Comments on: Peopleware http://www.chaddickerson.com/blog/2006/06/01/peopleware/ A little bit technology, a little bit rock-n-roll Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:21:54 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: locally type(d) thoughts » Blog Archive » Despair - The Art of Demotivation http://www.chaddickerson.com/blog/2006/06/01/peopleware/comment-page-1/#comment-5163 locally type(d) thoughts » Blog Archive » Despair - The Art of Demotivation Thu, 22 Jun 2006 08:22:15 +0000 http://www.chaddickerson.com/blog/?p=140#comment-5163 [...] Despair - The Art of Demotivation I read a couple of books like peopleware, the fish tales book or the classics from Carnegie. But this one is just a gr [...] [...]

Despair – The Art of Demotivation

I read a couple of books like peopleware, the fish tales book or the classics from Carnegie. But this one is just a gr [...]

]]> By: paul http://www.chaddickerson.com/blog/2006/06/01/peopleware/comment-page-1/#comment-3922 paul Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:03:21 +0000 http://www.chaddickerson.com/blog/?p=140#comment-3922 I saw that as well on CT: there's good medicine in that book. I remember trying to evangelize it at my last real job, a software/service startup but the seeds fell on barren soil. Couldn't get anyone to understand that having the reception area abutting the coders's cubes such that people walking and out to: arrive at work visit the office (this includes solicitors, art salesmen, etc) take a comfort break go to lunch run an errand go home go to a meeting all had to walk through where the coders sat in their cubes. Two things pop into my head, even at 5 years distance: the coders were in cubes, swanky ones, but cubes all the same, instead of more private workspaces, and their work was not considered uninterruptible or important enough to be shielded by random events like people going down the hall. Amazing how fresh, perhaps raw, these memories are. I think if I ever found myself interviewing for a tech job again, I would either search the interviewer's book shelf for this or Brooks' book (you know the one I mean) and if they didn't have it or hadn't read it, the interview is over. Seriously, would you accept the counsel of a minister without a bible on his shelf? I saw that as well on CT: there’s good medicine in that book. I remember trying to evangelize it at my last real job, a software/service startup but the seeds fell on barren soil. Couldn’t get anyone to understand that having the reception area abutting the coders’s cubes such that people walking and out to:
arrive at work
visit the office (this includes solicitors, art salesmen, etc)
take a comfort break
go to lunch
run an errand
go home
go to a meeting

all had to walk through where the coders sat in their cubes.

Two things pop into my head, even at 5 years distance: the coders were in cubes, swanky ones, but cubes all the same, instead of more private workspaces, and their work was not considered uninterruptible or important enough to be shielded by random events like people going down the hall.

Amazing how fresh, perhaps raw, these memories are. I think if I ever found myself interviewing for a tech job again, I would either search the interviewer’s book shelf for this or Brooks’ book (you know the one I mean) and if they didn’t have it or hadn’t read it, the interview is over.

Seriously, would you accept the counsel of a minister without a bible on his shelf?

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