Humour

Putting cats to work

T A Balasubramanian on how engineers at work are so similar to cats

It is that time of the year at Baffle Corporation when you, Papyrus Bytewala, the flustered CIO, gather your ‘people requirement projections’ and sit in a huddle with the resident ‘Chief of Staff,’ Gulabi Manpowa, otherwise known as the HR Head. Inundated with requests from your team leader, Brooke Bond, to urgently provide only the smartest and brightest programming stars from the outside world—as opposed to a motley crowd of keyboard-savvy kids who think they are geniuses—you are, understandably, on edge.

“I am at my wit’s end, Gulabi. We have projects hanging fire with too few people to use as cannon-fodder, I have run through my budget and have nothing left for hiring replacements, and the customers are getting testy every week as we keep delaying deliveries. So can we run through my requirements quickly?” you say. “Did you get the e-mail from Mr Bond?”

“You mean Brooke. Yes, I did, Papyrus,” coos Manpowa, ponderous and unflappable in the face of such enthusiastic pushing. “Now, let me see what we have here,” she says slowly, pulling out a file that looks ready to burst at the seams. “Ah, here it is. Your ever-meticulous Brooke has put in a fairly long description of what managing computer coders is all about …”

“We like to call them software engineers, Gulabi. It makes them feel a lot better,” you interject.

“Well, if that is what some like to style themselves, I will play along, Papyrus, but according to Brooke, in this long essay, managing these wayward coders … oops, I mean, engineers … is like herding cats.”

“Ah, Gulabi, Brooke is entitled to his opinion, but I do not particularly like this analogy. We don’t ‘herd’ our software engineers, we manage them. Well, let me tell you that managing my teams is a different art. They are not bovine creatures.”

“Not so, Papyrus. According to Brooke, cats are pretty good at being cats—they have little need for anyone to tell them what to do. Applying any bovine methods to cats merely annoys them, without materially improving the chances that they will do what you want. When the cats in question happen to be bigger than you, annoying them can be very bad for your mental health, he says,” Gulabi reads out, with a giggle.

“He may have a point. I mean you do not expect obedient cows at work, all lined up at milking time. We want all that weird behavior that is the hallmark of a good software engineer. If you attempt to manage them with the strict command-and-control hierarchy that is standard practice for managing factory operators you would annoy them and they will not do what you want.”

“On the other hand, you do have to get them—these weird cats—somehow moving in the same direction, eh?” says Gulabi.

“That is right. It takes a lot of subtlety. If you think carefully about what real cats are good at—sleeping blissfully, rubbing up to their superiors to get favors, looking cute and doing playfully silly things—purring, terrorizing small animals, shredding furniture and paper and so on—then you will notice the difficulty we have in getting our engineers to do what we actually ask them to do.”

“So you are touchy about who we get, and you cannot afford to annoy these cats. I can now see why Brooke has written out these weird job descriptions, Papyrus.”

“All right, what has he put down?”

“First off, he wants a Wizard. He says he does not know how this cat does it, but he or she always ‘seems to solve the apparently intractable problems with unique solutions that no one thought of before.’”

“That’s fine, Gulabi, but with a caveat. A little magic can go a long way in our craft—too much and you may find yourself turned into a wizard’s apprentice rather than a sane manager of industrious teams. In other words, if you depend too much on a Wizard, this cat will get fidgety, then up and leave. A Wizard of Ooze, so to speak.”

“The next in his list is a Minimalist. This cat, he says, produces very little code, though it is often very powerful. Every procedure fits on a single screen. Objects are nice and tidy and have a single-minded purpose. Rather like a fastidious creature, licking his whiskers clean. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“Well, yes, it can be, as long as the Minimalist is not just trying to get through the job so he or she can move on to the next, more exciting project. Most Minimalists are easily bored once the problem is solved. And they are often very bad at maintenance. Which means others have to do the dirty work for them.”

“If you say so, Papyrus. Now here is one more—an Analogist. This is the cat that really is not very good at abstraction but is excellent at analogy. This is one I do not understand.”

“Ah, yes, I know one already—El Gizmo. He can drive you mad during the design meetings as you get fed up with his analogies, but he can catch a problem by the scruff of the neck, and he can often produce practical, maintainable code. The analogies are always about some tangible object rather than an abstract one. You get the idea.”

“I think I do, Papyrus. At least in an abstract way,” says Gulabi, looking dazed. “Now what am I to do with these job descriptions?”

“Nothing much. You can add that these cats have moods that are unpredictable. If it is something they can do but don’t like doing you will need to provide good incentives—a few mice, literally—or they will all drift away. If it is something they like doing, which matches fairly well to what they are good at, you can mostly leave them to it—they will need very little herding. Of course, you may have to ensure they dispose of bio-waste (like pizza crumbs) in socially acceptable places and keep them from fighting or tearing up the office furniture, so you will have to pay attention and be ready to intervene with a vet when necessary. All clear and simple, so far?”

“Papyrus, be a noble CIO and do me a favor. Please hire a wise IT dog, too. This way, your cats can be kept alert and we HR folks can breathe easier.”

“What for, Gulabi? The post is already taken by this old hound in front of you.”