An intolerance for the untalented?

Dinner-time conversations can take strange and introspective turns, and a recent one I had with a few friends exemplifies this well. Present were a couple friends including Jermyn, the dude from Macintosh Matrimony. We were talking about (surprise, surprise) - football. All (aside from me, that is) are fans of Manchester United Football Club.

Manchester United's recent dip in fortunes had us discussing old stalwarts like the fearsome Roy Keane, who wasn't as technically gifted as the footballers in Manchester United's squad today, but more than compensated for that through grit and passion, full-blooded aggression and the utter lack of sympathy for weakness. This led to a discussion of his success as a Manager, and how his brand of discipline was what some teams absolutely needed.

And then the topic veered towards retired footballers who are now Managers. I remarked that retired footballers don't often make great Managers, primarily because Managerial skills are very different from footballing skills (more on that another day... maybe). And Jermyn said that sometimes, the more gifted the footballer, the less patience he has with those who aren't as naturally talented. It was at that point one of the others said something to the effect of her understanding exactly what this means, because her boss often tells her to be more patient towards the mistakes of others as not everyone is as naturally talented as she is.

Ahead of the pack.

And that gave me some food for thought.

Not because I don't think my friends are talented. They probably are. I've never actually given the subject of their talent much thought.

And not because I don't agree that people who are talented don't have much patience with people who aren't as talented. From a certain angle, it does make a certain kind of sense.

But it did strike me that I exhibit a similar lack of patience with techs who make certain mistakes, and it's not because I think I'm more talented. Quite the reverse, actually.

You see, I don't think I'm very technically talented at all. There are concepts that I've yet to grasp, concepts that other techs seem to grasp almost intuitively. Everything I know, everything I've worked in, very little of it has anything to do with talent. It's all countless hours of trial and error, fueled by youthful (and now much less youthful) enthusiasm.

And it's precisely because of that, that I have very little patience for people who can't do as well. If I think I suck and someone does worse than me, there are only two possible conclusions I can draw.

The first conclusion is that if this person can't even be better than me, he's not worth bothering with. I don't expect tech talent to be great. I only expect them to be better than me. That's by no means a high bar.

The second conclusion is that this person can't be arsed, and that's a lot less forgivable. Code indentation, spacing, proper useful comments, testing your work - all these are basics. They're low-hanging fruit. You don't need to be a talented tech or possess some super-genius intellect to manage these. A child could do this. These mistakes are the kind of mistakes that arise from negligence, not incompetence. The latter I can forgive, because who am I to judge, right? But there is zero excuse for the former and I have very little tolerance for professionals who can't be bothered. Go do something else, because if you don't care enough about your work, someone else will. Being paid to code is a privilege that too few people actually try to earn.

I suspect that Roy Keane and I are very much on the same page in this regard. Talent can be trained. Attitude can't.

With much patience,
T___T