[A picture of private offices at Fog Creek Software] Alert! This ancient trifle retrieved from the Joel on Software archive is well-past its expiration date. Proceed with care.
Wanted: SDET - Software Developer in Test at Vertafore (Bothell, WA 98011). See this and other great job listings on the jobs page.

Joel on Software

02

by Joel Spolsky
Saturday, August 02, 2003

Picture of Norway's FlagOslo Dinner

You're invited to a Joel on Software dinner in Oslo, Norway on Thursday, August 14th, at 19:30 at Peppe's Pizza, Karl Johansgate 1 (outside Oslo S).  I'm arriving that afternoon on SAS 1514; you may want to check if the flight is horribly delayed or cancelled, in which case the meeting is still on but I won't be there!

Yes, we'll have more dinners in other cities in the future.

Joel (March 28): “... when you relocate more than a couple of miles, some employees' lives would be too disrupted to make the move, so you lose a lot of employees, and all the institutional knowledge, skill, and experience that comes with those employees. While I was working at Viacom one of their companies, Blockbuster, decided to move from Florida to Texas after they hired a new CEO who lived in — Texas! What a coincidence! Only a small portion of the employees made the move. For years and years the business press watched agog as Blockbuster made mistake after inexcusable mistake, re-trying all kinds of ideas that had failed only two years earlier.”

LA Times (April 13): “Investigators are examining whether the move eviscerated Boeing's technical capability and played a role in the Columbia disaster on Feb. 1.... The decision to move the jobs was highly unpopular among Boeing's workforce, and about 80% of the California engineers refused to relocate, forcing the company to hire workers in Texas and forfeit much of the experience of its California engineering base.”


Work with me, here! Fog Creek Software has great paid internships in software development for qualified college students. They’re in New York City. Free housing, lunch, and more. And you get to work on real, shipping software with the smartest developers in the business.

Want to know more?

You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.



About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.

© 2000-2009 Joel Spolsky