How I got here in the end, part five: “things can only get better!”
20th June 2009
Charlie Stross is a best-selling, award-winning author. If you haven’t read Accelerando, which won the Hugo Award, I don’t particularly blame you; I couldn’t get into it. If, on the other hand, you haven’t read any of the Merchant Princes books, your life is the poorer for it, I tell you truly.
However: Charlie started out as a geek, and writes about it on his blog — and it’s obvious why he was intended by God to be an award-winning writer.
During this process I discovered several things about myself. I do not respond well to micro-managing. I especially do not respond well to being micro-managed on a highly technical task by a journalism graduate.
Do I need to explain why putting an accountant in charge of a technology-driven company is not necessarily a wise, visionary, and forward-looking move?
As a Californian software corporation, SCO was prone to various types of American management disease; no alcohol on corporate premises, for example: and then the annual recurring Maoist self-criticism and re-education ritual known as the performance appraisal.
Here is an example of a Terminally Bad Sign for any organization in the computer business:
… When you discover that your line manager’s recreational reading is the 1980 edition of the IBM Staff Handbook.