Yes. We’ve been hearing this phrase since our childhood. At first time I didn’t realize how true is it…
I love interviews. Sometime I interview young programmers to see if they can grow up into good helpers for us since we’re growing up and employees must be “grown” from their childhood.
When I’m talking with these boys (and one of them was a girl) first of all I look at their CVs. Here comes the first filter: good guys show what they have done, bad ones how what they “can” do.
“Why didn’t you specify the list of things you done before?”
“Oh they were just couple of sites but I can do much larger things”
“How would I know that if I didn’t see none of your works”
And then after some blah blah blah comes my favorite second part. I call it “how much money did you really made on this site”
“Okay, let’s see some of your sites”
And he shows me couple of his sites: good or bad.
“What did you make them with?”
“What do you mean?”
“Framework, cms, components, whatever…”
“That’s lame! I use things made by my own hands and brain. Only losers would use some others’ things.”
And now comes the time to teach him a lesson.
“How much does your time cost?” — I ask him.
“Well… I never worked for blah blah blah…”
“Just tell me how much would cost me an hour of your work!”
And after using 100% of his brain calculations guy’s giving me an answer. Very modest one.
“XX dollars”
“Then let’s calculate the real profit of this site you made. Tell me, please, how much did you get for it and how many time did you spend on it.”
In the end of simple 3rd grade math calculation appearas that site costed to him much more than to a client.
“Just think: if Mercedes was mining steel for its cars by themselves. That’s stupid.”
Never shy to use others’ ideas and technologies moreover if they’re in public access. Never shy to use powerful tools to ease your work. Tools and instruments: only them will bring your talent (if you got one) to a higher level.
We at oxydica got some talent. And we won’t let it become a prisoner of our self-complacence.
