Management

A few days ago I fired one of my programmers. It's one of the parts of my "job" that I could do without. Thankfully, I've only had to do it a few times. He's been with us quite a while, and although I was never quite happy with his work, there were alway extenuating circumstances and I kept hoping things would turn around. Eventually, I had to admit that it probably wasn't going to get any better.

It went about as well as these things can. No arguments, no tears. He actually admitted he really hadn't been very interested in the work. I hope he can find work that does motivate him. We all spend too much of our lives at work to waste it doing stuff we don't enjoy.

Despite being a partner in a small business with 40 employees I'm not much of a "business man" or manager. I've learnt enough to get by and I do as little as I can responsibly get away with. If it starts to take too much of my time I get unhappy. I'm still a programmer at heart, and if I spend a day at the office without writing a line of code I get grouchy. And no, answering coding questions and reviewing code doesn't count!

I'm lucky to have a partner who's happy (or at least willing) to look after the business and marketing and sales side. And lucky to have programmers (and a customer support team) who do a great job without a great manager.