Software Engineering aspirants have a dream – Be the “know-all” in the team. Answering all technical questions and doubts of your fellow beings and being an authority on all topics related to work (sometimes the area of interest is even more than that). So when they start their career they try to help people in all ways they can, like doing unwarranted code reviews, giving advice when none is needed etc. Most of us give up after some time; the rest joins INFRA (for the information of those outside Tavant, INFRA is the team that provide Software Components & Frameworks, Guidelines & Best Practices, Software Tools and Consultancy & Support Services for the other teams). That is when they learn the lesson the harder way.
After learning the lesson that one should not try to help others and mastering the art of keeping the support-seekers at bay, some software engineers opts for the advanced exercise of making others unsettled and unhappy. They go on to become managers. In the transient period, they will groom themselves for the managerial position by keeping their team members unsettled (they also start to grow pointy hair at this stage).
When you join the project :”Please don’t hesitate to come to me any time for any technical or domain help”
When you go to him for help :”Do a ‘man’ on this, search in the books, try to find it out yourself………….”
When you ‘try to find it out yourself’ :”You can’t waste time like this. You should’ve come to me for help. We have to deliver ……………Come to my place”
When you go to him for help, again :”Don’t make any changes in the code now. Come up with a document for impact analysis by lunch”
When you go to him Just before lunch :”So, what have you done since morning? This document? Shall we deliver this? How many lines of coding did you do?…………. See, this is not the way we should work”
When you go to him 1 hr after lunch, with a small amount of coding -that’s all what’s necessary :”Only this much coding since morning !!!”(Probably, you could’ve added the lyrics of a Hindi song in your code to make it look healthy). “Change here, ……… change there, …………. Add here,……………. Modify there ……………. Do it NOW”
When you go to him with the changes suggested by him :”Who asked you to do these? Everything’s wrong here. See, this is not the way we should work……………”
Every 10 mins :”So? What’s the status?????”
All these lead us to the inevitable feeling of being puppets dancing to some guy’s music…. 😦
And speaking of music, Tavantians can check my share for Bruce Sprinsteen’s brilliant album Tunnel of Love. I recommend Two Faces, Walk like a Man and Brilliant Disguise.
--==PC==-- 