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My Colleague Julius

ploum.net

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Re: My Colleague Julius

#21

Post by Noumenon72 »

dgeiser13 wrote: post #14
electric_mayhem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of getting too meta, I feel like lots of folks will get the gist of Julius and check out from the article… …missing the twist. So as a TLDR, I’ll say that Julius is a peer of the author who is polished but uncomprehending, often spouting convincing-sounding nonsense. And here in 2024 we not only have folks like that to contend with, but also have polished AI output being forced at us from every direction.…

I read the whole thing and never saw any twist. What did I miss?

I missed the twist also. When he said he was surrounded by Juliuses I thought he meant his other colleagues had gotten to their positions by cheating with LLMs to look like Julius.

Re: My Colleague Julius

#22

Post by adammarples »

whatisyourwork wrote: post #20
buggy6257 wrote: post #16

If this is going to enter our lexicon as a short-name for this type of person, I'll point out that since "Julius" is originally latin derived, the pluralization should follow that of most/all latin nouns, and thus be "Julii".

Well, yes. But the blog is an English blog and plural is Juliuses. The rules of grammar apply from the language, not from the word. Sometimes the language inherits the rules from the language of the word. But that's an exception.

Well now we are choosing to inherit a newly contextualised word it's appropriate to discuss what grammar we should take with it

Re: My Colleague Julius

#24

Post by kelnos »

angarg12 wrote: post #4

I've met a breed of career min-maxers adjacent to Julius that I have a hard time describing. Picture this: you join a new team with a senior engineer, call him Pete. Pete wrote the initial version of a new product, and you joined the team to take over and continue it's development. Pete is bona fide genius who can work miracles and he is always in the critical path of each new initiative, you are told. Once you open…

> He also seems to have a knack to leave ship before his acts catch up with him, and when he decided to leave the job for a promotion and significant raise, management will miss him.

This is not a "knack". It's a manipulative skill he has learned over time. A way to burnish his reputation at the expense of his peers. Petes suck.

Re: My Colleague Julius

#25

Post by YmiYugy »

angarg12 wrote: post #4

I've met a breed of career min-maxers adjacent to Julius that I have a hard time describing. Picture this: you join a new team with a senior engineer, call him Pete. Pete wrote the initial version of a new product, and you joined the team to take over and continue it's development. Pete is bona fide genius who can work miracles and he is always in the critical path of each new initiative, you are told. Once you open…

That sounds like a management error, not a Pete problem. If Pete was told to get a demo done as soon as possible, that's what he did. And in many cases that's not a bad thing for management to tell people. Finding product market fit, usually trumps tech debt. The thing is, that management should know, how time intensive and difficult it can be to turn a cobbled together demo into a production system.

Re: My Colleague Julius

#26

Post by pjbk »

This was pure gold. I've certainly met many Julii trough my career. The universe spawns and churns them abundantly. It must be fond of them.

Re: My Colleague Julius

#27

Post by Jtsummers »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #21
dgeiser13 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the whole thing and never saw any twist. What did I miss?

I missed the twist also. When he said he was surrounded by Juliuses I thought he meant his other colleagues had gotten to their positions by cheating with LLMs to look like Julius.

Re-read the last 7 paragraphs, quoting paragraph[-7]:

> On my side, I tried to forget Julius. But, recently, my boss came to me with a huge smile. He had met the salesperson from a company that had amazed him with its products. Artificial intelligence software that would, I quote, boost our productivity! [emphasis added]

Re: My Colleague Julius

#28

Post by amelius »

electric_mayhem wrote: post #6
oddly wrote: post #2

Haha, I genuinely laughed, thanks for this gem.

At the risk of getting too meta, I feel like lots of folks will get the gist of Julius and check out from the article… …missing the twist. So as a TLDR, I’ll say that Julius is a peer of the author who is polished but uncomprehending, often spouting convincing-sounding nonsense. And here in 2024 we not only have folks like that to contend with, but also have polished AI output being forced at us from every direction.…

What I learned from this is that by using an AI, I can have a good career with a salary that is above average.

Re: My Colleague Julius

#29

Post by forgetfreeman »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #18

If this wasn't about AI, Julius would have been an excellent PM or mid-level manager.

If highly confident bullshit artistry is a desirable trait in any job description the parent org should abandon pretense and pivot to flogging crypto and dietary supplements.

Re: My Colleague Julius

#30

Post by spit2wind »

angarg12 wrote: post #4

I've met a breed of career min-maxers adjacent to Julius that I have a hard time describing. Picture this: you join a new team with a senior engineer, call him Pete. Pete wrote the initial version of a new product, and you joined the team to take over and continue it's development. Pete is bona fide genius who can work miracles and he is always in the critical path of each new initiative, you are told. Once you open…

This is what John Osterhout calls a _tactical tornado_. It's a programmer who only develops tactically. I find his book, "A Philosophy of Software Design" provides a good vocabulary to think about the technical aspects of this. See Chapter 3: Working Code isn't Enough. It may be enough vocabulary to begin working on the problem without attacking the person.

As for the psychology of such people, I haven't found a single resource. Clearly the system they operate in provides a feedback loop that reinforces their behavior. I'm sure personality, as defined by the Big Five model, plays a part (e.g. orderliness).

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