How can I avoid turning into a pointy-haired boss?

The pointy-haired boss is a manager who doesn’t program. So the surest way to avoid becoming him is to stay a programmer. What tempts programmers to become managers are companies with old-fashioned corporate structure, where the only way to advance in salary and prestige is to go into management. So if you want to avoid becoming a PHB, avoid such companies, and work for (or start) startups.

I never had to manage anyone in our startup, even though I was the president. The other hackers were my peers, and would have given me the raspberry if I’d tried to “manage” them. We operated by consensus. And the rest of the company reported to our experienced COO, who was also more of a peer.

Why be a manager when you could be a founder or early employee at a startup?

Yeah. Been reading a lot of Paul and Seth Godin lately.

One thing about school applications: No-one will tell you if what you say in your letter of intent doesn’t actually match what you’re proposing to do, nor whether what you say in your letter of intent — which is, of course, written to get you admitted — is what you intend.

Making sure those things match — letter, intent, and the program’s capabilities of satisfying those intents — is the applicant’s responsibility. Ideally the applicant discovers this prior to applying, let alone enrolling. But even then the earlier the process occurs the better.

I considered getting 4-color cards from a template at VistaPrint or some other web-based inexpensive-cards factory, but I think this is one of those places where it couldn’t hurt to do things right and set myself apart a bit from the crowd. So I’m going to get “real” cards printed at a local printer, using spot color and my own design.

Part of the problem of designing business cards is that there is the boring corporate style and there is the graphic designer style, and it’s hard to find something that balances the two appropriately. I thought about doing stamped cards but I’m not sure they’ll convey “nifty” rather than “cheap”.

Anyhow, I played around with a few designs (and Josh Zhixel contributed this) before ending up with this, my latest draft:

The hook, so to speak, is that my name is contained within my email address. It’s not much but the line between hook and gimmick is subtle. I also tried it with blocks of color around the name bits but the descender screws things up a bit, and I think the name jumps even less with the color.

Maybe the back will be orange too, but I’m not sure it’s worth the extra cost. Regardless it’ll be on your standard matte business card stock.

Anyhow, what do you think?

(In case you’re curious or geeky in that way, it’s all Linotype Helvetica Neue: Bold Condensed for the orange bits, Thin Condensed for the rest of the email address, and Light for the bottom bit. Here’s what it looks like if I use normal width instead of condensed.)

As a result, a lot of businesses that have been in Westboro for years are closing up or moving. (Thankfully, it’s usually “moving”, and for the most part it’s been businesses that really didn’t need storefront retail locations — a healthy-home contractor, a paint-your-own-pottery shop, a framing shop, a bakery with another location just down the road. The closures have mostly been places that clearly were barely hanging on anyhow: a diner, a dirty bar beside the Legion, that sort of thing.)

The interesting thing about watching this turnover is watching the businesses that arrive to replace them. Opening a new store in Westboro is clearly an expensive proposition at this point, given all the stories in the local newspaper about the businesses that had to move because of increasing rents. And some of the new stores are tailor-made for this kind of neighbourhood: Lululemon, Bark & Fitz, a midrange Mexican restaurant, the Juniper restaurant and wine bar — although the latter has moved into a glassed-in place that used to be half of a car dealership, with the other half still next door.

But for others I have to wonder how they’re planning to survive. A tiny aerobicswear shop, in a neighbourhood with a Lululemon and a very well-established dancewear shop? A Baker St. Cafe, a burgers-and-grilled-cheese restaurant with exactly one vegetarian item, in an unrenovated, dark pub?

But none of those are as strange as Chlorophylle. An outdoor-clothing company with a very small product line, they’re not just opening a big store in Westboro, they’re expanding a building to a second story first. And while there’s undoubtedly a big market for outdoor clothing in this market, they’re opening three doors down from Mountain Equipment Co-op (Canadian for “REI”), across the street from The Expedition Shoppe, and one kilometer away from Bushtukah and Trailhead.

Not only are those all large, fully-equipped outdoors shops (all except The Expedition Shoppe sell climbing equipment, skis, kayaks, and so on plus many brands of clothing), they also all sell Chlorophylle — and they’re the only stores in Ottawa that sell their adult line!

I can’t imagine what Chlorophylle is expecting to happen, but I can think of a couple of possible outcomes: their store sells their clothing at list, and the existing stores sell below list, so no-one shops at Chlorophylle; or they sell their clothing at outlet prices, and the other four stores stop carrying what is for them a very small line because they don’t want to buy wholesale from their local competitor.

Given that Chlorophylle had the entire city to open in — including some similarly-gentrified neighbourhoods like the Glebe, and major shopping areas like the Byward Market, that don’t have anything like their store — I have no idea why they chose the place they did.

(Hrm, I should post about some of my favorite Westboro places.)