2003-02-27
4:14 p.m.

It's not that I want to insult developers. I mean, my roommate is a developer; some of my best friends are developers.

But seriously, no need to pull punches; some of them don't so much understand the real world, do they?

One of the utter joys of my job is that I get to tread the fine line between the IT world and the business world. On paper that means that I "act as an information conduit communicating business needs and requirements to IT, as well as transmitting processing concerns and/or existing data issues back to the business." What that really means is that I sit in many many meetings where:

1. The business tells IT what they want.
2. IT tells the business why that's not totally possible.
3.The business tells IT to go to Hell followed by two managers slugging it out on the conference room table.

Ok, I made that last part up. But that's what it seems like most days. Even though things can sometimes get ugly, there are certain unwritten rules that you have to follow in these meetings. The first and foremost is that no matter how much the person you're talking to proves that they're an uninformed lunkhead, you always treat them with respect. It just makes things go much more smoothly. Well, that, and it leads to less fist fights. Dammit.

Not today though. Today, the gloves came off. The only difference was today wasn't an in-house bicker fest. Today, we were someone's client.

Us: Yeah, everything looks like it's in order. The only question we have is about functionality XYZ. We don't see it mentioned anywhere.
Them: Oh, yeah, well the thing about that is, we didn't see it supplying much value, so we eliminated it.
Us:You what?
Them:Eliminated the requirement.
Us: You can't just eliminate requirements. They're our requirements that you provide us with something. From us. To you.
Them:Yeah, I get it. We just didn't think you'd need XYZ that often, so we decided not to develop that part of the module.
Us:Wait, what? You can't just do that. We need XYZ.
Them: Oh, come on, how often do you really think you'll use it even if it's there?

...Keep in mind that the same logic would state that you should never weara seatbelt because 'you'd probably never need it.' But what about that one time you do? Exactly, my friend, exactly.

Us: So you're telling us that you can develop XYZ, you just won't?
Them:Well, once you put it like that...
Us:That's exactly how I'm putting it. Let your supervisor know that they'll be getting a call from a somewhat unhappy client.


Anyway, the whole situation was much more kick-ass on our part than you can probably appreciate. I seriously wanted to high-five the guy sitting next to me, but I didn't think that would be appropriate. Also, I didn't know him.

In other news, I think God might hate me. (just kidding, big guy. no need for locusts or, say, brimstone.) The snow has started again.

But on the upshot, if it snows alot, we're told we can wear jeans to work tomorrow. Everyone is very excited about that.

And by 'is very excited' I really mean 'could give a shit'.


downtown----uptown
leave me a note, fool!


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