Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
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Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#2From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#3Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#4From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.
And the reason he blew up was because any changes to the way 911 operators worked had to be approved. Wow. What I can't believe was that he was allowed to resign and wasn't fired on the spot.
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#5From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.
It seems pretty clear that the captain wasn't dismissing the helpfulness but rather dismissing Clemans' authority to deploy the project.
It's a power play, and Clemans' disdain for rigid power structures clearly contributed to the friction between him and the SPD administration.
EDIT: the captain's response is not unwarranted at all. Emergency response call centers are a critical public resource and he is ultimately in charge of them.
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#6[deleted]
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#7Unfortunately, policing culture is very territorial and operates at extreme levels of testosterone fueled territory marking.
A tech-nerd (with possibly some autistic traits from the descriptions) is never going to get along in that environment without someone seriously watching over them. And whoever that is, will have some serious work to do in order to get the best for the department.
Cops are trained to push peoples buttons and make them lose control. Tim seems to have not seen the play coming and was fairly easily sideswiped before he even got far off the ground.
It sounds like SPD are not up to the job - even though someone at least seemed to be in the right direction when they hired Tim in the first place. If they had been able to follow through with the right support, SPD could have been an incredibly awesome exemplar of Policing and tech done right. To me, it sounds like there are serious management problems with the department - this situation would never have happened if people were properly competent.
Sadly, in my own experience, Policing and tech are never done terribly well. It always ends up with the snoopers and intrusive abusers gaining more ground and the things which really help keep people safer and more secure being thrown in the ditch or run over completely.
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#8From the limited context of the article, Clemans sounds very talented and helpful but "blowing up, yelling, and cursing" when someone dismisses the helpfulness of a project is not an ideal way to change a culture.
And the reason he blew up was because any changes to the way 911 operators worked had to be approved. Wow. What I can't believe was that he was allowed to resign and wasn't fired on the spot.
Basically. Short of owning my own company, I've never been allowed to make sweeping changes unilaterally. Hell, I have a business partner, so even now I don't get to make changes unilaterally.
The first time someone isn't as impressed with this guy as himself, he goes red.
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#9Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").
This was my thought as well.
Lets hire someone who has been antagonizing the SPD (and arguably visa versa) for a long time, and make them work together! What cold possibly go wrong?
I'm actually not trying to be a smart-ass. There is a very public history of tension between Tim and the SPD. Two parties with such a history mixed with an organization that is already mired in politics created a situation that was all but guarenteed to fail from the start.
Shame though, I personally would have love to seen the fruits of a better relationship between these two parties.
Re: Programmer Tim Clemans Resigns from Seattle Police Department After Six Months
#10Seattle (for city council, mayor elections, school board hires) seems to have a history of bringing in "outsiders" who are used to throwing stones at the process, who then (surprise surprise!) fail when trying to work within the process. (Edit: This is indicative of the people themselves, but also of that horribly over-inclusive beast dubbed the "Seattle Process").
Because employers love hiring people for the purposes of berating them until they blow up, then firing them when they realize they screwed up and try to play ball.
That is a very perverse theory that can be disproved by another techie who has lasted there longer than 6 months.
It appears the programmer failed to realize how srructured and protocol driven the SPD is, #1, and #2, his tact was atrocious, which is probably what got him fired.
It's happened to me and to the best of us, failure to gauge the pulse of the environment... He seems very talented, however just a really poor fit for SPD. He will be much happier elsewhere.
edit for Azkar: then that's what I call a poor fit, without blaming myself or the employer.