Hard to Fake

About 10 years ago my wife and I were building our first house. It was completely custom, and the staircase was especially elaborate. In talking to the woodworker who would be doing the railings we were met with a lot of confidence. He said straight out: “I can make anything out of wood.” Isn’t it just fantastic when someone is confident? As our rental lease came to an end and we moved into the house the stairs were still not done. It was one of the only disappointments we encountered in the whole process. It turns out that it wasn’t for lack of trying that they were not done, but for lack of skill. In fact, when he finally did call it done I would soon be appalled. Initially, things seemed ok. Besides the pile of trash he left for us to clean up it looked completed. Then, that evening I was sitting at the top of the stairs enjoying the beautiful view into the foyer of our new home when I noticed something odd. The shadows cast by our perfectly symmetrical lighting were far from symmetrical. The newel posts were not even!

I went on to discover that while the two landings were symmetrical for some reason there were 8 balusters (or spindles) on one side, and 12 on the other! No joke, 4 different. It was terrible, and all started with a 1 inch difference in the position of the newel posts. While my craftsman spoke confidently when it came down to it he had only fooled himself.

There are fields that a person can fake experience and skill. In fact, I tend to mentally categorize these as the “fluffy” fields. They are the opposite of a craftsman. They are based on talk, posturing, and negotiating. Politicians have this characteristic as do many executive positions. Educators also can manage to get by for decades being really quite bad at what they do. What makes a field “fluffy” is when there are plenty of other people to blame when the outcome is negative. A student gets a bad score, blame the student. A state goes bankrupt, blame the previous leadership. A company goes bankrupt, promote the executives.

Programmers are craftsmen. They might be able to hide out on a large team for a while, but there isn’t much fluff in this field. You either get ‘er done, or you don’t. When your work is bad it comes back to bite, and while none of us are immune to obscure browser incompatibilities or unexpected user behavior there are definitely those whose mouths (or sales people) write checks that their skills cannot cash. It’s just hard to fake good programming.

We’re on a very large project these days, and I’m surrounded by some of the most skilled people I’ve worked with in a long time. One of the most refreshing aspects is the humility of people who measure their words accurately with their skills. There’s nothing wrong with saying something if you can do it, but it’s so easy to work when a person is willing to admit that they don’t understand while also being willing to work to understand. It’s a rare gem and the kind of project that has the highest likelihood of success, regardless of the scope. Hat off to my colleagues.