do we really have bugs? (did he really ask that?)

At one of my of my prior employers we had a dev manager (let's call him Rico to protect the guilty) who has been around the block for a while.  Rico is savvy, Rico is suave and Rico will be a "manager" (maybe not so much of a leader...) at his current company a long, long time.  It is not that he solves that many problems; it is that he knows how to remain stain-free.

Furthermore, you'll never hear Rico say anything in anger -- heck, I only ever heard him say one curse word the whole time I worked alongside him.  Are these bad traits?  Of course not, but they do bug a straight shooter like myself who believes in just telling it like it is instead of spinning a "story" that folks want to hear.

History tells me that when you run into someone like Rico, they often don't "get it".  They start reminding you that they really are a top-notch developer just like everyone on the team.  Note: if anyone has to tell you how good of a developer they are, then they usually aren't much of a developer at all.

It all rang true one time when we were about to deploy a new app into production that our teams jointly built and I let Rico look at the outstanding bug list.  He froze in his footsteps... jaw dropped... eyes went wide... (ok, you get the picture) and said in what was almost a freaked-out tone, "do we really have bugs"?

Of course, I thought he was joking so I laughed at him.  Soon I realized that he actually thought all large apps went into production absolutely perfect.  I mean without even a single minor bug/issue or missed requirement.  Obviously, I'm not advocating we ship shit, but come on; nothing is 100% perfect.

So, I started to explain this concept to him and I quickly realized that if we needed to have this conversation, then I really didn't want to have this conversation.  I politely (as that's Rico's style) wrapped up the conversation and gave him some "we're all good" affirmations so that he could keep up his overly confident manager style and be on his way.

I guess the moral of this story is to spot the Rico's in your organization.  It's not that you can ignore them or conversely, need to spend a ton of time with them.  It is that you simply need to know their kind and learn how to use them to your benefit.  Heck, I used to use my personal Rico whenever the bureaucracy of a big organization was overwhelming as he ate that stuff up.  I also used him to help out with those extra management duties like move coordinator and "fitness in the workplace" advocate.  ;-)

Good luck identifying your Rico's and finding "appropriate" work for them to do in your world!