It's a screen shot not brain surgery...

You can tell a lot about who a person is and how they view the world by the way they solve problems they are given. 

There was an e-mail from a globaliazation manager today asking about how to take a screen shot of a drop down menu in a window. There were a couple of solutions to this question. From a Senior App Developer it was a home brew app built in VC 6.0. A Lead Program Manager suggested a small grassroots screen capture app. Another Product Designer thought of using One Note or an anteque app that is was part of VB 6. Myself I suggested that they select the drop down menu they wanted and hit the "print screen" key on the key board and drop it into their graphic editor of choice.

Now I like to think that my solution was the best. It wasn't. It was the most obvious and simple answer to the problem, but that's just the Taoist in me. All the answers including my own, did lacked one key thing though. We all answered based on what would do to solve the problem but forgot to ask the manger in question what their requirements were, and what they needed it for.

It's just amazing...

That a company culture can become so interbred that the only way to get a job is to all ready know someone who works there. But because of this, there is little diversity in the corporate gene pool. Just think of the British Royal Family back in the day — yeah, they ruled over one of the most powerful empires of its time, but half of them were hemophiliacs.

There is a running joke that floats around the craft that there are two kinds of designers in the world, those who work and those work at a coffee houses.

But it is still better then being a MS designer, at least the ones at the coffee shop still have a chance of getting a gig in the real-world.