This is not a whining post (at least I dont intend it to be so). I'm just trying to think out of the box for a change.

For the past few months I was surrounded by more white collars than ever in my life. Mr. IT Manager this and Mr. IT Manager that, even Mr. Director of Technical and Non Techncial Economic Hyper Relations at PSGCD (their names happen to puzzle you somtimes, dont they?).

And guess what? meetings to these people are like water to a fish, they can hardly survive out of the meeting room. We need to change a label? let's throw an ultra high level management meeting for three companies and let everyone and his brother join in. Now after 3 hours of brain trashing everyone agrees that the label really needs changing, and a follow up meeting is set to decide on the actual label to be used (ofcourse that's an exaggeration so take it with a grain of salt,...or two!)

I just heard a comment saying the I should be doing more meetings and less programming! I beg your pardon, programming is MY WATER! I dont imagine myself laying back and moving things by pointing a stick at them. I'm not an ivory tower type of a manager either. And I dont like the constraints that conventional management and white collar cultures are putting around me.

The joke is, after all that, those white collars are COSTING US MONEY! you'd imagine that working with multinationals is like having a cash cow, rather it's like having a fake cow for display (and no milk at all). You only have to deal with complicated requirements (that dont even make sense sometimes), very eager expectations, very slow payment and very limited technical assistance (up to the level of requiring us to travel between cities to install files).

I bet you're asking now: "why are you putting up with all of this?", I just asked myself the same question, and hence that (seemingly whining!) post :)

I'm still pondering it all in my mind, where should we (or I?) be directed, how can we be happy? and I mean HAPPY!

I'd quote DHH here, "so be happy"