One pill makes you larger . . . A musclehead co-worker is talking to someone on the phone about nutritional supplements: “It changes the metabolism of the . . . en-DOC-rine? . . . EN-do-CREEN? . . . system, so it releases more testosterone.” Yeah, you should definitely take some of that. A product that claims to alter the function of bodily organs you can’t even pronounce. What could possibly go wrong? In fact, you should go to the vitamin store right now and just gobble up everything they’ve got. Did you ever read Alice in Wonderland? She finds a cake that says EAT ME so she eats it. Next thing you know she’s nine feet tall. Draw your own parallels . . . Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Alice in Wonderland
Profiles in Management: The Protector
Cast of Characters Manager, the leader of a software project that is floundering because his needlessly complex design cannot actually be implemented. Programmer, a programmer on the project. Manager: Keep working hard, and I will protect you should things break down. Programmer: Protect me from what? That sounds kind of ominous. Manager: Some people may be worried that if the project fails, they may get a bad review, or not get a bonus. But I’m looking at whether or not people are working hard, even if the project isn’t going well. So as long as you’re not goofing off, and you don’t have a bad attitude, you should be all right. A “bad attitude” in these cases is defined as pointing out that 20 people have been working on the project for two months without producing a single working line of code, because they’ve been asked to yoke… Read more →