Woo! Excellent, excellent advice. I wish I had it when I found myself in that position.

When people listen to you, you're likely to suddenly find yourself in middle of political battles as power above you is sought from below you. You're also going to be expected to speak on the behalf of people below you. I can't say enough good things about "The Mythical Man Month", especially for the latter case. Politics I've had the hardest time with in the past. A few tips (YMMV):

• Don't let people mistakenly think that you're a threat to them if you're not. Show them soft underbelly - be submissive - actively work to calm their fears. People hate change and they hate losing control.
• Know your friends. One isn't enough - you need redundancy. They have their own web of interests, and with three or more, you get parity.
• Send spies. People suck. It is a matter of time before someone else desides that you stand between them and fame and glory. When you get power because you're worthy of it, you're an extreme rarity. Most people get it because they're good at politics. I know - we're bad at politics, they're bad at everything else - life is strange. The only answer is not to fall too easily when a political attack is made.
• When attacked, have documentation - written, witnesses, edicts from above, track records. This takes time, and it robs you of time better spent on projects, but it is the price of being a router instead of a node. Or a firewall rather than a node. Know what your attacker is afraid of - the truth that can mortally wound them - and use it against them if they don't back down quickly and quietly.
• Those above you don't know who to listen to, but they tend not to listen to the people that seem to want to be listened to, so don't try too hard when taking people out. Make it look like an accident. Use henchmen to blow your attackers covers, or just happen to stumble on the tip of iceberg of their undoing at a calculated moment, so they have a chance to backdown before it gets bloody. The point of this is that you don't want to be the bad guy.
• Don't scapegoat people, don't block people below you from advancing, don't create vendettas, don't try to take out people who are above you (unless they are doing something illegal), and don't try to make a fortune off of your company. These are all things that people routinely do, but you're above that - you have real abilities. People who do this are frauds, who get in, rape the company before they're exposed, and expected to be run afoul of politics sooner or later.
• Rise technically as well as politically - go see Damian Conway and the other perl greats speak. Read a bit about project management - project management is very, very hard. Learn how objects are really meant to be used - not the 5 cent, cheezeball, dumbed down perl conceptualization of objects. Learn algorithm theory if you don't already. If people are going to be promoting you to your level of incompetency, fight back - become more competent.
• Hire a mentor. If you're ever given a chance, hire an employee who has been around the block more than you. Make sure they have a good attitude and a good personality, though. One of the greatest things that can happen to any programmer is that they find themselves surrounded by better programmers who are ready to teach. It is awe inspiring and humbling, but you'll learn a lot more a lot quicker than you possibly could any other way. If you have the chance to engineer this, do so.
• As mentioned, mentor people. Desciples/spies/students are useful in another way, too - offsetting workload from yourself. You'll do like was done to you - give people work beyond what they're really capable of. This is how things work. You can't do everything, so this is the only alternative. By giving it to people you know and trust, you can identify when they're in over their head, and speak openly about the fact that they have to raise to the challenge. When doing this, always let people out if they decide they don't want the respobility - and I mean let them out graciously. Someone else will want a pass at it. The ultimate state to be in is to have a hand chosen, hand trained crop of talent that you can trust with anything. It is like paid retirement. No, I've never accomplished this, but I've known people who have. Perhaps a better analogy is being the CEO of a company within a company. This goes against the natural instinct of a programmer to keep thier hands in as many things as possible, but dire consequences will befall you if you ignore this advice and try to do it all.

While I really do mean this stuff, this note was written in fun - you should have fun as a programmer who isn't a bottom feeder. If you can't have fun, what good is your job? Politics doesn't suck so bad when you see it for what it is and treat it like the stupid but unavoidable waste of time that it is.

Cheers!
-scott

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