I've been a "Joel on Software" reader for at least eight, probably creeping up on nine years. Mr. Spolsky has provided some tremendous help/encouragement as I've morphed from technical writer to programmer and freelancing trying-to-be.
By nature, I have a hot temper that cools very quickly after an explosion. So I put several hours between reading his latest column for Inc. and this post, to allow time for cooling. That (mostly) hasn't happened.
The article, if you haven't perused the above link, discusses the compensation system at Fog Creek Software, the company that Mr. Spolsky and Michael Pryor founded. The passage in question is this, taking the liberty of adding emphasis:
I can't fairly say whether or not that made my eyes cross, because at the time all I was seeing was pure red--as in #FF0000 for the web and graphics mavens. It's merely a sign of creeping middle age that my pod-mates weren't treated to a spluttering round of profanity--for which I have some reputation of note, I might add.In Fog Creek's system, every employee is assigned a level. Currently, these levels range from 8 (for a summer intern) to 16 (for me). Your level is calculated formulaically based on three factors: experience, scope of responsibility, and skill set. Once we determine your number, you make the same as every other employee at that level.
The experience part is pretty easy: It's based on the number of years of full-time experience you have in the field you're working in. No work done while you were still in school counts, and certain types of rote, menial work can never add up to more than a year of experience. If you worked as a receptionist for six years, for example, you aren't credited with six years of experience; I give you credit for one year.
Let's get one thing straight: There is no such thing as "rote, menial work" for human beings in any company. That's why we have computers. If you can't keep every last one of your employees mentally engaged and wanting more, it's a Management Fail. If you penalize employees for work you've created to be rote and menial, that's an Epic Management Fail.
Now, you--as in the rhetorical "you"--might argue that there is a distinction between "profit centers" and "overhead." That is, if you pay attention to the bean-counters. Isn't that, after all, how they start out every Microeconomics course ever taught? You remember: A doctor loses billable time scheduling his--and it was still invariably "his" back in my day--own appointments, filing paperwork and so on. So the hypothetical doctor hires an equally hypothetical assistant (at a considerably lesser hypothetical salary) to free up that time for more profitable use.
But then the logic goes one step further...and in my irate-and-considerably-less-than-humble opinion a step too far. That step involves finding a means to minimize the assistant's cut of the billing rate to maximize the doctor's take. Naturally, the quickest route to depressing the receptionist's earnings is to trivialize that work as "just answering phones" or "just typing" or "just" what-have-you. And, frankly, that's just stupid. For any company, not just a doctor's office.
Of course, much of what passes for the "science" of accounting involves pushing costs on third parties: WalMart employees on public health care, Delaware corporations, companies going bankrupt to avoid litigation, or offshoring to less...shall we say..."legally fastidious" countries. And so on. The profit-center/overhead distinction is, to my thinking, living on the same street, ethically, as the cost-avoidance tactics just mentioned. And, contrary to the world in which bean-counters and Econ. professors inhabit, the costs are no less real for not showing up on this quarter's P&L statements.
Dude, that "assistant" is the first contact that a potential customer/vendor/employee/partner has with your company. Possibly even the last. You'd better believe it matters. Do you think I give a fat rat's patootie if you cater in lunch for your programmers or let them play Rock Band on company time when I'm calling with a question/order/problem? What planet do you live on? All I want is a friendly voice that connects me to exactly the right person in thirty seconds or less. Imagine how, in this day of Byzantine touch-tone menus and call centers whose function is not unlike that of the Soviet peasant in wartime, how much of a competitive advantage it is to have a person who can tackle the problem at hand without a script?
Similarly, you can consider software testing and data validation "menial" if you care to. I'll take a pass. Caste systems are for incompetent managers who can only see value in what looks suspiciously like what they've done for a living. For me, it makes too much sense to have people doing what they're best at. Case in point: I'll spend close to a day of "programmer" time reconciling messed up data. Which is all well and good at the beginning of the fiscal year when there's funding to do so. But later? Well, we've hired several "data people" who have moved up the supposed "food chain" to other things--not always to good effect, organizationally. We'd managed to find one person who actually liked (go figure) scrubbing and importing data. Except that we laid off that person when the chips were down. So much for that doctor theory from Microeconomics, hey?
So here's where I want to hammer home an important distinction: I've said before that I want nothing to do with prima-donna employees. But I do want an All Rock Star team. Sure, I want rock star programmers. Who doesn't? I also want a rock star receptionist, rock star testers, rock star data folks, and so on. If I can afford it, I want a rock star barista for the coffee/wine bar. The friggin' janitor should be a rock star. Why? Because I don't want botulism from ookey coffee carafes. I don't want a potential customer/employee/vendor/partner swinging by the rest room and being put off the drippy soap dispenser or scale around the faucets or what-have-you. I don't want people getting sick from the HVAC system or whatever cleaning chemicals are floating in the air. So you end up paying your janitor an outrageous wage. Ooh-lah. When you think about the obnoxious bank that pure incompetents were/are making, running entire companies into the ground, I don't think that a so-called "overpaid" janitor really matters in the grand scheme of things. I mean, if you're looking to hire only "the best," that should permeate the entire organization--not just the "caste" with which you most strongly identify-- should it not?
And, yes, I realize that there is a price to be paid for this ideal. That's why they call them "ideals." Organized religion wouldn't be 1/100th so profitable if folks had the stones to live up to what they profess. Originally, Ben and Jerry's pay scale was such that the salaries of the eponymous Ben and Jerry were never more than ten times that of the lowest-paid employee. Eventually, they sold out to the Dark Side. We've seen that movie before. It's easy to say that, if I won the small business lottery and found myself heading a big company, that I'd be different. Heck, it's probably sheer hubris to say it. But I'm gonna say it anyway. In front of the entire internet, even. And I'm gonna go one better than B&J. My salary? Five times, max. If the bills are paid and there's a bit left over for a vacation once a year and a gadget or three, do I really need anything else? Okay, maybe setting up college/retirement trust funds for my family. But a beach house? Oh, please. I'd have a company to serve. Not to mention that I sunburn in a heartbeat.
But here's what: I'm also the kid who hid her stacks of $500s and $100s under the Monopoly board and looked the other way when her stepsister landing on Boardwalk or Park Place would have bankrupted her. Why? Because that would have brought the game--and consequently the fun--to an end. If you're not in it for the game, why bother? You can make more working for The Man. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The only thing "wrong" is becoming The Man. When your bathwater starts tasting like '82 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, it's time to stop drinking. (Actually, when it tastes like anything other than bathwater, it's time to stop drinking, but you know what I mean...)
So, on second thought, perhaps I am somewhat wrong about losing a mentor. Because an example of how not to be can be equally instructive.
