If software developers were janitors

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Janitor
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If software developers were janitors

Junior Developer — knows how to handle a certain broom and a certain scoop. Collects the garbage and cigar-butts left by other developers. Works really hard but most of the junk flows over the scoop. Does not yet know what to do with the doormat and brings even more rubbish from the street.

Middle Developer — can handle a bigger broom and works pretty good. Knows how to sweep the garbage into the corner so that nobody notices it at the demo.

Senior Developer — instead of cleaning he just sits and tweaks his own robot vacuum cleaner, so that it will automatically clean at least some of the rubbish. The robot sometimes bugs out and throws all its content at the ceiling. Senior stops it, gets himself on the table and starts manually scraping the ceiling. The whole team stands around and whispers in awe wondering how is he balancing himself on a table. No one else can do that.

Team Leader — starts the turbine and most of the rubbish flies out of the window. Then organizes the team to arrange the furniture the way it was before. In the process of doing that someone finds out that the whiteboard flew away too. Team Leader draws a rectangle on the wall and writes “Whiteboard 2.0-alpha”, then says: “It will be okay for the demo”. The whole team in the meantime rummages all nearby stores trying to find an exact same whiteboard because the customer already got used to it.

Software Architect — does not clean anything but constantly asks to break walls to install new windows and doors “to communicate with other services”. The debris are then cleaned for years.

QA — enters the room, goes at the closet, gets himself on the chair, slides the top shelf with his finger, walks to developers and says: “Expected: the finger is clean. Actual: the finger is gray from the dust”. The developers respond that they know it but the customer haven’t encountered that yet, so we can de-prio.

QA Automation — sends the walking robot into the room and read a report on his iPhone how long did it work before slipping on the banana skin and crashing.

Product Manager — a long time ago he worked as a janitor but then decided it’s just not what he wants. Constantly rants that the room is dirty but when Team Leader says: “Close the room for everybody and give us six months, we’ll clean it and paint it new” responds that: “some other time, but for now please bring some new garbage from the street, cover that banana skin and put a big bright label saying it is a modern art installation”.

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