In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.
The religious right is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere,
is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.
I was recently assigned a new team of engineers, completely green, not familiar with the computer language of the application in question. After three weeks of tutoring, code reviews, etc, they just checked their first two modifications to the system into the source control system. Not minor ones either, these were major critical pieces of functionality needed for release.
I feel like a proud daddy who just saw his baby take her first steps...
-- Badtux the Managing Penguin
Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.
WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Were these the Chinese software geeks? Because when they get smart and innovative, instead of just hard-working and good at following directions, us whiteys are going to be fucked even faster. Meet the new bosses...
ReplyDeleteYes, these are Chinese software geeks. And believe me, they *are* smart and innovative. *And* hard-working and good at following directions. They're green as grass, but even at that they have some good suggestions and some creative ways of doing things. They're complete geeks, they love technology, they love bells and whistles, they just nerd out and want to put all sorts of bells and whistles and gee-gaws into our product and I have to tell'em no, that's not what our customers want, our customers want to do task X and neither want nor need all the options for doing task X that the geeks want to put into the software... but then, that's engineers regardless of nationality (shrug). But when it comes to technology, these guys (and gals) are the equal of any that I've worked with anywhere, and I've worked with some darned good people in the past.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, if you haven't figured it out, they (the Chinese) *are* my bosses -- the money I'm paid with comes from a Chinese venture capital fund and they own a sizable portion of my employer. Which is why we have a Chinese development lab despite being a very small company.
-- Badtux the Chinese-owned Penguin
I also work with Chinese, student doctors in various stages of training. The Royal Melbourne is a teaching hospital that churns out many of the future docs going through Melbourne University, which is considered prestigious for this continent. Not sure whether they're Taiwanese or mainland; not the sort of question one asks if one is polite. And many are Chinese ethnically but Aussie-born.
ReplyDeleteI can't make generalisations about them. Humans are variable -- some gung-ho (an Asian term, of course) some are slackers. The language barrier also inhibits how they act. Even if I could generalise, it would be racist of me to do so.
What I SHOULD be doing is learning (in Mandarin and Cantonese) how to say "Would you like rice with that, master?" Let's hope they're nicer to us than we (and the Japanese) were toward them. But I doubt it. They are human, after all. And that's a mean species of monkey.