Hail the Rhoten
The smartest guy I ever worked with actually read the Economist. I loved, loved, loved working with this guy, who was just a kid back in '94, on Publisher. His name was Matt Rhoten, and he stood out from all the other ridiculously bright and variously twisted Microsoft developers. Matt used to come in my office to verify that he already knew what I thought. "Um, I need to hook up the UI on this thing, and I can either do it like this or like that." I'd say something inane, full of pretense that I had some legitimate basis to channel user preferences, and pick one of his options, hoping that being logical was close enough. Matt would nod, usually skipping the part where he said "thought so," and go back to his office and get it done in 2.4 seconds.
My job was supposed to be designing killer software experiences that would delight users, sparking their creativity, causing viral product addiction and making us 'softies even more filthy rich. The job that I chose to do was setting up management to make decisions that would have the least negative impact on Matt and "my" other developers, and when I had time, try to do stuff to keep the software usage experience from making customers cry. I'd work up the chain to get reorgs and office moves postponed when the guys had deadlines to hit. I'd make sure that whatever Office (the Borg) was doing was known and accounted for in the schedule, so that we on little Publisher wouldn't get fishpoled too often. I'd call in favors. I'd order dinner. I wanted happy devs. Especially Matt. What a superstar.
Matt knew pretty much everything relevant that I needed to get my job done. He was deeply, instantly thoughtful about possibilities. I'd need a quick answer, to something like "can that text edit be shown as it's typed?" His eyes might roll up in his head for a bit, maybe he'd run the Wheelo some, and then he'd either say "sure, no charge" or "um, not hard, are you sure that's a good idea?" or "no, we have no existing structure for that, prohibitively expensive, nondeterministic, probably NP complete, hoo boy, but let me know if it's really important." For comparison, there were some developers that would only answer such questions during an official specification review meeting with management and corporate lawyers and human resources present, or would only respond to issues logged as an official feature request in the official bug database, or would blow up, yell, and threaten to quit, or hide from me, or, most often, put up the teflon to deflect responsibility or concern. Matt made solving problems really fun.
Over the course of about 4 years on Publisher, I watched Matt grow into a true stud. Straight out of Stanford, he had long hair and weighed about 57 lbs, would wear his hair in ponytails, clearly wicked smart (and really, very kind, from the beginning), clearly new to the rites of corporate sociopathology. Towards the end of my Publisher tenure, we'd be in a large, scary, critical, hostile, super high pressure negotiation with a rogue group over whom we held almost no influence, and all I needed to happen was for Matt to open his mouth. The clouds would part, the angels would sing, hearts were at peace, we got what we came for, we won the meeting. Nothing could light a fire under my ass, everybody's ass, like Matt getting pissed off, which I think I saw twice. As with many wicked smart devs that I worked with at the 'soft, there was an inherent loneliness in all that intelligence, and with Matt, a consistent generosity and patience in communicating with well-intended pretenders like me. I was relieved and thrilled for him when I found out he was dating a wicked smart, very kind woman (whom he later married, yay!).
I put a couch in my office. Bingo. Worked on Matt like a spider's web. This was a short, white, deep and intensely comfortable thing (the couch, not Matt). It got him to hang out exactly where I needed him. Even if he fell asleep, I swear, he could still answer questions or offer opinons ("snore, ABCdupPOs, snore"). A very reassuring presence, on any terms. And frequently, he read the Economist. I could not read the Economist; I was not smart or concerned enough. It was completely beyond me.
I was going to write about something I read in the Economist last night, but it can wait. Yep, fourteen years later I'm finally enough of a grownup to not just read, not just need, but enjoy that magazine. I so rarely get nostalgic about my software career, but in this case, gratitude is due. Thanks Matt.
My job was supposed to be designing killer software experiences that would delight users, sparking their creativity, causing viral product addiction and making us 'softies even more filthy rich. The job that I chose to do was setting up management to make decisions that would have the least negative impact on Matt and "my" other developers, and when I had time, try to do stuff to keep the software usage experience from making customers cry. I'd work up the chain to get reorgs and office moves postponed when the guys had deadlines to hit. I'd make sure that whatever Office (the Borg) was doing was known and accounted for in the schedule, so that we on little Publisher wouldn't get fishpoled too often. I'd call in favors. I'd order dinner. I wanted happy devs. Especially Matt. What a superstar.
Matt knew pretty much everything relevant that I needed to get my job done. He was deeply, instantly thoughtful about possibilities. I'd need a quick answer, to something like "can that text edit be shown as it's typed?" His eyes might roll up in his head for a bit, maybe he'd run the Wheelo some, and then he'd either say "sure, no charge" or "um, not hard, are you sure that's a good idea?" or "no, we have no existing structure for that, prohibitively expensive, nondeterministic, probably NP complete, hoo boy, but let me know if it's really important." For comparison, there were some developers that would only answer such questions during an official specification review meeting with management and corporate lawyers and human resources present, or would only respond to issues logged as an official feature request in the official bug database, or would blow up, yell, and threaten to quit, or hide from me, or, most often, put up the teflon to deflect responsibility or concern. Matt made solving problems really fun.
Over the course of about 4 years on Publisher, I watched Matt grow into a true stud. Straight out of Stanford, he had long hair and weighed about 57 lbs, would wear his hair in ponytails, clearly wicked smart (and really, very kind, from the beginning), clearly new to the rites of corporate sociopathology. Towards the end of my Publisher tenure, we'd be in a large, scary, critical, hostile, super high pressure negotiation with a rogue group over whom we held almost no influence, and all I needed to happen was for Matt to open his mouth. The clouds would part, the angels would sing, hearts were at peace, we got what we came for, we won the meeting. Nothing could light a fire under my ass, everybody's ass, like Matt getting pissed off, which I think I saw twice. As with many wicked smart devs that I worked with at the 'soft, there was an inherent loneliness in all that intelligence, and with Matt, a consistent generosity and patience in communicating with well-intended pretenders like me. I was relieved and thrilled for him when I found out he was dating a wicked smart, very kind woman (whom he later married, yay!).
I put a couch in my office. Bingo. Worked on Matt like a spider's web. This was a short, white, deep and intensely comfortable thing (the couch, not Matt). It got him to hang out exactly where I needed him. Even if he fell asleep, I swear, he could still answer questions or offer opinons ("snore, ABCdupPOs, snore"). A very reassuring presence, on any terms. And frequently, he read the Economist. I could not read the Economist; I was not smart or concerned enough. It was completely beyond me.
I was going to write about something I read in the Economist last night, but it can wait. Yep, fourteen years later I'm finally enough of a grownup to not just read, not just need, but enjoy that magazine. I so rarely get nostalgic about my software career, but in this case, gratitude is due. Thanks Matt.
posted by Cy at 2:32 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home