• Here's another story about bosses and optimisation...

    A few years ago when I was a still slightly wet behind the ears developer my boss asked me to run a report for the finance department. He already had the SQL from the previous year, he just wanted me to change the dates, run it and send the results in a nice looking spreadsheet to the finance controllor making sure that they got it by 9am the following morning.

    Boss went off to meeting leaving me to get on with it.

    About an hour later my development leader was going home. He paused by my desk smirking "Good luck with that report, the boss was here till 4am last year waiting for it to finish running!"

    I beckoned him over to my desk.

    "Have a look at this email" I said.

    He looked at my screen and read the email, it began:

    "Dear Financial Controller,

    Please find attached the report you requested...."

    The moral of the story?

    Don't spend your afternoons getting bored and watching the executing circle spinning round. Try making something better.