Programmers vs. Management

Received from my mom today, via email.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the
ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be a programmer,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded, “You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

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11 Responses to “Programmers vs. Management”

  1. Michael VanDeMar April 17, 2008 at 9:55 am #

    ROFLMAO! That is great! :D

  2. Joff April 19, 2008 at 12:16 pm #

    Heh fantastic!

  3. Astrit April 20, 2008 at 1:47 pm #

    Oh my god this was fantastic hahaa, I love your mom’s sense of spotting nice jokes ;)

  4. probabilityzero April 23, 2008 at 12:56 am #

    This was in User Friendly (the web comic) a long time ago. Great joke.

  5. it April 23, 2008 at 11:22 am #

    ripped off. this was originally a physics vs manager joke not programming

  6. Carolyn Shelby April 23, 2008 at 11:25 am #

    @it: Dude, I didn’t say my mom wrote it… she just forwarded it to me. I didn’t see where it came from originally.

    So seriously, chill. It was just funny and I wanted to share it.

  7. Scott Clark April 25, 2008 at 9:33 am #

    Loved it… stumbled.

  8. Tom Kelly May 8, 2008 at 7:41 am #

    Carolyn,

    Just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished. Keep sharing the good jokes and ignore the flaming idiots.

    Tom

  9. Bobbi May 9, 2008 at 10:40 am #

    Very nice one.. So what career is better one?
    Business or IT?
    Which is higly paid one?

  10. /pd May 22, 2008 at 7:54 am #

    I hate it when I find gems like this and I fail to finder the blog owners handle for either twitter /FF.

    Sub’ing to another RSS is so lame :(-

  11. Ryan Rose July 9, 2008 at 12:41 pm #

    Carolyn,

    This is a great post! I’ve been listening to your podcast for about a year and figured it was time to actually visit your site and drop you a line.

    I don’t care if this joke was lifted from somewhere else. It’s still funny as hell and applicable.

    Thanks for all the great info.

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