83 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
83 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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Rinaldo's Laws
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As I will be leaving the Washington area in early May, I thought it
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appropriate to share the wisdom that I have accumulated thus far. These
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truths have come not as a vision but by observation over time. Accordingly,
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I have synthesized the following laws.
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Choreography is its own reward
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Some things are done only for the sake of form. Don't fight it by
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looking for substance in everything. Do it long enough and you'll
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find enjoyment in an elephant dance.
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He who does the work shapes it
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As applied to computers, he who writes the code rules (the Coding
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rule). In meetings, he who writes the minutes determines the
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outcome.
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The less the knowledge, the more jealously it is preserved
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Societies with only a few precious facts make their people memorize
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them and pledge to faithfully abide by them. In contrast, highly
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developed disciplines quit worrying about losing knowledge (unless the
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computer crashes and there is no backup).
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Excellence increases demands
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Critics gather to spot tinier flaws as work nears perfection.
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Promptness invites impatience. In correspondence, the faster you
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answer a letter, the faster your correspondent will answer giving you
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something with a shorter deadline. This reaches a fever pitch with
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electronic mail.
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Skills diminish professionalism
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Engineers who admit to drafting skills are vulnerable to assignment of
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drafting work, just to help out. Similarly, female professionals
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should hide any clerical skills lest they be asked to pinch hit for
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one of the secretaries in the event of illness.
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What separates the competent from the incompetent is the ability to
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cover up mistakes
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Many successful sales demonstrations have been made with defective
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products in the hands of competent persons who avoid demonstrating the
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features which don't work. Beautiful Xerox copies can be made from
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originals riddled with correction fluid. Recovery from some grievous
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errors can be attained by simply announcing, "No problem. We'll just
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put it back in the word processor!" The computer software profession
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seems to be the exception; who else is so blatant as to have a term
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such as "debugging" to let the world know that they need extra time
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funded by the customer to correct their own errors.
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Silence is not acquiescence
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Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is not
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necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply may sit
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in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after they
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regain their composure.
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Quick-reaction and slow-reaction facilities rotate
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Once people discover that there is a quick-reaction facility (QRF),
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they will try to get all their work done there, bogging it down in
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work and leaving the slow-reaction facility (SRF) nothing to do, thus
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becoming the faster of the two.
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Complexity attracts brilliance
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The KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle is no fun and certainly
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not a professional approach. If you want brilliant people to do work
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for you make it complex and demanding. The true professional will
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spend 20 hours at the computer writing a one-time-use program that
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will replace 10 hours of clerical work. Anyway, 20 hours at
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professional rates pays more than 10 hours at clerical rates. Also,
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it's more intellectually rewarding. The greatest achievement is to
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use one's finest professional talents to accomplish something that
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didn't need to be done.
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Bad guys are replaced
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Did you ever rejoice over the departure of someone that you couldn't
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get along with only to find that a replica has shown up? When you are
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trying to make a U-turn and you have someone tailgating you, have you
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pulled off on a side street, then into an alley only to find that two
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other cars are right behind you?
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-------
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