Managing Programmers

Well, the article is about "geeks", and that can take many facets, but I read "programmer" everywhere it reads "geeks". You can do the same.
So, this article is the single best summary of the peculiarities of managing IT people. It's amazing. He seems to quote many rants I've made to co-workers over the years.

Here's a snippet (it's got my WSJ job written all over it):

When you understand the mission of IT, it isn't hard to see why co-workers and supervisors are judged severely according to their abilities to contribute to that process. If someone has to constantly be taught Computers 101 every time a new problem presents itself, he can't contribute in the most fundamental way. It is one thing to deal with that from a co-worker, but quite another if the people who represent IT to the organization at large aren't cognizant of how the technology works, can't communicate it in the manner the IT group needs it communicated, can't maintain consistency, take credit for the work of the group members, etc. This creates a huge morale problem for the group. Executives expect expert advice from the top IT person, but they have no way of knowing when they aren't getting it. Therein lies the problem.And the article is here.