Re: Do I Really Need A Supervisor?

[mfb@mbunix.mitre.org (Michael F Brenner)]

You are wrong for posting this to comp.lang.ada, but right in observing
that supervisors of technical people are pure overhead, and we have
about 92 percent too many of them, similar to the fact that we have
far too many laws, fears, ignorances, intolerances, and cravings. By
using process reengineering metrics to measure the cost and contribution of 
the supervisors you would be able to cost-justify elminating all but one
level of management supervision, all but one level of technical supervision,
and all interpersonal rivalries, scapegoating, and personality conflicts.
However, this justification will not result in the supervisors going away,
because modern business exists to support those supervisors, not the
engineers or customers. If you start your own business, you have the right
to choose to support the engineers and customers instead of the supervisors.
But look at what programmers are doing today, almost all user interfaces
and administrative overhead work like legal justifications, medical
justification databases, and psycho-socio workers carrying out their program
of identifying witches to hunt. This will continue until society as a whole 
decides that it is more fun to build cities underwaters, on Moon, and on Mars, 
to replace atom smashing with fusion energy, and to share our world with
artificial computer intelligences to enhance our enjoyment of life, our
love of our fellows, service to our planet, both physical and spiritual.