You would be surprised. A kick ass secretary will make all the "sticky" points of running a company go smoothly. I have seen 2 great secretaries that if they replaced would have a significant impact to the efficiency of a company.
Also an rock star secretary can work smart rather than hard finding ways to remove repetition.
A janitor could be a rockstar if they used methods to clean an office space to extreme detail with utmost efficiency.
Admittedly the more work moves into the physical world, the harder it is to scale with simple mental skill, but programmers are not the only ones that can become "rock stars." Also, WPM is not as relevant a way to measure a secretary's skills any more just as it isn't a way to measure a programmer's skills.
@brl: I know you just wrote a sentence, and this really isn't a reply to directly to you, but more to the elitist us and them content of this forum.
I'm not putting down the contributions of secretaries or any other non-engineering roles in a company.
My point is simply that the quality of developer talent at a software company will permanently influence the future of that company in a way that can't be compared by simple analogies.
There are good reasons to be more concerned with hiring the best programmers you can find than hiring the best secretary or the best janitor.
Also an rock star secretary can work smart rather than hard finding ways to remove repetition.
A janitor could be a rockstar if they used methods to clean an office space to extreme detail with utmost efficiency.
Admittedly the more work moves into the physical world, the harder it is to scale with simple mental skill, but programmers are not the only ones that can become "rock stars." Also, WPM is not as relevant a way to measure a secretary's skills any more just as it isn't a way to measure a programmer's skills.
@brl: I know you just wrote a sentence, and this really isn't a reply to directly to you, but more to the elitist us and them content of this forum.