Birthday Man

I look around and I see, a sweater queen type girl moving into me. She has a pair of 38s, but no visible gun.
The new lady asks me, “I’m Joanne, can we talk privately?”
Well, the lady already has a glass of wine and we move to a corner table.
The lady then tells me, “I’m a recruiter for a new company that will be moving into the area. SuperScience is in bad shape financially and will soon be laying off employees.”
I laugh, “I wrote a signal processor routine, some time back, on my own time, and I paid for the computer time, that I used. One of the SuperScience Project Managers tried to use my signal processor routine, without paying my rental fee. The government caught on and SuperScience is now in big trouble. Even if a girl has a big bust, she still has to pay the cash fee for software rental.”
Joanne says, “Yes, Lanny at SuperScience is good at hiring big bust female Project Managers, but he’s not so good at paying for software and other services.”
I respond, “Well. you have to understand that some of the computer programming wretches actually expect to get paid for their work.”
Joanne says, “I need to know if Lanny at SuperScience hired any good programmers.”
I respond, “Well. I don’t know all of the computer programmers at SuperScience, but I do know a few of the good ones.”
Joanne says, “I need a few of the good ones.”
I say, “It’s not that simple. Bob is a very good programmer, but he expects the programmers who work with him to be only the very best senior programmers. Bob does not play well with others.”
I say, “Ram is a very good programmer, with a good math background, but his speech is difficult to understand.”
I say, “Len is a good programmer, if a bit less than the first two. Len does lack a bit of confidence.”
Joanne says, “The three that you name would be good hires for my company?”
I lecture, “If you intend to pick up SuperScience contracts, then you would need a project by project assessment of the programmers and support people involved. It’s not a matter of a simple, single numerical rating. The inability to rate the people doing the work assigned is just one of the failings of Lanny’s sweater queens.”
Joanne’s eyes narrow, “How would you rate the programmers?”
I lecture, “If a project requires heavy math analysis, then a good math background is a good immediate plus, else if a project doesn’t require heavy math analysis, then a good math background is not that much of a good immediate plus, but still useful, long terrn.
There are programmers who can do the job but don’t. They dither and fuss, trying for perfection, but failing to deliver software, on schedule.
There are programmers who can do the job but maybe don’t work well with others. They can be a strength, working with other senior programmers, but a weakness if they have to work with junior programmers.
There are programmers who are specialists in military computer aps.
Before I can rate a programmer, I need to know what a programmer can do and what the programmer is going to be assigned to do.”
Joanne asks, “Just programmers?”
I lecture, “There are computer programmers and a whole support crew. The support crew is not as important as the computer programmers, but it’s a team. The team needs to work together.”