Digg This Plz

Err Salman, I hope you mean it as a compliment If you really love irony, there is a tiny ‘Share This’ icon on the page, but that would be cruel

Who are more capable - Architects or Managers?

I mostly agree with you mansoor – it is just a matter of context, and I think the actual question needed some clarification.

Yasser is thinking in terms of a 7 developer team, because I know that he is running a startup, and therefore, he is absolutely right from his point of view – There are numerous examples of success starring a technically competent manager/architect in that particular scenario.

You are probably thinking in the range of a few hundred people making “enterprise-level” solutions (god I hate that phrase), where such specialization is actually needed. There, a manager can survive and thrive with good people skills, given a half-decent technical team, instead of spreading himself thin filling two hats.

This is why i say it doesn’t have to be binary – no two cases are alike.

So to answer the original question: “Who would you side with? Yasser or Adnan?”
Why do I need to pick sides? Can’t I side with both of them?

Now, take the G&W community along with you via Twitter

I came here just to post the suggestion that Tayyab has already given. Thanks for saving my fingers Tayyab!

A Case Study in Professional Ethics in the IT Industry

Kamran, that is a good point.
I used this real case for my first post here on G&W as it is a classic case of the “This is Pakistan” or (“Yeh Pakistan Hai”) syndrome, a phrase that most of us hate. I really hope we can continue to discuss and think about similar small yet important issues, because bunched together, they make up the Pakistan brand.
I decided not to disclose any identities (The Shop/The CEO/K/his institute) because I wanted to use Mr. K as an example for constructive discussion rather than hijacking Green & White to use it as a propaganda tool against Mr. K.
Given that the management of The Shop belongs to other cities/countries and does not have the connections to block Mr. K’s career paths until he repents (though they may have the connections to break his legs, above the knees or burns hi car (kidding!)), perhaps they can begin by contacting the new employer and we can see if the new employer merely wants a resource or has some higher ethical standards and confronts Mr. K about it. I hope Mr. CEO comes to a decision and updates us via this thread soon.

A Case Study in Professional Ethics in the IT Industry

Thank you for your input aa, I think this is probably the other side of the story’ that Kamran wanted to hear.
It looks like you have had some bad experiences, I completely agree with the “right to better pay and lifestyle” philosophy.
I don’t think a CEO can ditch you at a day’s notice otherwise – there is usually an X days notice or the same amount of pay from employer clause in contracts to counter that.
IMHO, Mr. K has every right to “ditch” any company to move on to a higher paying job, if ditching is all he does. I would define ditching as either telling your prospective employer no thanks, after they make the job offer, or, once you have joined, telling your CURRENT employer, sorry, gotta go, have a better offer, here’s your 1 month notice, I’m leaving next month (or, here’s the 1 month salary that I need to pay for leaving the next day).
I am not a lawyer, but failure to do either of the last two things takes you from an “I ditched my employer for a better pay” to a “Haha, see, this is Pakistan, I can do whatever I please” situation.

Similarly, it is tricky to define “playing dirty” and is part of my question. Since our legal system does not work the same way as the USA or European countries (where you can sue for slander), so we need to define:
* ruin someone’s life (would the CEO actually ruin Mr. K’s life by legal action? Would he be the bad guy? Did Mr. K ruin the CEO’s life by breaking a contract?)
* playing dirty (Is using job offers as stepping stone playing dirty? Is stalking someone who ditched you playing dirty?)
I also think we have the tendency to take things a bit too personally, and we are uncomfortable unless we have chosen sides, so it is either the CEO or Mr. K.
A lot of such questions can be asked, argued upon and answered.
Breaking legs is probably A solution, but it is not THE solution we should go for – atleast not until we set up a few dozen wheelchair factories.

A Case Study in Professional Ethics in the IT Industry

Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response. There’s certainly a lot of brain-power at work here

The CEO, is indeed the CEO of The Shop, whom I have invited here for a more direct interaction.
The New CEO, though, is probably an entity from a parallel universe from some time a months in the future

So far, from the comments, we figure out that Mr. K explicitly did not want a probation period (it would have been his 2nd probation period there, doesn’t make a lot of sense).

@mansoor: I totally agree with you on the “star players leave early” part. They want to solve the problems at hand and move on to higher grounds instead of being “dead wood”. Star players don’t, however, sign a contract and back out of it two days later, so Mr. K is certainly no star player. The Shop is already working on an intern mentoring plan.
I don’t know about Mr. CEO, but I personally try to try to let other candidates off the hook as soon as I have hired somebody for a position, so as not to keep them waiting. Unless you have the funds to employ and retain redundant resources, not everyone can keep people waiting in a queue (if there is any alternative practice that allows it, do share it here, maybe the CEO and everyone else can benefit from it).

@Kamran I would have to disagree on retention by pay-raise (the More-Bucks solution) for two reasons:

1- It sets up an example for the other employees. Every time they want a raise, all they need to do is get a higher job offer and wave it in front of the employer’s face. It does work, I’ve seen it work dozens of times, and Mr. K probably used The Shop’s contract to achieve just that. Sure, we are all in the market to sell ourselves, but ethics in my dictionary is knowing where to stop.
2- It shows that the employer COULD have paid the employee higher, but he didn’t bother until he/she was forced to do that. Personally speaking, I wouldn’t want to work for such an employer with a bad taste in my mouth, and would rather move on after outgrowing a certain position.

So the question remains, what is The CEO to do?
If Mr. K says I don’t give a damn what you do, then after picking your brains (thanks again, really), I would have to agree with Mr. New CEO, who brings knowledge from the future…
As long as it does not cost a lot in terms of time and money, Mr. CEO should pursue the matter legally, and agreeing with Kamran that it should start a buzz and at least waste some of Mr. K’s time, and perhaps make him question if what he did was really worth it.

@Neerahi If I remember correctly, a long time ago, P@SHA took (or was planning on) such an incentive where the members could blacklist persons just like Mr. K, so that they had a tough time getting a job with other P@SHA members. Does anybody know what became of that?

PingMyCompany.com is looking for enemies

This is too funny, I tried going to the website but it was down.
So I pinged…

PING pingmycompany.com (64.202.189.170) 56(84) bytes of data.
— pingmycompany.com ping statistics —
30 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 29069ms

Apple Store opens in Lahore along with Raffles

because Raffles has a dedicated PR team perhaps?