What is championism?

"Championism" is the common name that we use to describe person characteristics such as: stupidity, ignorance, egoism and lack of competence. It is a virus that infected not just IT sector, but almost every aspect of today's business. People who carry and spread that virus are called "champions" or "World-class champions". If you've been to similar sites on the Internet, you probably found more popular terms such as "cowboy manager" or "hero programmer", but it is basically the same. A Moron is a moron. Period.

Remark for non-Croatian readers: The authors of this site are Croatians and the word "champions" is spelled sampioni in Croatian language. This is the reason why the site is located at sampioni.com.

The term champions was introduced in a small Croatian software firm where authors of this site worked for one miserable period of their life and that inspired the creation of this site. The firm is thoroughly described in our central story, The Legend of champions. If you are too eager to find out why we use the term champion, let's just say that owner of that firm referred to his staff as "world-class champions", although many of them were totally incompetent and deserved a totally different name. So, the term "champions" carries a big dose of irony.

A "champ" firm is company whose management is dominated by champions. The main concern of champ managers is how to hide their inefficiencies and incompetence. Instead of being dedicated to business issues, quality assurance, learning new technologies, self-improvement and similar "non-champion" activities, they spend all their energy in political games, manipulation, sucking up to higher authorities and stabbing each other's back.

Champ firms follow the Dilbert's principle that says that the easiest way to remove the idiot from every day's business is to promote him to a manager's position. Some pessimists believe that most of the firms really work by that principle, but let's be idealists and believe that it isn't so until proved differently.

Authors of this site are two idealistic programmers who enjoy their work, especially if it's done professionally and who disgust stupidity, incompetence and politics. Unfortunately, one period of their life they had to work with genuine champions and tolerate their ignorance. That experience was so painful that they decided it shouldn't be kept in their fragile memory, but rather shared with other people who can learn from their experience and try to avoid champions in their lives.

We won't tell you our real names. Although we quit our champ firm long time ago, we are well-aware that champions, as our slogan says, are everywhere , even in our current company. We feel that it is better to stay anonymous for the moment.

The idea of writing about bad firms and bad managers didn't come just from our experience. The big thanks goes to great site we accidentally came across, www.softwarereality.com. There you can find true stories about software firms, lousy managers, stinky colleagues and other characters you meet in your every day's life. We definitely recommend that you visit that site.

Just be warned that, although the purpose of this site is fun, you maybe won't laugh if you find out that you are really a true "world-class" champion and that you are proud of that. If that is the case, we suggest that you find some other site that doesn't make fun of champions and that glorifies stupidity and ignorance. We haven't found it yet, but if you do succeed, please let us know. :))

		All companies are dominated by stupidity. What makes the difference is the amount of compensation you get for staying there.
	Site about "championism" and "champ" firms on Croatian IT market. ->Croatian site