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Not all developers are consultants, you know.
I work in a corporate IT department. I never deal with the company's customers (we don't sell software or software services), but I deal with EVERYONE in the company regarding various pieces of software.
But I wouldn't refer to my co-workers as clients.
So, I ended up choosing "not applicable," which doesn't seem quite right either, since I'm not a student or hobbyist.
Grim (aka Toby) MCDBA, MCSD, MCP+SB
SELECT * FROM user WHERE clue IS NOT NULL
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Well with all of my degrees i have to say that you opion is not correct since anybody who ask you for help is a client in the professional world and you should treat internal clients no differant then external ones. Keep this in mind when dealing with people and your career will improve.
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Wow... That was arrogant.
"Those that say a task is impossible shouldn't interrupt the ones who are doing it." - Chinese Proverb
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I don't think the intent of the question was to infer that developers are consultants. In my experience, most developers I know would be very poor consultants.
HOWEVER, I do agree with TVG that your co-workers could indeed be considered clients. I remember interviewing with the IT department of a large (LARGE) oil/gas company, and they considered the rest of the company to be clients and would bill time against certain charge codes, depending on the project.
In such a situation, the co-workers become clients, and you would work with them to determine software requirements, timelines, deliverables, etc.
"Those that say a task is impossible shouldn't interrupt the ones who are doing it." - Chinese Proverb
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Grimolfr wrote:
Not all developers are consultants, you know
Ever work for a startup? You'll (quickly) get to wear several hats and shed your ego in a hurry. 
/ravi
My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536
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ravib@ravib.com
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It lets you know what they want instead of what management asks for.
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I work for a relatively small company and as such do a bit of everything. Initial requirements meetings, designing the spec, coding the solution right through to installation, training and support of bespoke software. I am also heavily involved in the support and training for our main product as well as some development work on it.
Prior to this I also worked in a purely support position for a number of years. I believe that all that experience of dealing direct with the customers (sometimes when they are at their most desperate) is probably why I have such a great relationship with my current clients, and is certainly far more valuable to me than perhaps 10 years of pure coding since I hope to go self employed next year. Sadly the only thing I have not had any experience of is the sales side which I know I will need to get to grips with rapidly.
Jon
(hope my boss doesn't read this)
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Now that I work for CP I will have to deal with 1,470,002 clients on a daily basis.
I hope I do a good job for you guys and gals.
regards,
Paul Watson
South Africa
Michael Dunn wrote:
"except the sod who voted this a 1, NO SOUP FOR YOU"
Crikey! ain't life grand?
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Paul Watson wrote:
I will have to deal with 1,470,002 clients on a daily basis
Wow! Those client meeting must take up some time. Assuming an 8 hour working day, you'd need to ensure you don't take any more than 0.02 seconds per greeting just to individually say hello to everyone.
Do you want to know more?
Vogon Building and Loan advise that your planet is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on any mortgage secured upon it. Please remember that the force of gravity can go up as well as down.
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Or he could just say "Hello All"
"if you vote me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" - Michael P. Butler.
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Ah... But nothing beats the personal touch.
Do you want to know more?
Vogon Building and Loan advise that your planet is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on any mortgage secured upon it. Please remember that the force of gravity can go up as well as down.
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Hmmm... this is true! I had not thought of it this way before. Please note that from now on I'm always right. Nikon rocks, gherkins have become the new chocolate and early mornings are the best time of day for sane thought 
Look at the world about you and trust to your own convictions. - Ansel Adams
Meg's World - Blog
Photography
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Megan Forbes wrote:
Nikon rocks
Aye! ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif) Nothing like curling up with a war weary F2, waiting for that perfect sunrise. <sigh> I miss the old days... (when I had time to shoot).
/ravi
My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536
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ravib@ravib.com
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because it has the not-applicable, no job option. Guess that will my answer for all code project polls.
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Most of our customers are decidedly non-technical, so the phrase in the subject line of this post is heard often during meetings. As I am one of the few people in my department who can explain things "in English", management likes to trot me out in front of the customer to provided the dumbed-down explanation.
--
Paul
"I drank... WHAT?"
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...can be a humbling experience!
When the company I work for first started, all programmers had to start off in the Support department, usually for at least 6 months. This improved peoples communication skills and gave them invaluble experience "at the sharp end". After all, that angry customer on the end of the phone is essentially paying your wages.
I spent 18 months in PC support and the experience I gained is hard to quantify, but I am much better when dealing with customers (especially angry ones who have just had one of my apps explode in their face!). This was also pre-email - dealing with a support problem over the phone is a completely different kettle of fish than replying to mail. It can be VERY stressful - 5:15PM on a Friday and a customers system is down... despite many people thinking of Support workers as "drones", they can be put under immense pressure...
The company no longer has this policy and, to be honest, it really shows. The arrogance displayed by some developers here is scary and only adds to the whole "us and them" mentality (coders vs customers).
Most developers here would refuse point blank to talk to a customer - not necessarily because they have better things to do, but because they lack the necessary skills and would probably make the situation far worse. I don't do much front-line support nowadays, but if there is no-one else around, or the call is of a particularly technical nature, then I am more than happy to help out.
The Rob Blog
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Yep, I can hear you. Most developers are introvert persons who prefer to deal with computers than with people. No wonder, people are way more complicated than computers. However, we must not forget that we are not paid to code - we are paid to solve our customers' problems. We can't just sit and code in the vacuum - we need to interact with people, learn how to communicate with them effectivly. Even more, we must look forward to talking with our customers and finding out about their needs. Too many projects failed because of the lack of communication between developers and users.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
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Nearly every job I've done since I started in the industry has had me doing both development and support. My first couple of jobs, I'd be coding away and have to answer support calls.
Not to mention all the times I had to go to a clients site and manually patch a corrupted file. This in the days before we all used proper databases, when all we had were flat files with byte offsets pointing to the next record in the file.
I hated it back then, but the experience has made me a better developer. I still find it regrettable that todays developers starting out don't get the same treatment. I think we'd have better software if they did.
Michael
CP Blog [^]
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Michael P Butler wrote:
the experience has made me a better developer. I still find it regrettable that todays developers starting out don't get the same treatment. I think we'd have better software if they did.
Aye!
/ravi
My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536
Home | Articles | Freeware | Music
ravib@ravib.com
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....in my previous job.
I used to work for a Software House, and the culture here was more or less "one employee does all". We did everything from getting requirements from clients, showing product presentations, Systems setup, the whole she -bang. And oh yeah, ocassionaly Code. 
I kinda miss it some times.
"if you vote me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" - Michael P. Butler.
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Nick
i definitely know the feeling (hence the suggestion for this poll).
Nick Seng wrote:
I used to work for a Software House, and the culture here was more or less "one employee does all". We did everything from getting requirements from clients, showing product presentations, Systems setup, the whole she -bang. And oh yeah, ocassionaly Code.
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Nick Seng wrote:
I used to work for a Software House, and the culture here was more or less "one employee does all". We did everything from getting requirements from clients, showing product presentations, Systems setup, the whole she -bang. And oh yeah, ocassionaly Code.
I've had to do much the same for most of my working life. It is valuable experience, knowing that you can turn your hand to anything when the situation requires. Although I'd like to forget my brief stint as a trainer. Several care homer owners in a room, with me giving lectures on how to do various tasks on the computer system. It makes me cringe to think about it. Strutting around like a geography teacher. Gagh. Still I was only 19 and didn't know much better. Still it taught me patience, which is a very valuable trait when dealing directly with clients.
Michael
CP Blog [^]
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But hopefully closer to Never real soon now.
--
Weiter, weiter, ins verderben.
Wir müssen leben bis wir sterben.
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I really should not have gone over there, but the boss asked me to, "just in case", so I went.
I got to the office at 08:30 this morning, I have not started to code yet and its 15:00...
I prefer to deal with machines, compilers and that sort of thing.
I sometime get "quiet" periods, where I only go once every few months to clients, now I am in a "rush" period, going almost weekly.
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