Part-time Perl Developer Position based Reading, UK

[David Cantrell]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 04:46:02PM +0100, Peter Edwards wrote:
> > Let's assume that you and I work together.  You like working at home, I
> > prefer to work at work.  Now, one day we need to discuss something.  How
> > do we do that?
> What I used to do was schedule 2-3 days a week in for meetings if that was
> necessary at points of a project lifecycle.

You can only know some of those times in advance.  Just yesterday, I was
up to my elbows in the guts of this 'ere software, trying to figure out
why it was so damned slow.  Being able to turn to someone and throw some
ideas around was Really Helpful.

> > Those "collaboration tools" only work if they work well for all the
> > participants.
> Well the ops manager lived in the South of France and the colleague I
> programmed most closely with lived in Paris. Another colleague lived up in
> Sleaford.  We used Skype, occasional meetings, collaborative drafts of
> specs. Seemed to work okay.

Bully for you.  I'm deaf.

> All oil on the social wheels. Most humans are social animals and get on and
> work better with people who make some effort along those lines, however
> insincere or pointless. One of the evils of recruitment software is finding
> out the sales guys record people's favourite footy teams / interests as well
> as partner name/kids names and birthday so they can trot them out on the
> phone / in person as if they a) remembered; b) gave a shit, in order to
> maintain a relationship as a basis for doing business. I suppose you *could*
> proceed without any social niceties (see earlier customer quote).

I sure as hell have never been inconvenienced by my not giving a shit
about a client's favourite sports team.  They want me to help them
design something that will solve their problem, and to then implement
it.  They don't care about me at all, and they don't care that I don't
care about their hobbies.

If they *do* start talking about stupid shit like that, a simple "I'm
not interested in football" at the appropriate moment will suffice.

And anyway, humans needing social contact is surely the best argument
for not working at home, spending the whole day locked up in your
geek-cave :-)

Well, I did once get in trouble for "failing to oil the social wheels"
with a client, but that's because I called them spamming scum rather
than not giving a shit about their football team.  There are some wheels
that are best oiled with blood, flesh, and bits of ground-up bone.

-- 
David Cantrell | Hero of the Information Age

     Repent through spending