Is there anything developers won't do for a pizza?
advice.cio.com
advice.cio.com
Although sometimes the food is better, oftentimes I'd much rather have decent pizza than the mass-produced crap they serve.
(And she's a No Free Luncher, so we don't do these anymore, and she doesn't eat the free food in the hospital that everyone else does. Somehow, everyone is the one that isn't affected by the advertising.
Maybe Microsoft should start sending reps around to software shops with free lunch? I bet it'd be an effective strategy.)
I briefly wrote for a magazine for professional conference organizers. (Think: the people who run MacWorld or TechEd.) I was told that, despite techie's assumption that we run the universe, the profession responsible for most conference bookings is doctors. Seems that every drug company HAS to do a "full disclosure" meeting for every new medicine. Most of those vendors have more money than tech companies do.
But you note that they don't promise pizza. They may deliver bad rubber chicken, but they can promise a full lunch.
Rubber chicken indeed, but I'll take free food in exchange for that room any day of the week.
Need more productivity from your software development staff? Need 'em to put in more hours to get a project done on time? Buy 'em a pizza and hand out t-shirts. It's an age-old and effective method to get programmers and techies to willingly (sometimes enthusiastically) give up a weekend. But why do they come so cheap?
What a great summary of everything that's wrong with this moribund, soulless industry.