It's only the top three in the building you need to poach.
I worked with several of these guys over the years.
Some extremely fat who live with their mothers; one who can recite huge lengths of filmscripts, one who shouts at himself; some with strange habits; one very hostile 22 year old; another who makes strange noises while coding, like the scene in Love Actually when Colin Firth's singing in the car to that foreign woman; a guy who used to moo; some so strange you wouldn't leave them alone with your television; some with senses of humour that made you terrified to bring customers back to the office, several ranters with clear signs of autism or tourettes, or autism and tourettes; but the one who takes the biscuit was this guy with an obsession about song lyrics.
Being weird seems to be almost a pre-requisite to be a member of this group. It's like the part of the brain which is being used for technical ability has consumed some other part of the brain, to make space, such as the area that enables social responsibility, politeness, or dress sense.
They're like Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes character without the obligatory tv required good looks for a leading man, or the personal hygiene. One guy I worked with for a week, was so deep in concentration that twice, he sat with the phone ringing right next to him and he didn't hear it. He wasn't ignoring it. He just didn't hear it. I knew another guy who liked to ask his manager "how was your weekend?" with just enough ambiguity, to ensure the manager wasn't sure if he was taking the piss, or whether there was some joke he was unaware of. The manager used to go to his office, by 9:01 Monday, with his week ruined.
The really strange thing about them, is that clearly, they're not able to control their behaviour, and they're just made that way. It's obviously some form of accident of history that there's an industry today that was made for their particular brain disorder, because they would've starved in any other time with such Rainman like behaviour.
There are maybe two dozen or these guys I know; who if you're competing against them, poaching them's the only option you have to stay in business. It's worth hiring them to ensure they're unavailable to work for anyone else, but it's also worth renting a box room, in which to hide them from your customers, and you need a sign on the wall for all the staff, saying "Before you sue your company, because of what Zorba the geek's just said, we have a legal responsibility under the disability act to hire a percentage of these people."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
