Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I skimmed through Steve Yegge’s “Good Agile, Bad Agile” piece and was thinking of responding, but luckily Dare Obasanjo responded first and said all I’d say and more–especially as regards to the ‘star’ treatment accorded to developers at companies like Google, and the employees gratitude back for being ‘so well taken care of’.
Dare writes:
I remember interning at Microsoft five years ago and hearing someone say how grateful he was for “the things Microsoft has done for me” and thinking how creepy and cult-like that sounded. A company pays you at worst ‘what they think they can get away with’ and at best ‘what they think you are worth’, neither of these should inspire gratitude. Never forget that or else you’ll be on the road to heartbreak.
We should respect the companies where we work or, at a minimum, respect our responsibilities as employees; but gratitude and loyalty, both, will eventually lead to heartbreak.