At my previous job, there was a division within my department. About half the application programmers worked on web development. The other half, including yours truly, were consigned to maintenance of mainframe programs. For my part, I found mainframe development tedious. When I asked about the possibility of transferring to the web development team, I was told "No," to which I responded, "Goodbye."
On my own, in my spare time, I devoted countless hours to learning HTML, CSS, and even the rudiments of PHP. I love working on it, even without remuneration. I can work on it every day, all night long, neglecting food and sleep. In speaking with some of the web developers at my old company, it was apparent to me that they were only in it for the additional salary. (Web developers made about 10 - 25% more.) The company spent upwards of $80,000 sending them to classes! I have never been to a web development class in all my life and have never even owned a book. All I learned, I learned on my own or through research using Google as a starting point. I am reminded of this irony whenever I work on web-related code. The phrase "wasted potential" comes to mind.
I suppose in retrospect it does not matter. Everyone has wasted potential. There are countless potentialities that are never realized. Diamonds in the rough are tossed away and buried by debris or used as stones for slingshots. What system can be called efficient? I don't know of one. Perhaps efficiency is not even a worthwhile goal. The motives of some leaders are improper, and in those cases, it is better that their teams remain inefficient and plagued by waste, corruption and inefficiency, even as I have observed.
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