My opinion:  His boss should be the first one fired and it's most likely LONG overdue...probably years and I bet you that environment has a LOT of turnover because of one guyd.  Those kind of managers get there not because they are a manager, but because they hacked their way up the ladder.  These kind of managers make IT a horrible place to work.

Fire him...seriously...but that would never happen.  Cause all his golf buddies that are on the same level would hate to see him not longer go on those VP golf outings.

You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.com

Another similar non-success story is when a department comes up with a 2-week training course for all new employees that is developed over a long period of time, and then approved by management because everyone agrees it is a good thing.

Until a new employee comes along, and no one has time to actually implement the training program because they are all working under nearly impossible deadlines.  So, good existing training exists, but it is rarely if ever used.

Awesome.

Those type of stupid manager are the key to failure.

This is why I just don't tell a manager something they don't need to know. Just go ahead and do what you like with your own team.

Well, if that quote was taken from an email at least that guyput his ignorance on record in written correspondence.  Assuming that's true I'd be tempted to reply to the guy w/ something along the lines of the following:

RE: "'The new developers are both professionals and adults and should be able to learn all they need to on their own."

Boss, I'm confused by your response and would like to meet with you in person so we can discuss the topic of employee development and training.  I feel that I must have misunderstood your response because it seems to imply that training is appropriate for only those employees who are either un-professional or children.    Since we do not hire children nor do we hire un-professional candidates I can only conclude that there is some other issue informing your decision to not support training. Perhaps if we discuss the underlying issues so that we can work something out that will address your concerns as well as mine.

Burn in hell,

-Will

:-)

I've attempted in every way I know how to communicate that training for new coders is extremely necessary and it falls on deaf ears.  The latest I heard from the support folks is one of the new fellas responded to a performance issue with "It's supposed to run that slow".  

The guy has potential, it's not his fault, management is to blame...

Unfortunately, you can't fix stupid

Guys - while this bosses attitude that the new devs can learn on their own is misguided it's important to note that it's not always necessary to "go on a training course" to learn something new. In my experience bosses can be strongly averse to people spending time on training courses (i.e. not being chargeable and bringing in the dineros) when they could be learning on the job. By this I mean sitting alongside someone who knows what they are doing, picking up information and tips from their peers. Informal training of this nature, is in my opinion, far more valuable than formal training.

While the manager's a rube, your friend is a rube. You don't provided detail, but I suspect that  the activities he proposed aren't "developer training", they're "developer onboarding". If Will is really intending to train people development basics, then yes they're either bad hires or that's coddling. If you're teaching them the project ropes--how you manage source control + ci, architectural and coding guidelines, design standards, unit test standards, etc.--then that's onboarding. I wouldn't even have thought to run it by management, it's the logical first thing every new arrival to one of our teams does, regardless of experience.

Superb Comment from Chris.

Looks like he is champion of words.

I need to know about him if he can provide some info about his profile.