EppsNet

I know my son had a history test today, and that history is a make-or-break class for him. I want to ask him about the test but we’re having a delicious family meal at Olive Garden and I don’t want to break up the festive mood in the event the news turns out to be bad.

I decide to ease into it with some small talk . . .

“So, how was recess today?”

o_O (BLANK STARE)

I continue, “I know you had a history test today but rather than get right into that, I thought we could start with some small talk about recess.”

He says, “I haven’t had recess since 6th grade.”

“Oh. In that case, how was the history test?”

My first 10 years in the software business, I had great managers. They did the management thing and I did the programming thing and we got great results together.

Then, after the dot-com boom torpedoed industry hiring standards, I got tired of working for managers who should not have been allowed anywhere near a software project, people who were not fit to direct a professional software developer to a table at the Olive Garden, much less direct their activities on a complex project.

I couldn’t possibly have continued to work for people like that — it just made a mockery of all the work I’d done over the years to actually learn something — but I still miss being a developer . . .

Thus spoke The Programmer.