existence, refactored

Whenever I get a random call or e-mail from a recruiter, I tend to think about Van Halen and brown M&Ms. Here’s the Snopes page for those of you who aren’t familiar with the connection between the two.

TL;DR:

• Van Halen’s concert contract contains a clause that requires a bowl of M&Ms in the backstage area with the brown ones removed.
• Turns out there’s a reason for that clause (unlike some celebrities’ riders): it’s an easy way to detect if the promoters have read and followed the terms. When dealing with tonnes of expensive equipment, failing to follow just a single part of the contract can lead to life threatening situations.

I have my own brown M&Ms clauses that let me check if a recruiter is worth my time.

The first is pretty obvious. I haven’t uploaded my profile or resume at any job hunting site so that should mean that I’m not looking for work. Thus, I ignore any recruiter who simply assumes that I’m looking for a job.

The second one is somewhat trickier, but it’s still pretty easy to see. The hint is there on top of my CV: a link to my website. There’s a wealth of information there and it, along with my CV, give you enough info to see if I’m a good match to your position opening.

There’s also a couple of lines there (and a couple of clicks away) that will make me bluntly ignore you if you blatantly ignore them.

I don’t care about your high compensation package, your career path, or your laid back environment; if you can’t answer that single request, I have no use for your company and your company has no use for me.

My parents don’t get along with me but once in a while some topics come up where I can join in the discussion.

The topic in question was about an aunt worrying about one of my cousins, namely, the lack of direction in his life. He graduated college, but unfortunately failed the board exam. Which is kind of expected: from what I’ve heard, he spends his time just lazing around the house or hanging around with friends (most likely playing DotA). He’s also somewhat spoiled; he only got his OJT work because his mom pulled some strings in her company, and he couldn’t get a job on his own now that he’s graduated (not to mention that his mom even had to accompany him to PRC to see his board exam results ಠ_ಠ).

In short, he’s exactly the opposite of me.

(Well, aside from the lazing around the house part which I did for over a year. But then again, I used my savings then and didn’t take a cent from my folks.)

Anyway, even though I’m usually quiet about these discussions, I couldn’t help but give my (snarky) 2 cents:

“Why don’t they let him apply in McDonald’s or something?”

It was only later that I realized that my suggestion actually made sense.

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In the field of management, there are two principles about incompetence that every manager must know.

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It’s been over a year and a half since I left my previous full-time job and I still don’t have a new one.

It’s not that I don’t have the skills needed to be employed; it’s actually the opposite: even though I’m not actively looking for a job, people still come to me asking if I could work for them. My part time teaching and Rails “consultancy” gigs fall under this (i.e. I never “applied” for them formally), and I’m getting emails requesting for interviews from local companies once in a while.

The reason I’m not taking any full-time job offers is different:

It’s been over a year and a half since I left my previous full-time job and I still haven’t fully recovered from burnout. I’m not confident that I’d be able to do software development “grunt-work” at peak performance for more than a few weeks on end.

After a year’s hiatus, I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve suffered permanent damage from my burnout.

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Looking back, the main turning point of my career was on January 2006.

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Busy day so just a short post for tonight:

The IT industry isn’t a manufacturing industry: it’s a service industry. Whether you’re a developer, a tester, or an ops/sysad, your purpose isn’t just to code, test, or run programs: your purpose is to make sure those programs work well enough to provide tangible benefits to the user.

But what if the software you’re providing poses some problems or negative effects on the users?

No, I’m not talking about malware or crappy software. I’m actually talking about good software that makes processes and tasks much more efficient than they are.

They can cause problems because some people actually thrive on inefficiency.

These are the back room personnel that block any sort of automation process because they know they will be rendered redundant (i.e. fired) once it’s implemented.

These are the software vendors or internal IT departments that refuse to allow third party companies/consultants to fix or replace their buggy systems because the former earns a lot of profit on support call fees.

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Sadly, I don’t have any quick advice on dealing with these people. I’m just here to point out again that Software Engineering isn’t about technologies and processes: it’s always about people.

Very busy week ahead. Here I am coding at 2AM in the morning instead of playing StarCraft or something.

Might as well make a quick post before continuing with work.

I first heard of the Beer Game in a presentation over at InfoQ. While not involving actual beer (boo!), the simple game provides an interesting glimpse at a certain management dilemma.

This game is played by teams of 4 players, each representing a part of a beer distribution supply chain: Factory, Distributor, Wholesaler, Retailer. The object of the game is to minimize the expenses involved in handing orders, namely the costs for stocking and the expenses caused by unfulfilled back orders.

The “kicker” here is that communication between the players are limited, some variations only allow players to order from each other and nothing else, while some variations of the game only allow the players to see the inventory of the next player in the supply chain.

The common result of this is the bullwhip effect: an oscillating period of over and under-stocking. For example:

• Retailer receives an order for 10 cases of beer. To anticipate for future orders, he orders 20 cases of beer from the Wholesaler.
• Having received an order for 20 cases of beer, the Wholesaler orders 40 cases of beer.
• With the same logic, the Distributor orders 80 cases.
• Finally, the Factory produces 160 cases.

Even ignoring the expiration of the product, one can easily see the waste produced by this scheme. There’s the warehouse stocking expenses. There’s also the expense in hiring employees to meet the sudden increase in demand, as well the expense in firing employees and shutting down equipment because of lack of demand.

And so we see the importance of visibility and transparency within a supply chain. When the suppliers upstream have the same information as the Retailer, it’s easier for them to decide how much to actually produce to reduce waste.

Note that this doesn’t just apply to manufacturing. Any situation with a work pipeline (e.g. software development’s Analyst-Developer-QA-Ops) benefits from increased visibility of resource utilization and work load.

I never got around to post the follow-up article on Lean and how it relates to software engineering. Now, over 7 months and a huge scandal that made people skeptical about Toyota’s lean manufacturing later, here’s the post on Agile software development.

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Habit #17 Failing to express gratitude

Dale Carnegie liked to say that the two sweetest words in the English language were a person’s first and last name. He maintained that using them liberally in conversation was the surest way to connect with a person and disarm them. After all, who doesn’t like to hear their name on other people’s list?

I’m not sure Dale was right. To me, the sweetest words in the language are “Thank You.” They’re not only disarming and pleasant to the ear, but they help us avoid so many problems. Like apologizing, thanking is a magical super-gesture of interpersonal relations. It’s what you say when you have nothing nice to say—and it will never annoy the person hearing it.

-from “The Twenty Habits That Hold You Back from the Top” from the book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”

That book still lies unfinished on my desk because of this section alone. Out of all the business and human relations books I’ve read in the past year, none has been so naive, so misguided, so “let’s feed the fantasies of middle managers everywhere!” than that book, and this section highlights it so well.

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A simple tip to start the first work week.

Forget the “Golden Rule”.

Everyone has different motivations in the workplace. Some are there for the money. Some are there for the titles and recognition. Some are there for the sense of achievement that comes with closing a deal or finishing a project. Some are there for the learning experience to prepare them for their next job.

It is a common mistake when dealing with co-workers to think that what motivates them is the same as what motivates us. You can’t bait fish with cake, nor can you entice people with worms.

So the next time you need to ask something from your subordinates, or the next time you need to convince your boss to do something, put things in that person’s perspective instead of your own. If you can’t, make an effort to find out more about those persons in order to make it putting yourselves in their shoes easier.

The Empire State Building was built in only 410 days, on schedule and 18% under-budget even without computers to handle the schedule.

PERT, like the Waterfall Model, was never meant to be used in real life.

Just two of the lessons you’ll learn about management in Mary Poppendieck’s presentation The Tyranny of “The Plan” recently hosted on InfoQ.

I’m just lucky I’m not in a traditional project while watching the presentation. Hehehe…