Only if that's the only thing you're known for.

I have a lot of respect for a CEO that runs the entire company and doesn't consider himself too high to do the grunt work too.

> doesn't consider himself too high to do the grunt work too

go read 'Up the Organization' by Robert Towsend (written many years ago when he was the CEO of Avis Rent-a-car). Everyone at Avis (janitor, receptionist, CEO, all the way down the line) was required to work 1 or 2 days a year at the counter, renting cars. Helped everyone what business they were in, and why they had a job.

And that is why Bank Teller software sucks.

No, it sucks because banks will not pay for software for their tellers. You've never been a teller, but you know it sucks. So do the banks. But they don't care, because there is no money to be made in improving it.

(Wait until they realize that there is no money in etrading either. Then there will be a lot of people on the market that know how to micro-optimize memory allocators. But I digress...)

No, bank software "sucks" because it's built on literally decades, plural, of old systems that can not ever be disturbed or lose data.

Did you read the article?

"One day, I walked by the kitchen and noticed it was a huge mess. So I washed the dishes."

That's exactly it. He motivated me to take the initiative, and now, years later, I'm in a position where I can pass that on to my team.

I had literally the same experience a few years ago. I was working at a fine dining restaurant, the dishwasher called out, so the chef happily did both dish and grill. Turned out he was the best dishwasher there. Since then, I've noticed that one invariably cooks as well as they clean.

That is a very odd assertion... if you're a good chef, and have "come up through the ranks", you've probably had to clean up after yourself... but I don't think that means that you can take the dishwasher and make him the head chef. Unless you're watching Ratatouille.

I meant that one can only cook as well as they can clean.

It's interesting to me to see this comment getting up-voted (has 12 points as I'm writing this). It gives me a new perspective on what could a seemingly inconsiderate person be thinking of.

I guess the secret is to be the "X guy who isn't afraid to do the dishes," where X is something other than doing dishes.

What's funny is I actually find this attitude to be why people specifically avoid doing those little things to begin with, and why all those "dishes" pile up.

> if you do something that other people don't want to do, you're now the "that thing" guy for life.

There are ways to manage your career to avoid this. My favorite is to be quite up-front about it: tell my manager that I'll take on the urgent/bugfix team role for a couple of months because it's in terrible shape, but that I really don't want to be there any longer, and I want to train my successor around the time it starts functioning well again.