I hate working in high-tech and I don’t want to go back there.

[El Zagna]

For the past 20 years or so I’ve been working as a programmer of one sort or another. A couple of years ago I got laid off during the great dot-com bust, and I’ve been living on investments and odd jobs since then. I really haven’t missed working, but I’m running out of money and I made a New Year’s resolution to start actively finding work. I thought I’d start by reading up on some new technologies – at least technologies that were new for me – so I started by looking into .NET Framework. In short time I came upon a page promoting the benefits of weblogs.

Web logs, or blogs are they are more commonly known, are Web pages or sites, most of which share a few common characteristics. They are updated frequently, written from the point of view of an individual, written in an informal tone…

Well, this is great, I’m thinking. I’m going to get right back into this stuff. No problem. Let's continue.

…and usually expose an RSS feed for syndicating the content into various forms of aggregators.

WTF was that? Did I read that right? Let me try that again.

…and usually expose an RSS feed for syndicating the content into various forms of aggregators.

Wait a minute. It’s a joke, right. They’re going to say “Gotcha, didn’t we! We were just pulling you leg with this blather.”

I look in vain for the punch line but only get a link to a page of more links with pages and pages of stuff like this:

-- <rss version="2.0">
- <channel>
  <title>MSDN: .NET Framework and CLR</title> 
  <link>http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/</link> 
  <description>The latest information for developers 
on the Microsoft .NET Framework and Common 
Language Runtime (CLR).</description> 
  <language>en-us</language> 
  <ttl>1440</ttl> 
- <item>
  <title>MSDN Chat Transcript: Debugging Visual Basic 
.NET Applications (12/16/03)</title> 
  <pubDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2003 08:00:00 GMT</pubDate> 
  <description>Microsoft VB.NET team members help 
users debug problems with their code, including 
issues with Pocket PC menus, plus how to set up 
remote debugging for server apps and other 
configuration issues with the debugger.</description> 
  <link>http://msdn.microsoft.com/chats/
vstudio/vstudio_121603.asp</link> 
  </item>
- <item>
  <title>MSDN Chat Transcript: Debugging with 
Visual C#, Present and Future</title> 
  <pubDate>Tue, 30 Dec 2003 08:00:00 GMT</pubDate> 
  <description>Microsoft C# and debugging 
team members answer user questions 
about configuration of the debugger, partial 
class generation, and more.</description>

And I’m reminded again of one of the many reasons why I hate high-tech. People don’t even try to communicate. They are much more interested in marching out their latest list of buzzwords than actually trying to explain or inform, and they get away with it because all too often people are too intimidated to challenge them.

I’m sure other professions have to deal with their own blowhards, and indeed I’ve had first hand experience with some in the legal and medical professions. Still, techies seem to be the worst, but maybe that’s because I have to deal with them more often.

Well, anyway. Enough bitching. I better get back to where I was. Something about exposing my aggregates…

[Lobsang]

If you're talking about what I think you're talking about (the way tech professionals seem to go out of their way to make what they know seem vastly more complicated than it is, even if they are supposed to be helping you/teaching you), it's what turned me right off having a programming career and nearly made me fail my degree.

I am not afraid to brag that I was refered to as a natural programmer by college lecturers. That talent has gone wasted because I grew to HATE everything about software engineering.

[Hauky]

It's telling, I think, that your quoted RSS feed makes perfect sense to me. That whole aggregator thing does, too.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Using buzzwords makes you feel smart, so I imagine that's a big part of the reason. It's not like spouting "RSS aggregators" gets us chicks or anything.

[dropzone]

Nort, that's a Sign From God® that you have mentally advanced beyond what you were and are ready for your next step down the path to another career. Learn Autocad--it stays pretty much the same from revision to revision and the 1987-model dropzone would get up to speed on the current version in a couple hours. Terminal obsolescence comes far too quickly in programming.

Or maybe you have even reached the point where you could get a job where you TALK TO PEOPLE! They pay good money for people who can interact with others.

[Chimera]

I'm right with you here. Almost sounds like me too. I graduated Brown Institute (now Brown "University") in Minneapolis in spring of 1981.

I quit my job in August of 2001 and have been living off savings and investments since then. But like you, it's running out.

I quit because, after suffering a major stress related back injury, I was disciplined for taking time off for medical reasons and was told, at the end of June, that I would be required to work every day, weekends and holidays included, through the end of the year. Yes, I was the Project Leader on two major projects and part-time on a third, but this went way beyond the pale.

So it came down to saying "F- you, I quit". (I still say it's the best decision I ever made.)

Heck, even now, more than 28 months later, every freaking morning as I get into the shower I say "I do not want to be a Programmer anymore".

The pending divorce settlement will take me out a couple of months, but after that, I'm back into the job market, like it or not.

Ugh. Corporate America sucks donkey balls. I am really not looking forward to doing that stuff again.

Especially since IT Managers and Directors are some of the most self-important F**ks on the face of the Earth.

[Chimera]

Heh. Forgot I was in the Pit.

FUCK YOU, YOU SELF IMPORTANT JACKASS IT MANAGERS AND DIRECTORS!!!

Program yourself a clue about Life, scumfuckers.

[rjung]

Eh, the buzzwords are different, but the concepts are the same. As long as you can map the buzzword du jour to the basic idea, you're fine. Whether or not you're willing to put up with that BS is another matter...

[rich_mcg]

I just finished reading a book called 'What Should I Do with my Life' by a guy called Po Bronson....charts about 60 real stories of people who get into the shower every morning saying 'I don't want to be a Programmer/Accountant/Whatever anymore'. Well worth the read and might make you think twice about the jump back into the jobmarket Chimera

[GuanoLad]

Maybe you should find a job where you enforce or educate programmers to be more informative and descriptive in their manuals and explanations.

[PoorYorick]

Part of my job is interviewing programmers for the software company I work for (I speak geek, but my degree was in anthropology). A question I often ask is, "I'm a beginning computer user. Tell me about the mouse."

I don't base my hiring decision on just this question, but I want to see if the interviewee can communicate in plain English. Ideally, I'd like to feel comfortable putting the programmer in front of a client. What I don't want to hear is talk about peripheral devices and device drivers. I'm looking for something like, "When you move it, it moves the pointy thingie on the screen there."

[World Eater]

Even though I'm good at the stuff, I hate the field and the people and have chosen a career that will be the polar opposite of anything tech.

[ShibbOleth]

From Whatis.com*, I found this definition of RSS (RDF** (or Rich) Site Summary) aggregators. Note that one of my pet peeves is "nested acronyms".

RDF Site Summary (RSS) - also referred to as Rich Site Summary - is a method of describing news or other Web content that is available for "feeding" (distribution or syndication) from an online publisher to Web users. RSS is an application of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) that adheres to the World Wide Web Consortium's Resource Description Framework (RDF). Originally developed by Netscape for its browser's Netcenter channels, the RSS specification is now available for anyone to use.
A Web site that wants to "publish" some of its content, such as news headlines or stories, creates a description of the content and specifically where the content is on its site in the form of an RSS document. The publishing site then registers its RSS document with one of several existing directories of RSS publishers. A user with a Web browser or a special program that can read RSS-distributed content can read periodically-provided distributions. Some current directories of RSS files include Meerkat, GropSoup, NewsIsFree, UserLand, and XML Tree; these sites are sometimes known as content aggregators. RSS browsers include Headline Viewer and Novobot.

*A great site for deciphering acronyms and techie jargon. Almost essential, particularly for a branch of technology with which you have no working familiarity.
**Resource Description Framework

[Trunk]

I'm a programmer. I work with other programmers. We need to communicate with each other in technical language and someone who can't talk the talk can't play because there's someone right behind them who can.

Proper technical language does obfuscate and is not the "buzzword du jour". Usually people who think so are people who have a difficult time with the abstract concepts behind the language and like to blame the language.

And, I'm not talking about crap terms like "intergrate interpersonal solutions". I'm talking about actual, in-the-field, technical language, like "RSS" that people don't want to explain to those who haven't kept up with the group.

Guess what, mechanic, you might be able to fix an engine but if you're working in a garage and tell a guy to help you connect the thingy to the whatzit, you're going to be wasting a lot of time and money.

(lobsang -- no offense (this is the PIT, though) but, college lecturers are not necessarily the best people to judge actual programming skills.)

[Trunk]

can we change that to "does NOT obfuscate".

[ed]

…and usually expose an RSS feed for syndicating the content into various forms of aggregators.

I don't want to start a pissing match, but this isn't really a good example of buzzword terminology. That sentence is technically accurate and says what it means to. If you don't know what an RSS feed is, or what an aggregator is, then it might look obtuse, but these aren't buzzwords. They're actual things. Try Wikipedia if you need to catch up on some terms.

Otherwise, maybe you can give us an example of how that sentence should have been written to convey the same information, without "buzzwords"?

[El Zagna]

Originally posted by Hauky
It's telling, I think, that your quoted RSS feed makes perfect sense to me. That whole aggregator thing does, too.

I have no doubt that you understand the RSS thing, but that's not my point. While you may understand RSS feeds, syndication and the rest, what you don't seem to understand is how poorly the writer communicates to his audience.

Let me explain. Notice how he starts off: "Web logs, or blogs are they are more commonly known, are Web pages or sites..." Here he seems to assume that his audience is made up of technically unsophisticated folks who need their hands held while he explains the basics to them. That's fine, if that's who your audience is.

Then, POW, by the next sentence he starts with the RSS stuff. Did he think that by explaining that a web log is a blog that suddenly his audience is over the learning curve? Did he care? I suspect that, while the writer is technically proficient, he is absolutely clueless about how to explain the concepts to others. And high-tech crawls with those types.

Do you understand that someone that needs to have blogs explained to them won't understand RSS feeds and aggregators, and that anyone who does understand the RSS stuff won't need blogs explained to them?

Originally posted by Hauky
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Using buzzwords makes you feel smart, so I imagine that's a big part of the reason.

It doesn't make me feel smart. It makes me feel like a pompous blowhard.

[ed]

Simulpost, doh. Anyway...

Do you understand that someone that needs to have blogs explained to them won't understand RSS feeds and aggregators, and that anyone who does understand the RSS stuff won't need blogs explained to them?

Actually, that's a good point, and I agree. The author suffers from a lack of consistency in who his audience is.

I'd still argue that your quoted sentence isn't really a fair example of buzzword usage. Especially when there are so many good examples used in technology marketing...

[51 cent]

Well, maybe you might want to work overseas for awhile, or the rest of your life.

There is a good website called "Escape Artist" at www.escapeartist.com where there are a lot of opportunity to move overseas and start over and/or do what you want to do. I have done it, and many other people have too.

Many of these people teach English but there are other businesses to get into like owning/running a guesthose, restaurant or whatever.

Whatever you want to do, life is short and there are options.

[Trunk]

Originally posted by bnorton
Do you understand that someone that needs to have blogs explained to them won't understand RSS feeds and aggregators, and that anyone who does understand the RSS stuff won't need blogs explained to them?

This isn't true at all.

The technical person already knows what RSS feeds and agregators are. They need to be taught what that technology is being applied to. That technology is used for a lot more than BLOGS (I think -- not my area of expertise).

My company might adverstise a job for someone knowledgeable about using OpenGL in VC++. When that person is hired, we can explain to them what "Video Conferencing" is if they don't know.

[World Eater]

If you need to explain video conferencing, maybe you should hire someone else.

[Trunk]

It was an example.

But FWIW, my first programming job was as a mathematical programmer on a team working on video conferencing. I had no idea what it was when I was hired. At least I didn't think it was being attempted on computers and had no idea how my background was going to contribute.

Fact is, when a job is advertised in a computer field, they advertise the skills/language/knowledge needed, or assume a certain level of knowledge. They brief you on what the company is going to do with those skills.

This should be obvious and old hat to anyone in technology fields.

"We need a person to do so-and-so because our company is working on this-and-that".

Well, everyone on earth might understand what this-and-that is but if they don't know what so-and-so is, then they're not right for the job.

[ouisey]

Keeping up with the lingo has been difficult for me too.

When I was interviewing for positions I kept on getting questions like "what's the difference between early binding and late binding", etc.

I found it really difficult to trot out the MSDN definition for that stuff. So I learned to reply to the question, well, I wrote such and such an app, and I chose late binding over early binding because of such and such a reason. That was generally good enough for the interviewer.

It is hard to keep up with the lingo. I'm a vb.net programmer, and my SO is a C# software engineer, and a lot more experienced than I am. He often talks circles around me, but still he didn't know what I meant when I said I had to GAC my assembly to make Biztalk recognize my dll.

[elmwood]

Speaking of which, I'm looking for a robust, world class, mission-critical end-to-end e-business solution that will enable synergy among end users. Can anyone here help?

[Walton Firm]

Originally posted by ouisey
It is hard to keep up with the lingo. I'm a vb.net programmer, and my SO is a C# software engineer, and a lot more experienced than I am. He often talks circles around me, but still he didn't know what I meant when I said I had to GAC my assembly to make Biztalk recognize my dll.

I've never seen GAC used as a verb before -- we normaly talk about putting things in the GAC. So I can see how someone could be confused, especially when using the term verbally (where it would sound like "I had to gag my dll.." ). However, i'd be very concerned if an experienced C# programmer didn't know what the GAC is or what it means to put a dll in it.

[World Eater]

Originally posted by elmwood
Speaking of which, I'm looking for a robust, world class, mission-critical end-to-end e-business solution that will enable synergy among end users. Can anyone here help?

Do you need it to be scalable?

[ouisey]

Originally posted by Martin Wolf
I've never seen GAC used as a verb before -- we normaly talk about putting things in the GAC. So I can see how someone could be confused, especially when using the term verbally (where it would sound like "I had to gag my dll.." ). However, i'd be very concerned if an experienced C# programmer didn't know what the GAC is or what it means to put a dll in it.

he had a very similar reaction to yours.

*sigh*, I'm suspecting the communication problem is mine alone

[Bongmaster]

I guess this goes to show that you really can't buy everything, but you can buy the right people.

[Bongmaster]

Wow, wrong thread, wrong comment. Please disregard!

[Early Out]

Originally posted by bnorton
Well, anyway. Enough bitching. I better get back to where I was. Something about exposing my aggregates…

Well, if you've got really big aggregates, there might be a career for you in the :ahem: film industry.

[Dave_D]

I have sort of the same sentiment. The part that bugged me was this thing I’ve seen with programmers not wanting to document projects or comment their damn code. It’s almost a badge of honor with some of them that they either won’t or resist strongly any attempt to make them do both. (Usually with the retort, “I don’t need to comment, just read the code.” As soon as I find someone that reads “code” as well as a natural language I’ll agree with you.) Actually not all programmers/software engineers are like that. However it seems to me the “just code” crew are the ones that just want to bang out the code with very little design work at the beginning. (It’s been my experience when you just try to shoot out code the code is horrible.) It seemed more often that good code came from guys who document by basically designing everything up front. Once they were done with their design they basically the documents already, it was just a matter of following the blue print when writing the code. Come to think of it if I hear anybody say “Boy I’m glad this project had no documentation or comments.” I’ll excuse such blatant attempts at being just plain lazy.

Oh well, just my rant that is coming from the guy who quit as a software engineer to do a pre-med program. (Hopefully I’ll get into med school in a couple of years. At least the job paid well enough so I can do that.)

[The Long Road]

Originally posted by Chimera
I'm right with you here. Almost sounds like me too. I graduated Brown Institute (now Brown "University") in Minneapolis in spring of 1981.

I quit my job in August of 2001 and have been living off savings and investments since then. But like you, it's running out.

I quit because, after suffering a major stress related back injury, I was disciplined for taking time off for medical reasons and was told, at the end of June, that I would be required to work every day, weekends and holidays included, through the end of the year. Yes, I was the Project Leader on two major projects and part-time on a third, but this went way beyond the pale.

So it came down to saying "F- you, I quit". (I still say it's the best decision I ever made.)

Heck, even now, more than 28 months later, every freaking morning as I get into the shower I say "I do not want to be a Programmer anymore".

The pending divorce settlement will take me out a couple of months, but after that, I'm back into the job market, like it or not.

Ugh. Corporate America sucks donkey balls. I am really not looking forward to doing that stuff again.

Especially since IT Managers and Directors are some of the most self-important F**ks on the face of the Earth.

The problem I find with most of IT management is that IT Managers and Directors are usually IT people who were promoted into these positions. I know the big thing in IT is to slam non-technical background managers but those people but many of those people have been trained in how to interact with people. IT managers who came from the trenches usually only know how to treat people how they were treated. Everyone I've worked for or with has the slave driver mentality. First they ask how long something will take and unless you say 20 minutes, they will grill you about why it takes so long. The worst boss to have is one who is paranoid about keeping their job, as many IT managers seem to be. They will be ruthless with employees in order to ensure their job security.

When I took my first management course for my MBA it was a real eye-opener. They actually talk about people, what makes them tick, rewards, personal feelings, team work and many other things essential to success. You might be the best programmer on the planet but without at least a basic understanding of how to handle people, you will fail as a manager.

[ccwaterback]

Fucking programmers ... insecure ego maniacs.

*looking in the mirror*

Ooops