Bonkers

[Marvin Humphrey]

On May 6, 2007, at 1:30 PM, Nicholas Clark wrote:

> This happens to be exactly the reason why I didn't enjoy doing the  
> grant work
> for TPF, and hence would now not accept money to work on Perl full  
> time.

I think we could keep you happy on that task.  It would just take the  
right project manager.

It's unlikely in the extreme that such a person would be Dr. Nick's  
technical superior, but that wouldn't matter so long as they were  
$adequate.  Goals would be planned cooperatively.  Target dates for  
completion would be set and reviews would be conducted regularly to  
evaluate execution.  The social price of failure would be ratcheted  
up intentionally.

Touching base with management daily would be mandatory, but it would  
be best if you weren't flying solo 100% of the time and reporting to  
only one person.  Ideally you'd have co-workers who would depend on  
you to complete your tasks in a timely manner, but due to the nature  
of your responsibilities in the Perl world, that would probably be  
hard to swing.

In lieu of co-workers, we could have you prepare a short weekly  
presentation for a small group.  That's a good exercise in its own  
right for a variety off reasons, but the main idea would be to graft  
human faces onto the vast amorphous blob of users who have benefitted  
from your enormous volunteer contributions[1].

Would such a regime have made your TPF time more enjoyable?

Marvin Humphrey
Rectangular Research
http://www.rectangular.com/

1. "A single death is a tragedy.  A million deaths is a
     statistic."  -- Joseph Stalin