Before my current job as a consultant, I worked for a telecommunications firm (who shall rename nameless). I worked in a testing division chock full of engineers. Not just engineers, but engineers with Masters degrees and lots of yearsin the field. I joined the company not knowing anything about wireless communications, or communications in general (other than typing 'telnet aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd' worked).

The material wasn't that difficult to pick up ... there was just a lot of it. So, I took my time and in about three months, I'd gotten a decent handle on it - enough to be able to ask intelligent questions.

Within 6 months, I, a non-engineer, was being asked engineering questions by these guys with Masters degrees.

In short, stupid and/or lazy people are everywhere. And, if you're wondering what to do about them ... don't do their job for them - get them fired. Expose their stupidity and hope the next guy has two brain cells s/he can rub together.

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.