The Strange Tale of a Man and His Wise Pirate Duck
By: Luca Rossi
Tags: Life Lessons, Programming, Productivity, Humor, Self Improvement

The Pragmatic Duck in the Professional Life

Image by Manfred Antranias Zimmer from Pixabay

Me: Ok Pirate Duck, time to get to work. I’m pretty stuck and I don’t know how to start.

PD: …

Me: Why stuck? Well, first, it is totally unclear what the goal of this project is. Second, I’m basically in charge of a team with no skills. I could be a lot faster if I did this project alone.

PD: …

Me: No, I’m not being a jerk and I’m not mad for what happened with the cashier. I just need to figure this out.

PD: …

Me: What do you mean by “step back”?

PD: …

PD: …

Me: Ah, so you are telling me that I should ask for clear specifications instead of working blindly. Okay. About my team, I’m not saying that they are dumb, I’m just saying that they lack the specific skill set for this project.

PD: …

Me: The team members weren’t chosen by me, we were put together by the project supervisor. She is not involved in the actual work though.

PD: …

Me: Telling the supervisor? Isn’t it a bit of a dick move?

PD: …

Me: Yes, I agree that finishing the project is more important than pretending that everybody can give a meaningful contribution. But I don’t think that the supervisor would ever agree. She understands nothing about software engineering, she thinks that programming skills are enough, while internal coordination and refactoring are important as well.

PD: …

Me: Yes, I’m sure they can’t give a meaningful contribution. This is a €250,000 project and they just started programming, they have a different background than mine. Even if they could give a contribution, it would require me more time to lead them and explain them things than to do the work all by myself.

PD: …

Me: It’s loss aversion, she prefers to think that they are useful rather than knowing that she pays them for nothing.

PD: …

Me: I can’t tell the team either. They would see it as unprofessional if I just told them to stop working and let me do the job. And, of course, they would feel really bad.

PD: …

Me: Yes, I tried that too. I’m not really proud of it, but I gave them meaningless tasks so they think they are doing something. Still, it didn’t work either. Even if the tasks were very simple, they relied too much on me and kept asking for my help wasting my time.

PD: …

Me: Yes, I know that I’m being a dickhead and I agree that this experience could help me hone my leadership skills. But it doesn’t solve the problem. Some skills take time to develop, you can’t just teach them for a project with a close deadline.

PD: …

Me: Are you sure that being honest is really a good idea?

PD: …

Me: Yeah, I guess that my leadership skills suck hard. Okay, I will be honest. I will tell them that, in order to work on an IT project in a team, they have to gain skills that go way beyond pure programming. I’ll hand each of them a copy of The Pragmatic Programmer. I’ll give them two weeks to read it and complete all the exercises, only then they may decide whether or not to go back on the project. Hopefully, they will realize by themselves that they have much more to learn. In the meantime, I’ll work on the project myself.

PD: …

Me: Thank you, Pirate Duck. I guess you are not just judgemental, but helpful too. [squeezes PD softly]

PD: Quack!

I had a call with my team and it went better than I expected. I called the project supervisor to clarify the specifications and it went well. Then I proceeded to work for some hours by myself.

Later That Night…

I logged on Medium to write the second part of my story on politics. But something didn’t feel right. I thought that the most rational thing I could do was to ask for advice to my wise mentor duck again.

Me: You know what? I’m not really sure that’s a good idea. Maybe I should stop writing that story.

PD: …

Me: Yes, I know, I promised a second part. But the first one didn’t get anywhere closer to the minimum level of popularity I expected. Nobody gave a fuck, and I could expect the same for the second one.

PD: …

Me: Yes, I know that’s my fault somehow. What do you think I did wrong?

PD: …

Me: Yes, that makes sense. That story was long as fuck. A 26-minute read, nobody has got time for that. Imagine if I published the whole thing as one single story.

PD: …

Me: So I should write shorter stories? You know, a couple of stories ago I said that writing long stories was a good thing.

PD: …

Me: Yes, I also said that writers should change their minds often as a sign of growth. Well, I still believe in long stories, but I want to give short ones a try. Where should I start?

PD: …

Me: Stories as in actual stories? You mean, stories of my life? That doesn’t sound bad, go on.

PD: …

PD: …

PD: …

Me: Okay, let me get this straight. You are suggesting to write a story on these conversations I’m having with you? You think that talking to a rubber duck is not a normal thing but maybe people could still learn something from it?

PD: …

Me: Okay, so I’m definitely not normal but that can sound like an interesting story. What other types of short stories can I write?

PD: …

Me: The leadership challenge I’m facing now that we talked about before? That’s probably a good idea.

PD: …

Me: Yeah, I guess I could start writing short fiction too. Not bad, Pirate Duck. I think I will keep writing both long stories and short stories. I’ll probably experiment with different storytelling approaches.

PD: Quack!