Yes - it is the desired outcome.

In fact for some (in a historical sense short) time the IT business was ruled by the witch doctors and not the serfs. This time seems to be over by now and the business has become like any other business: compliance over accomplishment, processes over getting things done, covering ones ass instead of taking responsibility.

Drones are a great sort of human resource, because they are easily intimidated (pardon, make that: "easily managed") and because they are trained to have no innate creativity, responsibility or willingness to achieve anything the product of their work is well calculatable and hence easy to plan with. A witch doctor will easily outperform 10 drones, but when genius strikes he will outperform 1000 drones. You cannot plan with this, because you cannot foresee exactly when the stroke of genius happens. A drone will do every day the same amount of work - next to nil, but predictably so! If you need twice the work done, get twice as many drones.

Frederick Brooks, project leader for the development of OS/360 and OS/370 relates (in his book "The Mythical Man-Month") this project had up to 1500 coders. OS/370 was the predecessor of MVS, and todays z/OS. I bet these 1500 people were not complete drones (this was the seventies of the last century) but not very far from that.

Compare this to the staff that built UNIX at around the same time: a handful of very special individuals (truly witch-doctors of their trade), who did what 1500 people did there, even in less time. But take into account that IBM had a very very rigid dresscode back then and now imagine: what would Denis Ritchie have told some AT&T manager who insisted on DR coming to office in a proper suit, a tie and please get rid of that awful hippie look:



What, do you think, Denis Ritchie would have answered him? How often, do you think, Denis Ritchie was at the office at 8:00 o'clock sharp - not because his muse blessed him but because every employee is to show up at 8am sharp and leave office at 5pm?

Lets face it: the faceless, nameless, disinterested i-am-just-in-it-to-mark-time-towards-retirement's are the future of our business. The time of the witch-doctors is over and if there shows up some raw talent: for every flower sticking out of the grass there is the lawn mower making sure all are of equal height. If someone really accomplishes anything a lot of fulfillment focal points, compliance auditors, project leaders, staging managers and similar ilk will make sure the accomplishment will be ground down is ground down to be as shitty as the rest.

If for nothing else, then for "avoiding dependencies": serfs can easily be replaced and one is as good (or as bad) as the other. Individuals are like they are and once you have lsot one you cannot simply replace it with a "standard Class A individual fo subtype 7". This is why instead of skills, "certifications" are sought after. Back around 1995-2000, Microsoft introduced the "MCSE" certification and the BAA (the national agency for the unemployed in Germany) sent practically every unemployed person to this certfication for some time. Many of these people managed to become certified - but of course, lacking a background in IT, still were unable to work as systems administrators. From this time "MCSE" is said to stand for "Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert". (Actually there are some accomplished M$$ admins, but not in this group and the accomplished ones, more likely than not, shun people with a MCSE, who even mention the fact.)

I have sometimes been asked about a CATE certification (the IBM analogon), but i don't. I still hold seminars sometimes about AIX topics where CATEs show up.

But in a way, these were the human resources which were sought after: easily replaceable, easily intimidated and VERY docile. Tell an accomplished engineer too much bullshit and you will get some deserved answer - along with a letter of resignation in the wake of him seeking for greener pastures. Give a serf the same amount (or even more) of bullshit and he will duck.

Welcome to the brave new world, we're gonna be epsilons!

bakunin