HTCAB: Chapter 6

In Chapter 6, Dave Hitz takes a new job at NetApp as VP of engineering. Keep in mind that this was from a guy who had basically never managed anything before. But Dave Hitz was totally up to it. Dave Hitz described what made him a great manager:

Steve Kleiman, our CTO at the time, had a theory about engineers and managers. He divided the world into people who have technical orgasms and people who have management orgasms, or TOs and MOs for short. A TO is when an engineer says, "What if we start the data in NV-RAM and not do the file allocation until later? By delaying that processing we'll speed up the packet response time to the network and get better block layout optimization on the disk drive... Whee!" ... A management orgasm is when a manager says, "I set up this team and coached the leader on how to hire good people and manage them effectively, and now he's matured to the point that he can start other teams and coach their managers, so I have more time to focus on the annual budget and planning process... Whee!"

I didn't get it at first, but "Whee!" is supposed to be the sound of the orgasm! ::slaps forehead:: I thought this was going to be a really important idea that Dave Hitz talked more about, but it wasn't.

In a lot of ways, I think this next quote speaks directly to me:

Thety say with dogs that you cannot punish them three days later for crapping on the floor. You have to drag them over and rub their noses in it right away. Bill applied the same principle, except he rubbed our noses in success.

Exactly! HTCAB is so good that I can't believe that this is the only blog out there dedicated to it. I know that I've been dragging a bit getting to my chapter reviews, but this last chapter inspired me to power through!