Developers and enthusiasm

Real World Software Development has a decent list on managing developers. Most of it you should know already. One item though made me choke on my tea:

“Hi Sean, I have noticed an increase in help desk call volumes, and the help desk does not seem to be finding any patterns or rhyme or reason as to why. I’d love it if you could take help desk calls next week, to help me find patterns and ultimately come up with a solution to why the spike in volumes!”

If Hollywood movies reflect reality then this may work in the United States but from my little experience no Irish, British, French, German, Scottish, South African or Australian developer is going to be duped by that. It is condescending and falsely enthusiastic (getting excited about answering help-desk calls is just crazy.)

Only get enthusiastic about something that really is cool. Don’t fake it, developers aren’t stupid.

 

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