W@17: “The shocking thing — to me at least — was to discover that behind the grand titles and despite the gorgeous trappings, what little men so many “leaders” are. And I say this not in denigration, but simply as what appears to be a fact.”

It IS a simple fact, and occurs in the business world as well, though perhaps to a lesser degree than politics.

I am in a unique professional situation right now. I was a software developer/programmer/programmer-analyst/software engineer/whatever-but-they-all-mean-the-same-thing for 18 years. I burned out. I went temporarily insane, got my class A license and first drove big rigs over the road and then a school bus for a year or so to try to refresh. I was pretty sure I had succeeded, so I went looking to get back into software. Purely by accident, I came across an open position for a “tele-Developer Evangelist”. It was just a quirky enough title that I took a flier on it and sent in my resume.

Now I know W and others here either currently do similar work to mine or have before. But evangelizing is a different critter. I’m not even sure whether I like it or not yet, and I’ve been doing it for about 4 months. Essentially, what I do for a living is sit and yap on the phone about technology, and particularly that of my employer who I probably shouldn’t name outright but every person in the developed world has used their stuff at one point or another…leave it at that. Anyway, it’s pretty cool because I get to have about $100,000 worth of the latest-and-greatest versions of development software, databases and stuff installed on my work box and am encouraged to play with it as often as I have the time. Fun stuff.

I also get to talk to a LOT of CEOs and CTOs/CIOs, and other executive types. Some of these are top captains of well-known companies in the US. Some are brilliant and a lot of fun to rap with. And, alas, some very obviously got their jobs because daddy owned the company or something.

Now I’m a geek. I’m at least something of a trekkie, I love Tolkien’s work, I played D&D and carried my dice around with me just in case in high school. I was and probably still am a social misfit. Luckily, so seem to be the most qualified CTOs out there, though the best ones are certainly better-adjusted than me. On a conference call recently on the spur of the moment I told a joke I had recently seen on facebook regarding CERN’s recent apparent discovery that some neutrinos apparently can travel faster than light:

The bartender said “we don’t serve your kind here.”
So a faster-than-light neutrino walks into a bar.

Yes, of COURSE it’s lame and geeky. That was the POINT. It was my first 1-on-1 discussion with a guy that was supposed to be a tech guy, and any tech guy worth his salt would at least get a mild chuckle on hearing that for the first time, and something like that might even imply to him that I’m a technically engaged, broad-researching guy who may know some stuff that he would find valuable. This guy greeted it with stone-cold silence. Of the 5 times I’ve used it in discussions, he was the only one that didn’t appreciate it. I thought I might be up on murder charges with two other CTOs who had trouble breathing they were laughing so hard (both of whom later struck me as really good at what they do).

So we got on to the real discussion. This man runs a shop with hundreds of developers, testers, service technicians and the rest. He’s supposed to be the leading, bleeding edge. The dude is supposed to be a tech rainmaker, a guy others go to for strategic advice.

I wouldn’t go to him to ask where the nearest bathroom is, because he probably doesn’t know. I’m sure the guy pulls down a six figure salary several times over…but damned if I know why. I can only figure nepotism, but I don’t know that. Maybe he caught the CEO cheating on his wife or something. But it sure isn’t leadership or technical smarts.