From 37signals Signal vs. Noise blog:
“Oh, that’s not my job,” is the sound of doom. Maybe not imminent doom, but doom indeed. It’s the magic inflection point when a company becomes too big (even if only psychologically) for any single employee to give a rat’s ass about job numero uno: Making shit work.
The sentiment expressed in the blog post rings true to me, but obviously not to many of the commentators on the blog who are way off base. This is more about attitude rather than an expectation that the accountant will pitch in and write code if development is behind schedule. Accountants, as a general rule, don’t know how to code. But they can probably do testing or assist the actual coders in some other way that helps speed things up. It’s about a willingness to contribute your efforts, outside of your domain, if necessary, for the greater good of the company — rather than building a little fort around yourself and doing your utmost to ignore anything that you don’t think is your job.