It’s most likely in email, occasionally in messages, but rarely in person — unless the miscreant is completely shameless. The modern dysfunctional corporate workplace is awash with everything from condescending messages affixed to noticeboards, toilet doors, and monitor screens¹ to ambiguously offensive emails, messages, and HR droid PowerPoints². The prose…

Have we become subjugated by both our tools and the seemingly endless layers of management? If you haven’t come across the Transvaluation of Values then perhaps it’s time, as a progressive software engineer wishing to progress to the higher and more valuable ranks in the Grand Game, that you cast…

If “clothes make the man”, as the saying goes, then laptops most definitely make the modern manager. It’s usually pretty easy to spot who’s who within a modern dysfunctional software development organisation. Often you don’t even have to go through that dreadful social interaction known colloquially as a conversation, either. Workplace Observation 101 …

Once a shining bright dwarf star, now a bloated red giant nearing inevitable collapse. After some not inconsiderable time in the Grand Game of Software Engineering it’s not unreasonable to assume that one knows what specific features make a great piece of software. Some thoughts that immediately come to mind: …

We have lost our aspiration, and we desperately need to get it back. It’s slightly depressing to read the news every day, even more so than usual just about now, as the subject of climate change has now become the apocalyptic “climate crisis” and it genuinely seems as if many¹…

An accretion disk of technical detritus circling a core of nothingness. Though long standing readers may be familiar with the common oxymoronic term “technical” manager I’m going to quickly run through the definition of this notional job title in today’s modern corporate clown show just to make sure we’re all…

A personal missive on the conflicting feelings associated with resigning. There are few things in the Grand Game of Software Engineering as stressful and yet as satisfying as deciding to quit your job¹ and yet, after decades in the trenches myself, I still don’t have a definitive reason why it…

Modern day training isn’t a patch on what it used to be and it’s not just the way it’s delivered either — it’s the lowest common denominator content too. Training, much like the agile development methodology, is an easy target to ridicule in the modern day Grand Game of Software…

Concentrating all roles makes Jack a master of none (and really quite depressed about the whole thing in the long run). One particular modern day issue in the Grand Game of Software Engineering is that prospective, commonly progressive, employees are expected to know pretty much everything about a range of…