David Andrews wrote:
On Mon, 2007-06-25 at 15:06 -0400, Doug Fuerst wrote:
What, pray tell, is the point of this exercise?
Maybe the IS director is trying to justify another, more senior
position. The existing sysprog is the president's PFCSK son, a whiz at
windows - but not all that great a S390 gunslinger.
Or maybe management wants to bring in a tester merely to *teach* that
PFCSK.
Once upon a time I used to do something like this to/for members of my
staff. I'd arrange to come in way early in the morning, send the
operator out for coffee, and then do *something*. When the operator
came back, he'd find the IMS master complaining about e.g. a
recalcitrant PTERM. "Better take a look at that", I'd say unhelpfully.
I'd watch him puzzle it out slowly, and offer leading questions if he
appeared to be stuck. "Is it active to VTAM?" "Is the phone line to
that campus operational?" "Do you know where the cables are for that
line? Are they connected?" By the time he got to that interface switch
that I'd flipped off on the oh-five, he'd gotten ten times as much value
out of the exercise as he'd have gotten from varying the terminal
off-and-on and calling a tech.
Sure, test your sysprogs. Do it with good humor, and don't publish the
results - it's the testing itself that's important. Then when you can't
fool 'em anymore, they're promotable and you've done your job.
Note that the OP was with a Chinese consulting company
located in Beijing. That might put a different light on
the speculation.
Kind regards,
-Steve Comstock
The Trainer's Friend, Inc.
303-393-8716
http://www.trainersfriend.com
z/OS Application development made easier
* Our classes include
+ How things work
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