Business ethics
March 23rd, 2003
Welcome to the real world rants about unknowing consultants. He concludes with
business ethics : oh so important to build a trust relationship with your customer ...Sorry Werner, I think you're overlooking something here. While there might be unethical Java people out there, I think the majority of the people you encounter, are not unethical. They're just unknowing. This morning, under the shower, I came up with a good reference: I bought a house two years ago. While it was in pretty good shape, the electricity needed rewiring in some rooms. Having replaced a plug for a lamp once, I thought I would be able to do this myself. Luckily enough, my father-in-law is an electrician. When he started talking about "double carré" and "stiff wire", I knew it wasn't me who was going to replace the wires...
The good news is: not everybody is unethical. The bad news: it is a lot harder to see that a programmer is not good, than to recognize a bad electrician.
via Steven
Afterthought: maybe I'm just plain naive, and are those people well enough aware of their ignorance. But I like to believe in the goodness of people. Anyway, the question remains open: how should good people differentiate themselves from less good people? This could give us an indication of which group we belong to, too.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:16 PM Tom, it's just that the companies with a sales force (one sales guy is enough) are the unethical ones because those people make money even if the developer or consultant they sold to the customer is doing a loosy job. The customer is not able to know if it's the developer's fault, a problem with the closed-source application or the fact that the guy is just not the right man for the job. How can the customer tell the difference between someone who knows what he is talking about and one who doesn't ? The sales guy will tell a lot of good about the guy he is selling ... how can a customer be sure that is reality ?
April 21st, 2008 at 10:16 PM There is a fantastic book about business ethics by Elaine Sternberg, "Just Business, Business Ethics in Action".
April 21st, 2008 at 10:16 PM Hi Werner, I think you might want to read the comments on http://blogs.cocoondev.org/tomk/archives/000745.html. I think we see the same problems. Now all we got to do is to come up with a solution ;-)
April 21st, 2008 at 10:16 PM There's a saying that might apply here: "Never ascribe to malice that which can be attributed to ignorance." As in, people aren't as mean as they are stupid. Rarely is someone deliberately trying to be malicious. It's more often a case of bad decisions, prejudices and plain old hubris. Differentiation comes from just doing a better job. If people can't recognize the difference, move on. When people are recognized as doing a bad job, say so... and move on. I find it's better to tell a customer how I'll do the job better and leave them to make conclusions about how the other developer fucked it up. If they can't grasp this... move on. Some folks aren't ever going to "get it". That's no reason to let yourself get mired in their disasters.