What do we pay you for?
Well, yes and no. If our job is inviolate, obviously, we have less to worry about, and a better basis for our own future.
The problem is that everyone else wants to prove that their job is indispensable, too. And often enough we shaft each other in trying to prove that we need each other.
Take marketing. They sell our stuff and come up with our product names, and often they do a smashing job. Java comes to mind, as do Netbeans, SunSPOTs and Blackbox. But sometimes they change the name of a product in between releases for no apparent reason, or give some products five-word names. Why? Because if they have a system for naming products and we don't understand it, then we need them.
This is the reason why our country has so many laws that nobody could ever understand them all. You would think that many areas of the law could be quite simple, and the finer points could be left to the good judgment of, say, judges. This would be good for average citizens in most respects. But if the law of the land is an incomprehensible monstrosity that requires a decade of study to comprehend, then not only do you need lawyers, but you need to pay them a lot. Lawyers like things that way.
I'm not going to claim that I'm immune, or that my department is immune. I'm sure we do it too, and it's harder for me to see because I'm on the inside. But it's interesting that, when we all try to make things better for ourselves, we all make things worse for ourselves.
