RE: Performance Review -- MIDRANGE-L

I know the points you are making are true, Ed, but it's not what us geeks
want to hear.  Would you feel the same way about the T.S. solution if it was
an architech designing your house (or even worse, the building in which you
were going to be occupying the 30th floor)?  

Doesn't anyone care about quality engineering?  A bunch of un-educated
carpenters from the union hall could slap together a bridge and come in
on-time and under-budget and probably have a good time doing it, but I sure
wouldn't want to have to drive on it every day.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ed Chabot [SMTP:echabot@marlinfirearms.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 9:32 AM
> To:   MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject:      RE: Performance Review
> 
> Al,
>       I can't tell exactly what you are looking for, if indeed you're
> looking for
> input or if you're just venting after a rough experience with your boss.
> What I can offer is some input, as a manager, as to what I consider
> important criteria.  Please take these thoughts for what they are,
> observations based on my experiences with no details of your work, your
> work
> environment or your boss.
>       Being the best programmer that someone has seen or even being a
> technically
> superior programmer isn't as important to me as a person's ability to get
> along with the rest of the staff, the users and especially anyone in upper
> management that they may interact with.  If the technically superior
> program
> takes 1 1/2 times as long to write, test, debug and roll out than a less
> technically superior(hereafter referred to as T.S.) solution and they both
> do the same thing and are both maintainable then I don't want the T.S.
> one.
> In fact, it costs me money and time (which is sometimes more important
> than
> money!)  I think you are selling yourself short when you put all your
> value
> on the code you write.  In most cases, your boss will be less technical
> than
> you and won't be able to appreciate any "neat" coding techniques.  He or
> she
> will be able to appreciate things like getting the job done close to when
> you say it will be done, not having to go back to a program or system
> after
> it's been implemented, hearing positive things and/or not hearing negative
> things from peers, users, etc, having a positive, upbeat attitude, being a
> team player, etc.
>       Unless you were the one that fought for and convinced upper
> management that
> the AS/400 was the machine to have, I don't think you can take credit for
> the stability of your environment.  All AS/400 shops have that luxury
> (necessity?) and it's not a matter of how well the system is managed.  We
> have a company that has been running a 12 year old AS/400 that is still
> running V2R3.  We are changing that now, but my point is they don't have
> any
> AS/400 problems and they obviously are not managing their environment.
> The
> AS/400 is stable!
>       I may be wrong, but I don't think the only thing you are being
> judged on is
> the quality of your programs.  I hope this perspective helps.
> 
> Ed Chabot
> The Marlin Firearms Company
> 100 Kenna Drive
> North Haven, CT 06473
> (203)985-3254
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
> [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of MacWheel99@aol.com
> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 6:43 AM
> To: AS400 & family discussion group
> Subject: Performance Review
> 
> 
> I just had my annual review & it was not a pretty sight.
> 
> The good news includes - I still have my job - my boss has given me clear
> indication of what needs to be fixed & some overall goals, which have been
> sorely lacking in recent years.
> 
> It occurs to me that it would be extremely constructive if I could provide
> my
> boss with some alternatives to the system he now uses, since he is not a
> computer technical person ... how on earth is a non technical computer
> person
> expected to be able to judge the quality of software I write in some
> language
> he does not know ... how challenging is this or that?
> 
> There is stuff that is extremely difficult for me to do, but I cannot
> communicate with a non-programmer about what the challenges are.  How can
> a
> non-programmer evaluate my performance?
> 
> It would be simple for some 3rd party, familiar with the languages we use,
> to
> look at some of my programs in an audit & make some remarks about how my
> relative worth to the company, compared to the quality of code at other
> comparable companies, but I have been suggesting for decades that we get a
> computer audit on a larger scale, so this just aint going to happen.
> 
> Of course this sort of thing can backfire.
> 
> I remember in the midst of some conversion at a former emplouer whining
> about
> some challenge they had given me, saying that there is no way I can get
> all
> this done inside the deadlines, and my boss informing me that the company,
> without telling me, had asked IBM if I had what it took to do the
> conversion,
> without any professional help, and the SE (which tells you how long ago
> this
> was) told them that I was the best programmer that anyone at the local IBM
> office had ever had the good fortune to run across.  So the result of that
> was they threw even more work my way.   The shame of it was that when I
> finally left that place, I was unable to use the SE as a work reference.
> I
> did ask the SE for confirmation that this was not a snow job.
> 
> I asked my current boss
> 
> HOW MANY DAYS HAS THE COMPANY BEEN DOWN DUE TO COMPUTER INFRASTRUCTURE
> PROBLEMS?  He said NONE, in a tone of voice as if he was surprised that I
> should ask such a question.  I told him that in my opinion there are 3
> reasons why that is so ,,, our choice of having IBM 400 hardware, our
> choice
> of a good ERP, and my performance in managing it.
> 
> Now I think that there ought to be some industry statistics - how many
> days
> of surprise down time & other mishaps do other comparable companies have -
> 400 & non-400, so there is a basis of comparison with our performance.
> 
> How much time do companies typically spend testing software improvements?
> How critical is this?
> 
> I was going to ask him, but I bit my tongue, because my foot was headed
> there
> at lightning speed.  HOW MANY COMPUTER BUGS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED AS A
> RESULT
> OF SOFTWARE I HAVE WRITTEN FOR THE COMPANY.
> 
> The reason I bit my tongue is that I can think of 3 in the last 2 years &
> the
> really embarrassing part of that answer is that 1 of them I could not
> find,
> so I developed a work around.
> 
> This is another area in which there might be some reliable statistics.
> Rate of bugs created, both in terms of like
> 1 bug per million lines of source code & how many in what time period
> 
> It would not be fair to compare to Microsoft Windows because that software
> is
> written with full intention of tossing it in the garbage in 2-3 years when
> the next version comes out - we should compare with other 400 places whose
> software is intended to work for say 10 years at least.
> 
> MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
> 
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