Maybe this is a tangent, but isn't it strange that programmers accept that a competent person could, and should, be fired, if their personality doesn't gel with whoever happened to join the company earlier than they did?
If we were digging ditches, how likely would it be that you would fire an above-average ditch-digger, for "cultural fit"? I mean, maybe it does happen (I've never worked that sort of job) but it seems to me there's a cleaner separation there between work product and the contents of one's mind or one's personal associations.
It seems to me this is an unacknowledged downside of software jobs; despite our apparent autonomy, our minds have to be very open to being molded and harnessed.
If we were digging ditches, how likely would it be that you would fire an above-average ditch-digger, for "cultural fit"? I mean, maybe it does happen (I've never worked that sort of job) but it seems to me there's a cleaner separation there between work product and the contents of one's mind or one's personal associations.
It seems to me this is an unacknowledged downside of software jobs; despite our apparent autonomy, our minds have to be very open to being molded and harnessed.