Dave had “fuck you, pay me” programming skills | Better HN

Dave had “fuck you, pay me” programming skills | Better HN

32 comments

schwartzworld6y ago

Good for Dave, although if your whole operation can't function because one person doesn't come to work (justified or not), maybe that's a sign something is wrong.

longstaff2009OP6y ago

I would say most small engineering teams have that risk

wil4216y ago

I was not Dave but I was the engineer who knew everything about the system at the MegaCorp. Turns out life goes on after I left and I’m sure after some pain the system still functions.

I was talking to my co-worker who was still there. He was afraid to leave since he’s now the only one left. I told him who cares the company wouldn’t care about you and our skills are marketable at the moment.

Don’t let guilt keep you underemployed or employed at a shitty place. Level up and move on.

.gsub('maybe','definitely')

> No one dared comment on Dave’s behaviour.

> Being in Dave’s bad books meant being denied support. Support for the libraries he wrote. The libraries which powered every clients’ project.

> I was in awe of the respect that Dave commanded.

Now, obviously it's not nice to comment on one's sexual (or fashion) preferences, but sounds like this exact same thing could have happened if Dave was smoking at desk or piling used coffee mugs.

A library that powers the whole company being managed by a single guy who has to answer all others' questions, and selectively denying answers when he feels like, is not a sign of a great programmer. It may not be a sign of a bad programmer (maybe he's just tired of shit), but it's certainly a sign of a poorly run place.

> this exact same thing could have happened if Dave was smoking at desk or piling used coffee mugs.

It could have happened if Dave was crocheting hand-warmers for homeless orphans, too.

longstaff2009OP6y ago

bear in mind that back in 2000 git wouldn't be released for another 5 years. The processes of building software has improved a lot since then

This was literally my plan for a few years. I had a knack for algorithm design, I've changed the direction of teams by writing code alone for several months.. and I really wanted to wear dresses to work for some reason. Fortunately my first breakthrough coincided with starting estrogen, so I got to present my scheduling algorithm to some execs, wearing a blouse and skirt because I felt very secure.

I'm not an asshole, though, and it really doesn't sound like Dave was that mean, other than just having skills and strong boundaries.

GaryNumanVevo6y ago

I'm glad that you had the confidence and security in your environment to do that! My hope is that in the future people don't have to be a major economic contributor to a business to express their true selves

I think you all are missing a key element of the story. Dave was a cool dude. People liked him. He didn't take shit, but he didn't abuse his leverage or go on power trips.

And that's part of why he got away with things.

Also according to the story he did spread his knowledge rather than jealously guarding it

cardiffspaceman6y ago

OT, but really: Since when does a public holiday (I believe these are disclosed in advance in documents you can acquire in an office-supply store) disrupt payroll operations so badly that a paycheck is skipped?

brodouevencode6y ago

Twenty years ago banks (at least in the US) shut down over the weekend. Some pioneers like BoA had Saturday morning hours, but if there was a national holiday good effin luck getting anything from them outside of what was available at an ATM. You have to remember banks, even now, are and were way behind the technology curve. There was no online banking. No customer focus. No check deposits at an ATM (you had to drop it into an overnight bin). Payroll companies followed suit, and any financially-centric company did as well.

captainbland6y ago

Well that's probably what he was thinking! You'd think they'd be able to get it sorted a bit faster than "sorry guys, guess you'll have to tell your landlords to hold on a month!" Good on Dave.

mises6y ago

A small company I know of had an issue where an accounting period ended before Jan. 1 for some reason, so people accidentally ate up next year's vacation over Christmas. Every one was pissed, but it got worked out. Accounting is weird because accountants are OCD and there have to be 13 equal periods in the year.

NikkiA6y ago

Back in the mid 90s I had it happen to me with my employer (a moderately successful and famous games studio) several times.

hcarvalhoalves6y ago

Sounds like Dave enjoyed having the entire company as hostage. Pretty good for getting paid I guess but not someone I would want to work with.

detaro6y ago

If you fail to pay your employees and not even have any urgency in fixing it (if "it'll be in your next paycheck" is an accurate quote), it's only fair if employees don't have any urgency in helping you. If my employer fails to pay on time, I expect that to be their top priority everyone involved goes crazy about.

chatmasta6y ago

Sounds like the company didn't pay Dave, so why should Dave do work for the company?

firstplacelast6y ago

Sounds like a fantastic businessman. My CEO is always talking about how to corner the market and (without disclosing what we do) make it so some industries have to use our product if they want regulatory approval.

Think like your masters.

j_b_s6y ago

Don't hate the player...Game on!

longstaff2009OP6y ago

I suspect that Dave's pay was not proportionate to his skills

tosser00016y ago

I suspect that Dave doesn't actually exist.

Stories this well-calibrated to make a specific point I think are generally fabricated from whole cloth.

OR - tech skills are only part of the salary you get. Another is being able to work well with a team. If Dave wasn't being paid proportionately, why didn't he just get another job? Maybe, just maybe, he SUCKED at working well in teams. Which means - the free market placed him in a niche position where the team tolerated his idiosyncrasies for good tech skills, and his salary reflected that

cbm-vic-206y ago

I suspect that Dave's pay was not proportionate to his value to the company.

azhu6y ago

There is a lot that could be considered wrong about this situation and a lot of directions fingers could be pointed.

Dave should not have been of such importance to the company in the first place. When you hire a person who brings in domain knowledge but doesn't spread it around, you're more renting value from them than you are buying it. In scenarios when such a singular repository of vital domain knowledge is unavoidable, relationships between that person and the rest of the company must be overseen to ensure minimal adversity and maximal alliance.

At the end of the day, when you build a company you are building a team. The more each member is motivated towards the team's collective goal, the more you will be able to leverage the skills you hired onto the team towards the ends you hired them for. People like to think about technical skills as if they somehow exist independent of the human they are inside of. The reality is that the human is the portal through which the skill is delivered, and their human traits are of first class importance when considering how well they will be able to apply their skills should you choose them for your team.

Arent the best programmers the ones where the system just works without you having to be there? Dave isnt a 10x programmer is more like a -10x cry baby and the company just didnt know any better.

> the company just didnt know any better

Well, they definitely didn't know enough to not skip payroll.

OldManAndTheCpp6y ago

This is being told from a programmers point of view. Dave was cool from a programmers view. Writing code which enriches the ip owner is cool from the owners point of view.

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