A Tale of Two Programmers

Once upon a time there was a programmer named Shawn. I never told Shawn this when we worked together - but I had a heck of a lot of respect for him. Shawn was what I call a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap programmer. Shawn and I worked together in the IT department of a textile mill. We were never really close because we are very different people. Shawn is still a young man and single. I am neither of those things. Shawn grew up in a very tough town and never had the benefit of a college education. But make no mistake. Shawn was a very sharp guy - not only was he technically pretty savvy - he was also people-smart. At one time, Shawn worked on the shop floor and pretty much talked his way into the IT department. Certainly, Shawn new when to draw the line between work and play (and oftentimes he wound up squarely on the side of play). But the admirable thing about him was that he certainly wasn't afraid of work and he definitely knew he had the smarts to succeed at work. Not a bad co-worker.

After I left the mill I went to work in the IT department of a specialty retailer and met another "programmer" - let's call him Rick. Rick and I were on the same application team. We worked very closely together because we were considered the two Windows programmers in a shop that was mainly populated with AS/400 programmers. Rick was considered a Windows programmer because he was somewhat proficient in Microsoft Access (?!). As soon as I joined his team, Rick was constantly telling me what a great programmer I was and how much more I knew than the other people he had worked with. He was constantly wanting to get my design ideas on tasks that he had been working on. Before I knew it, I was "helping" Rick do his work (while unbeknown to me, he was taking full credit). Rick's favorite come on was, "I wonder if I could pick your brain for a minute.".

Keep in mind that Rick graduated from a state university with a degree in computer science. Yet he had neither the work ethic or the intellectual curiosity to expand his knowledge and skill set in his chosen profession. Rather, Rick became very good (probably from a very early age) in getting others to do his work and in thinking up creative excuses about why he couldn't get his assignments done (always some one else's fault, not his).

I know I shouldn't judge other people. But it's really hard for me to respect anyone who consistently avoids work like Rick. My problem? I probably have higher expectations for Rick than he has for himself. That's a pity.