Posted by Sam on May 30, 2008 at 07:42 AM UTC - 5 hrs
What do you do? What have you done?
According to Chad Fowler in this week's chapter of MJWTI, those are two of the worst questions someone can ask about you. Why? Because it means they don't already know.
You might as well move to the basement and spend your days mumbling about your red Swingline stapler. Get used to the idea that no one will notice you're missing.
You were fired years ago. There was just a glitch in the payroll system that caused your paycheck to get printed anyway. Don't worry, they'll fix it soon.
Instead of being a "no-talent ass clown" that simply does what's expected of you, why not take some initiative and change some things for the better?
Can you automate TPS reports? (Can I reference anything else in that movie?)
Can you show them the light and get them to ditch ceremony in favor of essence when it makes sense?
IronRuby now runs unmodified Rails.
And JRuby's been on Rails for a while. There's Groovy and Grails and IronPython and ColdFusion and Jython and Scala and frameworks in the platform-anointed languages that relieve pain points in Java and .NET (while still running on them and integrating well!). It's true - they make Vicodin for the programmer's broken spirit. Chicken noodle soup for the coder's lost soul.
So why are you still always writing home-brew apps from scratch with all the pomp required by Her Majesty?
Can you sell essence to your boss and coworkers?
You can start unit testing. You can set up source control. You can tell people when you think their ideas are wrong, and fix other WTFs as you encounter them.
Then no one will need to ask what you do. They'll know.
Ruffled any feathers lately? Been a force for Good? Let's hear about it!
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