Programmers vs. Management

Posted on 17. Apr, 2008 by Carolyn Shelby in Miscellany

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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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Tags: humor, management, programmer

11 Responses to “Programmers vs. Management”

Michael VanDeMar

17. Apr, 2008

ROFLMAO! That is great! :D
Joff

19. Apr, 2008

Heh fantastic!
Astrit

20. Apr, 2008

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

23. Apr, 2008

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

23. Apr, 2008

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

23. Apr, 2008

@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.
Scott Clark

25. Apr, 2008

Loved it… stumbled.
Tom Kelly

08. May, 2008

Carolyn,

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

Tom
Bobbi

09. May, 2008

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

22. May, 2008

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 :(-
Ryan Rose

09. Jul, 2008

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.