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engineering teams are like soup
Tuesday, May 25 1999
Things often have a feeling of armageddonesque chaos about them in my workplace. The latest example of this concerns the the new team of engineers who were hired to "redesign the architecture of the site." One member of this team had skills that were more geared to the front end of web development than to the task at hand. For the past couple of days, our Engineering managers didn't quite know what to do with him and his prima-donna attitude. On the off-chance that he might be of use to us, he was assigned the task of showcasing his DHTML skills. But, after all was said and done, it seems he didn't have much to offer there. Today he was told he wasn't wanted after all and that he should go away and never come back. This was after he'd already moved in his library of technical references, his fancy Compaq laptop and his own jealously-guarded personal office chair. He didn't take the news too well, lingering around the office for awhile thereafter grumbling about our foolishness and even making a number of thinly-veiled threats.
He wasn't the only loss either; evidently another among the hot-shot architecture-redesign engineering team is also leaving or has already left. These failures give me a feeling of vindication, since from the beginning I was offended by and strongly opposed to the isolation of these new engineers from those of us who have been building and maintaining the site over the preceding months and years. What, are we too unclean to mingle with such greatness?
The difficulties resulting from the poorly-considered idea of tenuously plugging an strange batch of engineers into our quirky (but effective) environment are not surprising. It's like taking a healthy liver and simply slapping it beneath the rib cage of a dying old alcoholic; it makes both of them die faster, but the healthy liver dies the fastest. To take liberties for a moment and completely change this metaphor, an engineering team is a lot like a pot of soup. It isn't any good until it has stewed for awhile, until the talents have mingled and unified into a common environment of industry. Any vegetables thrown into it aren't any good until you give them a chance to simmer and exchange juices with those around them.
In other news, it seems that my recent period of relative domestic tranquility has come to an abrupt conclusion. My domestic happiness, it turns out, is inversely related to my work happiness. The more I enjoy my work, the less time I spend at home and the less time and effort I have available for my personal domestic life. Recently I've been engrossed with building a new message board system, and now when I come home at night, it's only a matter of time before the flames erupt. I know from experience that this situation eventually feeds back and destroys my ability to work at my productive best at work. I wish the people around me could just understand that I only have so much -whatever- that I can deliver to them. After that, the well is dry, go away.
Some times I can understand why guys might want to become monks or join the military. At least in those confining environments, their limits are so obvious that it's difficult for anyone to be disappointed by their performance or the time they're dedicating to their tasks. But when you're here in the real world, your life is inherently so complex that no one person can possibly see the entire scope of your responsibilities. After awhile they become suspicious: your slave-driving boss thinks you're lazy, your jealous girlfriend assumes you're having an affair, and all your friends think you're a flake. And you yourself never have any time to just lie on your back and think. Sometimes you just want to think without being asked what your thinking.
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