--- title: "Common rants and misconceptions" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/9/common-rants-and-misconceptions.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/9/common-rants-and-misconceptions.html" published: "2004-01-09T14:34:00" updated: "2004-01-09T14:34:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Tell me if you've heard this before: \"The company I work for Is too cheap to buy me...\" a bigger computer screen a better mouse A better keyboard A better dev machine\\More RAM\\CPU A ticket to the PDC\\DevDays\\programming…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Common rants and misconceptions By Roy Osherove January 9, 2004 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published January 9, 2004; technical details may be outdated. Tell me if you've heard this before: **"The company I work for Is too cheap to buy me..."** 1. a bigger computer screen 2. a better mouse 3. A better keyboard 4. A better dev machine\\More RAM\\CPU 5. A ticket to the PDC\\DevDays\\programming courses 6. A faster interned connection 7. Computer books 8. Lunch 9. Pizza 10. Overtime 11. A recreation room 12. A decent air conditioner 13. a door for the room 14. A bigger office **"My direct boss..."** 1. does not recognize my abilities and keeps me as a code monkey 2. Has less technical knowledge than me and is not worthy of my explanations 3. Would like nothing more than see me fail 4. Has no idea why I read weblogs for 3 hours during the day and never will 5. Could not be any more of an insensitive jerk 6. Has no idea that most days I just surf the web half of the time 7. Never notices me picking my nose in the office **"My direct subordinate..."** 1. Does nothing with his\\her time but bitch about what I'm doing wrong 2. Wants my job and me out of here 3. Thinks I'm a worthless piece of code monkey poo 4. Has no grasp of the context in which we operate 5. did not notice that I took credit for myself on that last task 6. Did not notice that I put in a good word for him\\her with the boss 7. Does nothing all day but surf the web 8. Never reads any of the books I get him\\her 9. Does not want to learn anything new OK. Just so you know, the "misconceptions" part is in parts 2 and 3, while part 1 is usually a viable rant. I say **usually** because plenty of times being in one place for a long time can really make you lose perspective on things. I've been to one company which actually forced new programming books down the developers throats, paid for various workshops and all of kinds of other things, yet the devs  kept complaining about their 17 inch screens and that they have squeaky mice. **Here's a reality check**: Many folks would **dream** to work in such a place. (mind you, the paycheck was reasonable, although not high). Here's another anecdote: I've never seen a company that did not have employees rant about part 1 of this list (MS is the exception). So, get a grip and make sure you are looking reality in the face. Be happy that you have a job that you can enjoy. Start with that. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jan 9, 2004 ### [Shame on me](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/9/shame-on-me.html) - Jan 9, 2004 ### [Weekend reading: Acm Turing Award Lectures : The First Twenty Years, 1966 to 1985](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/9/weekend-reading-acm-turing-award-lectures-the-first-twenty-y.html) - Jan 7, 2004 ### [Small cool news](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/7/small-cool-news.html) - Jan 4, 2004 ### [Disappointed with RSS Bandit](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/4/disappointed-with-rss-bandit.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/