The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

the kid at the front desk greets you with, "I though you left the company!"

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

What does Thermo-Tuber mean?

Network Abuse Engineer

I think this is hilarious. I actually saw this title on an email recently. I wondered if I hadn't read the email, but had met this person causally at a party, would I have understood the title.

Engineer to me means one of two things, you either operate and maintain an engine, or you build something out of nothing. My father was a real engineer. If you were building an airplane, he was your guy for wings. If you wanted to get a satellite through the asteroid belt, he did the orbital mechanics. Dad was a Physicist and a Mathematician. If you needed something invented he could do it from raw materials without instruction manuals figured out by someone else.

But in The Valley the title is now cheapened. The guy who cooks the fries at McDonalds is now a Thermo-Tuber Engineer. All he does is heat the oil and toss in pre-cooked potatoes. He's even got a timer to tell him when to take them out. This guy's not even a Chef, let alone an Engineer.

Then consider Sanitation Engineer. That's the guy in your building who scrubs the toilets at night. A very necessary and valuable job. This person contributes to the physical health and mental well-being of your staff. But he isn't the inventor of the urinal puck.

What's a Network Abuse Engineer? Does he create Network Abuse? Perhaps he designs denial of service attacks? Or might he be an expert in writing .VBS files? No, he's the complaint department. This person handles complaints about SPAM and other in-appropriate traffic going over the wire. What has he invented? What has he built? Nothing.

In the late 1980's I was working at a disk duplication house. I worked with the customers and did tech support, had one guy reporting to me who ran the duplication machines, and another guy who ran the warehouse and shipping/receiving. It came time to do the review for the warehouse guy, and he seemed rather dissatisfied with only getting a generous pay raise.

"Is this all I am here?" he said with his heavy Philippine accent.

"What do you want? Are you looking to work with customers? Can you do tech support?" I asked knowing full well, that his accent would prevent the former, and he didn't have the knowledge for the later.

Turned out he wanted a title. Warehouse Guy wasn't cutting it. I suspected he wanted a business card to send home to Mom. I took his complaint to my boss, the President of the company.

"Titles are cheap! Give him any title he wants except President. That's mine," I was instructed.

The President was right. We only had a minor morale issue to solve. Otherwise Warehouse Guy was a great worker. We immediately conferred the title of Warehouse Manager upon him, and bought a box of business cards to prove it. Warehouse Guy's morale problem was over. Not only that but I did get the title right. Warehouse Guy handled all aspects of the warehouse, from forklift operator to maintaining machines. He knew where every palette could be found. He wasn't managing people, but assets. Warehouse Manager was correct, but Shrink Wrap Engineer would have been wrong.

We are all in on the Engineer title joke. In my book Engineer and Specialist are two titles to avoid. The first is usually a lie, and the second tends to mean the title was pumped up for an ordinary worker to feel good about theirself. Neither tends to explain what the person does for a living.

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

IT'S OVER!

Californians Can Now Roll-Over and Go To Sleep.

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"Hey, don't pee in my fountain!"

"We're going to hell. I'll see you all there."

"If you're confused, then you DO understand Remedy!"

"She knows nine languages, but speaks them all with a sailor's accent."

"Hearing voices doesn't make you crazy. Filling out a tax return for the voices, that's crazy."

"There's a selling point for Hell - The weather is constant!"

Excuse Me

I need to interview a candidate for the Mail Sorting Engineer position.

Fek'Lar
(The Last Honest Geek)

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn! This whole mess is copyright © 2003 by LowComDom Performances, all rights reserved. Wanna send this to your friends? Go ahead and pass out the URL.

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EOJ

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