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September 17, 2004
Pay us to stay home
Buckminster Fuller observed in Critical Path that we'd probably be better off as a society if those of us doing jobs that don't contribute anything had the means to stay home.
I used to think that didn't mean me. Recalling that while reading a related observation in the middle of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, I must confess I probably burn up more wealth than I create.
First of all, I work on a team doing a multiplatform LDAP server. That's okay, because whether you realize it or not, LDAP servers are fine and useful devices. And ours is pretty good, especially for big jobs. Trouble is, we have duplicate functionality with several other similar servers out there. In fact, we intentionally work on duplicate functionality. This is called competition (as opposed to cooperation). We of course pass the costs on to everyone supporting us in our efforts not to cooperate.
Second, I write product documentation. I may read how others explain things, and I may cross reference their good explanations. But a lot of what I do is rework, reformulating things discussed or even written down internally, things that could be located using Google if only we weren't so busy trying to hold on to our intellectual property.
Third, most of the documentation I do write is written very early, before partners and customers get the "finished" product and start figuring out how to troubleshoot it in their environments. Let's face it, there are two times you definitely read documentation:
- When you install the software without somebody around to help
- When you try to fix the software and have nobody around to help
Since I don't write documentation with real users for real users, whether I cover the needs of people actually using the software is hit or miss.
Fourth, I spend a lot of time ostensibly working, but in fact going to meetings in which we discuss how to work without addressing any of the other points here.
Fifth, I blog and read email. (But today's technically a day off ;-)
Posted by Mark at September 17, 2004 02:38 PM