The south is an interesting, backwards, delightful, and eccentric place. I had occasion to ponder such things, chopping into my fish sandwich at my local McDonalds. For sometime now McDonalds all around the south have been going though a renaissance or a sophistication transformation of sorts. Many now seem to be trading in their older, brightly colored, cheap plastic benches and décor, for newer, more elegant, cheap plastic benches and décor.

I first noticed it while visiting a friend in the Dallas/Fort Worth area a few years ago. Texas always seems gets things a few years earlier than elsewhere and makes all of us a bit further north a tad jealous. I stepped in thinking, this must be wrong place. The walls where lined with green colored wall paper with a gold symbols, giving the walls an embroidered look. Trim was finished in dark walnut, the ceilings were recessed, and the flooring was titled. There were mirrors and timeless looking paintings, and by god believe me when I say, there was even a chandelier. All the employees wore button-down shirts with ties and black slacks. I looked at the menu expecting to see Chicken Puttanesca, Roast Duck, or maybe Ragout of Chicken Chasseur; but, instead saw the menu I had seen since practically a boy. The food wasnt any better than it is at any other McDonalds but that didnt matter—I was impressed.

Back at my local McDonalds, they have recently done the same…well not quite. It didnt get a chandelier, but it did get the more peaceful colors and better dressed employees. Now this McDonalds, instead of having those timeless looking paintings on the walls, touted a French poster theme. These are the ones you most often see at the local arts and crafts or home décor retail chains, adorn with the fed up French cats, dancing ballerinas, and some sort of slogan written in French. Now in this type of atmosphere, you would think the choice of music would somehow mimic or compliment the décor, something like smooth jazz or piano standards maybe. Instead they seemed to be playing the entire 1950s Motown and bebop catalogue.

Thats the thing with the south, we try so hard to be more sophisticated sometimes, but somehow we always fall a little short. Anyways, where else could it be considered fashionable to wear cowboy boots with a three piece suit?

Im obviously shamelessly stealing the title from one of my favorite software related articles, “The Iceberg Secret, Revealed” by Joel Spolsky. In a nutshell, Joel explains how important a good UI is, how nonprogrammers view them, and ultimately he hands out some advice on how to deal with that.

In this article, I wanted to let everyone in on what I call the “Temple Secret”. Well to get started, let me introduce Mike. Mike works as a junior software developer for a small to medium sized company. When I say “junior”, I mean he is not a team leader or anything like that; he simply has no influence in the companys direction. What I mean by that, is that if he does a lousy job, the company might not sell as many units or get the client to renew their contract, but nothing catastrophic will happen to the company.

Mike is unhappy with some things at work. He sees some processes at his company, which are just leading the development team in the wrong direction. Moreover, because he minored in psychology while in college, he thinks it is going to hurt the company if they continue to hire so many people who are related. A few other small things bother him as well.

After a year of working for the company, it was time for Mike to have his 1-year review with his supervisor. By the way, this supervisor is a co-founder of the company he is working for. Going over some of the ratings his project managers have given him, it turns out hes doing a pretty good job. He likes most of the PMs, most of them like him. They feel he is doing a good job and everything seems right in the world. Until, Mikes supervisor says the ill-fated question: “So is there anything you are unhappy about?”.

What should Mike do? Should he say: “Everything is great!”? Or, should he voice some of his concerns and talk about some of the things he is unhappy about? Well, Mike feels his supervisor is a pretty cool guy and he knows he prides himself on being “one-of-the-guys”. Mike decides to just bear it all. Afterwards, the supervisor seems extremely stunned and tells Mike he thinks he is really paranoid, emotional, angry, and is just poisoning the company with his thoughts and opinions.

Mike is then told to pack up his desk and leave (he is fired).

So what is the “Temple Secret”? The secret is that most company founders or those who have a large stake in the company and/or its direction–view their company as a temple. As such, their temple cannot contain those individuals (especially lower ranking) who have any types of negative opinions or disagreements with the direction of the company. Therefore, any individuals not found to be pure of heart, must be purged.

The conclusion or lesson to be learned is that, if you have no stake in the direction of the company and you disagree with the direction in which the company is going or in its processes or practices, keep the opinions to yourself. If Mike doesnt like the way things are being done, he should keep quite and/or look for another job.

As some of you may have noticed, my site was down for 3-4 days. The reason, was that, the server I was hosting on at Virtuoso Net Solutions was hacked. What’s more is that the company cliams all the backups were compromised as well. Now I don’t know about you, but I think you should store the backup away from the server! I don’t really know if they are telling the truth about that or not, seems kind of careless it if is. What’s more is that Shanghai Blog was hosted on the same server, so I am going to have to find a new host and restore the backup of it as well, as soon as I can.

Right now I am hosting this site on GoDaddy, which so far I am pleased with.

Well stay tuned for more developments.

PS - Some of your most recent comments may be lost, due to the fact, that I had to restore the backup from about a month ago.

I dont know if anyone else has noticed this (I hope you have or this will make no sense whatsoever), but recently I have been picking up on some patterns when it comes to older peoples speech. While listenining to an older member of my extended family, it dawned on me, older people tend to repeat the same stories and life experiences–the same ones everytime you see them. But, thats not the interesting part. What is even more interesting, is that I have noticed that they tell the stories using the exact same idiocyncratic speeh and words as they did the other time you heard it. It is as if they not only have latched on to these life experiences and stories so much, but they also have told them so many times, they have a set way of recounting them.

So, next time you are listening to you grandpa tell you again, how he got lost in the woods and meet Jacques Cousteau–listen closely. Next week he will probably tell the same story the exact same way. Now if you will exuse me, I have rewrite this article several thousand time, so I can repeat it well later in life.

Just a quick note to say, I was approved to write an article for 4GuysFromRolla. I used that website a lot for reference material and tutorials when I first was learning ASP .Net. The article is basically an easy introduction into AJAX using Microsoft’s Atlas framework and ASP .Net 2.0. Hopefully after the review process it will be up there in the next few weeks. Wish me luck.

Got a speeding ticket this last weekend. Came out to $107 dollars ($10 off since I was wearing a seat belt). Word to the wise, watch your speed when on Hwy. 65.

On a totally different note, I found this long lost photo taken by mister Luke Williams, while on a company retreat:

I would like to share a talk I had with one of my close friends on our unhappiness with our careers or at least for me the last several jobs I have had. The conversation had to do with the parallels between construction work and computer science.

The jist of it is thus:

Programmers = Construction Workers: They are told what goes where and that is pretty much it. They have no say in the specifications or design. Moreover, they tend to be less respected and are seen as disposable; for the simple fact that a lot of people can perform the duties.

Developers = Construction Foremans: Serves as the leader of the construction crew (development team in our case). Has more experience and/or expertise and is respected much more by the engineers and achitects. Might have had formal education in his/her field.

Software Engineer = Engineer: Went to college and earned a degree. Manages the total construction of a structure (project). It is his feedback, planning, managing, and relationships with workers under him that will ultimately determine if the project is a success or failer.

Architect = Architect: Pretty self-explanitory. Responsible for the design of a structure (project). If he didn’t design the structure well, the project will be a failer.

In the jobs I have had thus far in my career, I have felt like the construction worker. I’m told what needs to be done and I do it. There is some thought involved or course, but it does not come close to my full capabilities. Moreover, I have a college degree and almost a Masters degree. Shouldn’t I be given the opportunity to use my learned skills, given more respect and more responsibilities, and ultimately good compensation? According to my skills and formal training I shouldn’t be at the bottom of the ladder (construction worker) I should be in the middle somewhere.

So, that is were a lot of frustration in my career comes from and I believe it is the same frustration many others in my field have as well.

I’ve had something stuck in my right eye (left if you are looking at me) for the past day and a half…I will go to the eye doctor today and see if he can fish it out. IT HURTS!!!

UPDATE: Went to the eye doctor at UAMS and they think whatever was in there, is not there anymore, but it scratched my cornea. So I was given some antibiotic ointment to put in it 2-3 times a day. Hopefully it will be better in a few days.

While daydreaming during a classical music recital, I wondered why is it that pop music is…well so popular, while classical music seems to not be as much. It dawned on me, probably 90% of the reason is because that is what the advertising and marketing giants decided to…well market. Of course it helps that kids like to feel like they are rebeling against their parents and therefore naturally gravitate towards louder music that doesn’t please their parents. But, I think if tomorrow the advertising and marketing giants decided to start advertising and marketing classical music, like they do pop music (i.e. TV, radio, product placements, movies, internet, etc…) it would be just as popular.

After realizing this, I’m going to have to rethink what I really like…or maybe it’s to late for me…save yourselves!!!