December 27th, 2006

The social skills of a thermonuclear device, part 3

Some years ago, a group different from the one I worked in invited me to “volunteer” to help them with serious problems they were having with their product. They asked to “borrow” me for one week so that I could magically resolve all their issues. I wasn’t really that familiar with their product, and I certainly didn’t know how it worked internally, so I didn’t think I could actually be much help given just one week. But they kept insisting that I “volunteer” to help them, until I finally wrote,

I have a lot of vacation days and I’m not afraid to use them.

That one line catapulted me into thermonuclear device territory.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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