I often laugh at people who use passionate not realizing the root of the word more or less means suffering. You want me to suffer for your company? No thanks, thats beyond the bounds of employment imo.
Indeed! I always cringe every time I hear the word in our industry. I suspect (and hope) that most who say it are really meaning committed/dedicated to their work (and no, not in a committed/dedicated as code for sacrificing work/life balance). My belief is that most companies (excluding startups) should prefer dispassionate people. Why? Because it's too easy for the passionate to be emotionally attached to things (language, stack, framework, methodology), to where it can interfere with objectivity. I've worked with guys who would threaten to quit (and one Perl who did quit) if $favorite-language was not going to be used in the future.
The other worrisome thing about the passionate is that they're more likely to burn out.
What's wrong in our industry about being non-passionate? I don't get it.
Given the choice between someone who's just doing the job to get paid, vs someone who's doing the job because it's what they enjoy doing, I'll pick the second guy every time.
