Intern

[ralphmelton]

I've been at low ebb for a week or two--meaning to work effectively but not doing so, meaning to work on D&D stuff and not doing so, not being very social, not writing in LJ, and so forth.

But now, I'm working with an intern, and it's forcibly ramping up my work productivity.

I'd said to my manager a few weeks ago, "Hey, I suggest we staple an intern to my side and do pair programming. It worked very well for us at Clairvoyance; it's good for the intern because they have someone very available to help them, and it increases my productivity because of an extra pair of eyes looking at code and spotting bugs. I think it's plausible that working as a pair, we'll be 25% more effective than me working alone--and that's a darn good benefit for an intern." My boss said he would consider it... and he accepted my proposition. I feel pretty empowered by this.

So on Monday, we sat down to work together. The most obvious effect is that I spend a lot more time working when I can't trivially flip to surf the web. So, less chatting and less reading LJ, as well. It leaves me feeling very tired and drained when I leave work.

Michael (the intern) is amazing. He's smart as a whip, very familiar with Objective C and the Macintosh development tools, very hardworking, and asks insightful questions. I'm extremely impressed--I don't think I was nearly that qualified when I was his age.

We're working very well together and getting a lot done. I think it'll be very good.

Comments

[cellio]

Neat! How long do you get him -- all summer? Will you keep up the pair programming for all of that time, or send him off on his own tasks at some point?

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I hope to keep it up all that time. My belief is that two people working together can outperform two people working separately. (This belief seems justified by our experiences at Clairvoyance.) If that belief is true, there's no reason not to keep working together all summer.