, then this is all just normal - this is what bosses do - get credit for their divis

Is the boss a programmer? If yes, then yeah you should say something. If not, then this is all just normal - this is what bosses do - get credit for their division and get more funding for it. If he is not a programmer, then of course the board knows he didn't build it and had it built. Even if the sketches were shitty - he was in charge of getting the right people to build it.

corrral 4y ago
A boss-type one time: "When I was with X, I built four datacenters" Me, with a career that overlaps a time when one or two people building a datacenter with a little help from contractors for e.g. the electrical work and hvac, wasn't unheard of, for about three seconds, in my head: "Damn, that's pretty impressive" Me, by the end of the three seconds: "Oh, he means he told other people to build four datacenters and that was very likely the extent of his involvement."
- ryandrake 4y ago
  I used to get so angry about all this credit-taking, but after 20 years, it kind of just washes over me now. Look at every company's "About Us" page and you'll see beautiful headshots of top executives with captions claiming to have "Built product X" or "Developed application Y" when they probably never wrote a line of code in their lives. It's so pervasive in every company that, as an IC, you just have to accept it or you're going to give yourself increasing anxiety until you explode.
  - soco 4y ago
    Well in theory it's quite an adventure to get support and secure funding and generally make something possible, so the credit is not completely misplaced. And like other commenters said, nobody thinks they did that with their own hands. At least nobody in their right minds.
    - jdbernard 4y ago
      The problem is that assumed knowledge is so implicit. If you're not familiar with the norm, it's easy to get confused about what someone actually did. Add to that the inherent desire of our ego to over-inflate our own importance, and misunderstandings don't get corrected. Personally, I prefer to call out leadership explicitly: "lead teams who built out four data centers."
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  > very likely the extent of his involvement I'm going to assume that you are not in a management position from this statement? It's virtually impossible, unless you have extremely high-functioning workers, to do this. People need oversight so they don't go off the rails, management so others don't step in to distract them, leadership so they can be guided in the right direction, etc. Even with awesome direct reports, I can't think of a time when I just handed someone an extremely complex project and left them alone and was presented with perfect success a few months later. Management is a skill; don't disregard its importance.
  - ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
    Someone's gotta approve my timesheet. That's an important skill.
  - jmartin2683 4y ago
    Imagine actually being so self-absorbed as to think that all of the folks who actually possess the technical skill to build the thing you’re daydreaming about couldn’t possibly do their jobs without your ‘leadership’… as if the only hand that doesn’t need held is yours… the guy who can’t actually build anything. Ego is a hell of a drug
- cbm-vic-20 4y ago
  I know people who have a new house and say "When we built this house, blah, blah blah...", when I know they don't even know what a hammer looks like.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Heh, at least it's their own money in those cases.
- exolymph 4y ago
  Getting other people to do something — at all, let alone correctly — is actually a huge task. You should not dismiss the efforts of a manager who orchestrated four datacenters, that's very impressive.
b20000 4y ago
and why should we continue to accept and reward this behaviour?
- spiderice 4y ago
  What behavior? If the boss isn’t a programmer, then it sounds like the boss is doing a good job here. He went and hired a programmer to build an app they needed. What am I missing?

corrral 4y ago

A boss-type one time: "When I was with X, I built four datacenters" Me, with a career that overlaps a time when one or two people building a datacenter with a little help from contractors for e.g. the electrical work and hvac, wasn't unheard of, for about three seconds, in my head: "Damn, that's pretty impressive" Me, by the end of the three seconds: "Oh, he means he told other people to build four datacenters and that was very likely the extent of his involvement."

ryandrake 4y ago
I used to get so angry about all this credit-taking, but after 20 years, it kind of just washes over me now. Look at every company's "About Us" page and you'll see beautiful headshots of top executives with captions claiming to have "Built product X" or "Developed application Y" when they probably never wrote a line of code in their lives. It's so pervasive in every company that, as an IC, you just have to accept it or you're going to give yourself increasing anxiety until you explode.
- soco 4y ago
  Well in theory it's quite an adventure to get support and secure funding and generally make something possible, so the credit is not completely misplaced. And like other commenters said, nobody thinks they did that with their own hands. At least nobody in their right minds.
  - jdbernard 4y ago
    The problem is that assumed knowledge is so implicit. If you're not familiar with the norm, it's easy to get confused about what someone actually did. Add to that the inherent desire of our ego to over-inflate our own importance, and misunderstandings don't get corrected. Personally, I prefer to call out leadership explicitly: "lead teams who built out four data centers."
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> very likely the extent of his involvement I'm going to assume that you are not in a management position from this statement? It's virtually impossible, unless you have extremely high-functioning workers, to do this. People need oversight so they don't go off the rails, management so others don't step in to distract them, leadership so they can be guided in the right direction, etc. Even with awesome direct reports, I can't think of a time when I just handed someone an extremely complex project and left them alone and was presented with perfect success a few months later. Management is a skill; don't disregard its importance.
- ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
  Someone's gotta approve my timesheet. That's an important skill.
- jmartin2683 4y ago
  Imagine actually being so self-absorbed as to think that all of the folks who actually possess the technical skill to build the thing you’re daydreaming about couldn’t possibly do their jobs without your ‘leadership’… as if the only hand that doesn’t need held is yours… the guy who can’t actually build anything. Ego is a hell of a drug
cbm-vic-20 4y ago
I know people who have a new house and say "When we built this house, blah, blah blah...", when I know they don't even know what a hammer looks like.
- corrral 4y ago
  Heh, at least it's their own money in those cases.
exolymph 4y ago
Getting other people to do something — at all, let alone correctly — is actually a huge task. You should not dismiss the efforts of a manager who orchestrated four datacenters, that's very impressive.

b20000 4y ago

and why should we continue to accept and reward this behaviour?

spiderice 4y ago
What behavior? If the boss isn’t a programmer, then it sounds like the boss is doing a good job here. He went and hired a programmer to build an app they needed. What am I missing?