Most Tech Jobs Are Jokes and I Am Not Laughing

I'm in Sydney, and Lest We Forget.

"It has become exceedingly clear to me that the average company is not a suitable environment for someone that cares about the craft of programming."

I'm not in a position to do this topic justice as it's a too big a subject to cover in a post such as this. Nevertheless, l'd extend that statement to include essentially any craft or expertise. Companies have profit as their primary objective and this rarely fits well with the specifics of one's craft or expertise.

The worst case comes when the stated objectives of the company or organization (what it does to make money) are very different to those of the employee's skills. For instance, the employee is employed in some technical area of a company that has nothing to do with technology such as banking, finance, the arts and various government bureaucracies.

My worst job was working for a government bureaucracy that had nothing to do with technology, it was soul destroying and horrible. As head of a technical department I found myself continually embroiled in matters that had nothing to do with what my department actually did, and trying to explain what my staff actually did in ways senior management could understand was a fruitless exercises—one may as well have tried to teach a dog calculus.

What was so frustrating was that I was in a secure position and that the only escape meant I would have to ditch tenure and security, which is eventually what I did.

> My worst job was working for a government bureaucracy that had nothing to do with technology, it was soul destroying and horrible. As head of a technical department I found myself continually embroiled in matters that had nothing to do with what my department actually did, and trying to explain what my staff actually did in ways senior management could understand was a fruitless exercises—one may as well have tried to teach a dog calculus.

In my opinion, for such a situation it would make sense for the management to apply a more hands-off approach with respect to managing the technical employees. If you don't understand what they are doing, employ great people that you trust and let them do their technical things in a rather hands-off way.

I don't know them, but I love this person. Very Douglas Adams-esque writing style, too.