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Why Cats Don’t Make Good Developers

April 2, 2008

Here at LUCRUM we are always looking for ways to provide the best value to our clients. Outsourcing development to India and China can be difficult and is becoming more expensive. We have been conducting research into a new development model to provide our clients greater value for their IT dollar. Our research unfortunately has not returned the results we hoped for, but I thought the results of this extensive research should be shared. Here is why cats do not make good IT developers.

  • Regular flea dips required to squash bugs
  • Excessive requests for nap time cause productivity problems
  • Each one thinks they write purrrrrrrfect code
  • Keep chewing on the mice
  • Tuna breath
  • Delays due to periods of hyper-activity (note to self: catnip *AFTER* work)
  • Equipment gummed up with hairballs
  • Design meetings often result in a lot of hissing and caterwauling
  • Sharpening claws on office furniture
  • Don’t get along with the new dog application testing department also being researched. Research to be published later.
  • Team management forbid from bringing tuna for lunch. There was an incident. Wasn’t pretty.

 

Bringing the lighter side of LUCRUM- Jeff
 Lily is expert in .NET, SQL Server and is learning SharePoint 2007
  
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Written by Jeff Rollins · Filed Under Information Technology 

Comments

4 Responses to “Why Cats Don’t Make Good Developers”

  1. Lauren on April 3rd, 2008 6:44 am

    Jeff,

    While the lovely Miss Lily (and she is lovely!) may be brilliant and an expert in several languages, she may not be the ideal developer because she lacks the highly important training skills required to train you and the other associates at Lucrum. So, I thought I would share some thoughts with you and hope they are helpful to you because I have some personal experience in this area. My cat staffers have trained me very well and wanted me to share my learnings with you and your associates.

    • Regular flea dips required to squash bugs (Keep her inside the office at all times and this won’t be an issue.)
    • Excessive requests for nap time cause productivity problems (Research has proven that short cat naps can make people more productive at work and in Europe 6 weeks of annual vacation is the norm…perhaps she’s aware of this and thinks they’re on to something and is doing her own research in this regard.)
    • Each one thinks they write purrrrrrrfect code (Maybe it’s us that that are impurrrrrfect. My cat staffers are the first to let me know when I’ve made a mistake and then they have to retrain me. It’s painful. I don’t suggest you fall off the training wagon.)
    • Keep chewing on the mice (Again, if you keep them in the office and don’t let them leave for lunch, this isn’t an issue. And the fake mice with the “real” fur seem to be just as appealing and rewarding to them and much more sanitary and way less disgusting to other humans in the office.)
    • Tuna breath (Change her diet or perhaps give her a Mentos.)
    • Delays due to periods of hyper-activity (note to self: catnip *AFTER* work) (Yes…catnip for cats is like cocktails for people…it should be consumed in moderation and only after work. However, these bursts of energy that are not catnip induced could be very beneficial and result in some highly creative new ideas.)
    • Equipment gummed up with hairballs (Yes, this is an issue but more regular grooming on her part and yours could help lessen this problem.)
    • Design meetings often result in a lot of hissing and caterwauling (Are you saying humans don’t do this too? Everyone has their own way of expressing themselves.)
    • Sharpening claws on office furniture (Hey, if you don’t like the furniture she’s doing her part to help get it replaced faster.)
    • Don’t get along with the new dog application testing department also being researched. Research to be published later. (I’m sure it’s an adjustment for her…after all, she views the dogs as inferior…not as clever or strategic and they’re not as clean. And that may be the biggest sticking point. Talk to the dogs about their hygiene.)
    • Team management forbid from bringing tuna for lunch. There was an incident. Wasn’t pretty. (Smoked salmon can cause an equally ugly scene. I feel your pain. Probably should ban that one too, just to be safe.)

    Please don’t give up on this too quickly. I’ve been working with my senior office cat staff member for almost 14 years and the junior staffer for nearly 10 years. While I found their producitivity was not up to my standards, I quickly realized that their ability to reduce stress due to their calming people skills was what they were best at…it was what they were born to do. Thus, sometimes we have to look at our cat staff and see if their value is better utilized in other areas. Perhaps Miss Lily, while quite talented in her craft, might be even more gifted in other areas.

    Please tell Lily that my staffers, Cleopatra and Sheba send their regards and encourage her to be patient in working with you and the others because humans can be so obtuse.

    Lauren

  2. DAVIDeBOWMAN on April 3rd, 2008 7:35 am

    I have to think that having 9 lives would not only lower insurance premiums substantially, but could also reduce training costs dramatically.

  3. Scott Felten on April 17th, 2008 12:11 pm

    Oh no! We better change our ways…. :)

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351571,00.html

  4. Jeff Rollins on April 17th, 2008 12:38 pm

    With an ever increasing resource pool, we might want to re-evaluate our testing methods and tighten the acceptance requirements to get a better pool of candidates. Other companies such as Lauren’s appear to have has success with a similar development model. Maybe they would be better at project management …

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