ndanger.organism

Paul Graham doesn’t think you were meant to have a boss (and the Cliff’s notes in case you thought he was saying you suck). I don’t agree with the “lions and hunter-gather tribes didn’t have bosses” arguments–most hunter-gatherer’s weren’t very good programmers either–but I do agree that large companies are a bad place to work.

My worst job was a summer internship at FedEx. There were several superficial problems, mostly I was under 21 & car-less. Which is to say that I had nowhere to go and no way to get there. It was also the summer–in Memphis–so the heat and humidity were both in the (Americocentric) 90′s. And I had to wear khakis and polo shirts everyday. Normally I only wear polo shirts to weddings.

But the main problem was the job itself. Beyond a general choice (i.e. “technical, not business”), placement was up to the internship coordinators; I ended up in the group that fixed wide-area networking problems. There were no problems. Except for the occasional cable pull, I made network diagrams in Visio and read about 7-layer networking.

“Well,” you might say “that’s not because FedEx is big,” but you’d be wrong. Having free-time is a big company phenomenon. I’ve never been a founder, but I have trouble imaging them sitting around twiddling their thumbs. (I do have experience running one-time bike events and even something that small doesn’t leave much time for sitting.)

If you’re still not convinced it was a big company problem, the Network diagrams were needed for ISO certification. And I never saw the engineer I reported to use their computer for anything other than Solitaire–Windows Solitaire. Just try to imagine founders turning to each other and saying “I’m bored… why don’t I work on getting ISO certified?” “Great idea! You do that while I play some Solitaire.” (Sounds of mouse clicking. A single gun-shot comes from the direction of the angel investor)