Every so often, I’m forced to narrow my contact parameters a little bit more. First I started turning down requests for me to do unpaid guest posts, then requests for written interviews. More recently, I asked readers with questions to put them in a more concise form so it doesn’t take quite so much effort to read and answer them. And now I’m afraid I need to add another one, about interviews this time: if you want one, you’re going to need to conduct it in a way that doesn’t stress me out and require me to decode the bizarre “logic” of software engineers. If you want to talk to me on the phone, that’s completely fine. If you want to get together in person for an old-fashioned pad-and-pencil interview, or to record me for a podcast (either audio-only or with video) on your own equipment, we can do that. And there are even a couple of online interview tools (Zoom and Google Hangouts) that generally work OK, though I’ve had problems with both of those (especially Hangouts) when the person who wants to interview me tries some kind of fancy thing. If you want to use one of those, you need to assume all responsibility for technical details because I’m a whore, not a programmer; don’t think if something goes wrong I’m going to be able to figure it out on my end, because it’s very unlikely that I will, and the attempt will frustrate me and possibly even make me cry. Skype? Won’t work on my Chromebook. I’m reasonably sure Facetime won’t either, because Apple, and I’m not going to try so don’t ask. Nor will I respond well to requests that I “just download the whateveritis software” or “watch this YouTube video, it explains how to do it”. Nope. If you want to interview me, you need to handle the technical details of anything more complicated than “click here”, “please look into the camera” or “answer the phone”. In short, the only part I want to have to deal with is “show up and be fabulous”, because that I’m good at. And crying makes my makeup run.
The Limits of Patience
December 13, 2018 by Maggie McNeill
9 Responses
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It is a really unfortunate fact that we have far too many people writing and designing software these days. As a result, most are not very good at it and that is what you run into here. My take is that the base problem is managers that rather have a lot of cheap underlings than a few expensive ones, even when the expensive ones produce far, far more value and far, far better results. Also, beyond a very low number (somewhere around 2…5 per major component) using more programmers makes the result much worse. So not only is a lot of software badly designed, it also is badly written.
This will change when it becomes finally understood that, just as with any other demanding tech job, you need experienced and capable engineers (most people writing software are not engineers at all) to get good results and that good results are worth the salaries these people expect and the time they need to produce them. Of course, a lot of programmers will lose their jobs when that happens as well. But there really is no other way to get quality.
As always, well phrased.
Thanks!
I would imagine there’s any number of technically skilled men in your area that would happily trade some of their valuable skills for a little of your much more valuable ones?
But of course that’s irrelevant to an interview that doesn’t provide you with a reason to put that much work into it, which I imagine most don’t.
@Maggie: “In short, the only part I want to have to deal with is ‘show up and be fabulous’, because that I’m good at. And crying makes my makeup run.”
That gave me a good chuckle.
I can certainly empathize with your complaint and plaint, and fully subscribe to them. If we get any more “connected” pretty soon we’ll be talking to the wall. And happy to do so,
As a tech geek, this just makes me sad, Maggie.
Why? Specialization is characteristic of advanced societies. Tech guys couldn’t do my job, and I can’t do theirs; that seems perfectly OK to me.
agree, however there is something to be said for the Renaissance model of the multi-faceted and talented person which you do demonstrate in many ways. your thesis might really be that the person conducting the interview should also be well rounded in the whole production and not make the guest do the work. unfortunately i discovered the same even when i was paying people to do things. the incompetent have adapted by allowing our natural tendency to fill the gaps and rise to the occasion to cover for their failings much like the companies that write such garbage software applications. computers are often the best example of something that you pay for that makes you work through its failings, paying for the privilege to troubleshoot. so in this example you got it twice and simply said enough.
it is an honor to say that you could do my jobs or business just as well. this other than the excessive puritan bent of our society is what people fear about sex workers. it is a way out available only to you which allows your other talents to not be useful to those who wish to purchase them at wholesale. most people are replaceable. the truly unique such as the successful sex worker or actually competent person in an occupation outside of sex work is not and is feared for a variety of reasons.