Everyone can talk and give opinions. The real question is if you can actually make a difference. I tell people there's a gap between knowing how to do something and actually doing it. And that gap is a big part of our engineering skills.
If I'm not going to change something, I'd rather not talk or give opinions.
I’m in the situation the article is talking about where I’m both suggesting advice and willing to do the work. But it requires me to have some allotted time and the boss says we don’t have the resources even 1 hour a week.
It’s like we’re moving chopped wood from the forest to the village and I suggest building a wheelbarrow but the boss says what we don’t have time for that we gotta move all this chopped wood. It’s crushing to have a job that could be very interesting but the tooling and processes sap all of that out.
> If no one asked and no one is on the hook to change anything: Stop talking.
It seems like a matter of knowing who to talk to about what. I don't think the solution is to stop talking to everyone.
Presenting a rationale for something worthy of addressing (need/problem/opportunity) needs to be communicated somehow, and convincingly. In person, in writing, or a simple business case.
From my non-tech background, priorities are fluid, and things that are rationalized as urgent and important are given resources and attention.
If there is someone like the author spinning wheels in frustration, then maybe there's a problem with the organization aligning everyone on goals/objectives/outcomes -> leading to misaligned solutions being raised, and deaf ears. Or, maybe there's no opportunity to raise solutions with the right people.
Bad idea. I want people working around me to notice, be uncomfortable and especially speak up if something is amiss. Unless you work in a malignant environment, this should be normal behavior.
I want people who are working on a project/initiative that I’m responsible for to speak up and I do a scenario question when I’m interviewing candidates to see if they will speak up.
But I’m not going to stick my neck out and be “the problem”. I will definitely speak up about misgivings over ideas where my manager has some authority to change something. But that’s about it.
But in my experience, line level managers are useless. They have no organizational weight or authority.
When someone reaches out to me about a job where they wanted me to lead strategic organizational changes or initiatives, the first thing I tease out is whether I will be reporting directly to someone who has real authority - in a smaller company someone with C* as their title. In a larger company a director.
Based on the results (not to mention the Green Mile "I'm tired boss" look on most people's faces), I'd imagine most workplaces are malignant environments.
Bad advice. If you're thinking this way and you don't think people will listen is it really better to just shut up? How about starting small and implementing fixes or starting with small refactors in the direction of a better code base? I have absolute autonomy at my current employer so it's a different world, I mostly ask for forgiveness rather than permission, but to just shut up? Weak.
So exactly how do you just implement small fixes and get them through your hopefully peer reviewed pull requests? What if you cause a regression?
Usually the push back from making changes is larger structural changes you need to get buy in for - not minor bug fixes.
Does it take away from your assigned work?
I’m putting myself in the position of a journeyman “pull tickers from Jira board mid level developer”. Not my real position over the last decade of having a more strategic position. But I still know which way the wind is blowing and know when to shut up.
Strategically, “stop talking” means nothing unless you would otherwise be slamming out ideas. You don’t need people who don’t talk, we have plants for that. You need your silence to say something.
In many companies (especially in non-tech departments) there’s a culture where the first person to speak up is given credit for an idea as the “visionary”, even if they have no skills to actually implement it. In those environments, speaking loudly and often allows one to “lay claim” to an idea. This can be beneficial as a way to control workload, if you “claim” the idea first, you can control people’s expectations and timelines around building it.
Absolutisms like this are challenging to strike right because an establishment of context is needed. This post's sentiment sounds like regret and resentment over past events (there is trauma), and the author knows to not put their hand on the stove.
Sometimes not speaking up is the best thing for future situations. Other times, it's too costly to not speak up, and what should follow is the speaker making right by their words: action.
It can be helpful to flip the lens from critic to creator. Instead of asking "what's wrong with this thing" instead ask:
Who deserves praise?
What spark here deserves to grow?
What new thing am I trying myself?
Who left today better because I showed up?
What's something I (personally) could have improved?
What mistake or new facts have I learned from/ widened by view?
This person is being unfairly categorized in multiple posts as someone just complaining and wanting others to do the work but this person is suggesting actionable steps to take to improve things with evidence supporting why and still getting shot down and wasting their time. I’m in this exact situation right now.
A big problem I see constantly is the mindset that it's "wisdom". It's audible in the voice every speaker that thinks it true. No matter when it's said, no matter how many self-aware disclaimers precede it, it comes out annoying as hell (e.g. Lex Fridman). Some people, even when they know they're are doing it, can't stop themselves.
I noticed a glaring problem and pushed to refactor a product to fix it, and kept pushing, and kept pushing. In this case, there was a critical need to fix the product, and I was rewarded for it. It lead to a nice tenure for me for almost a decade. (And, I got to stay long enough to get bored.)
More recently, I noticed a glaring problem, and pushed up to the CEO because he frequently complains about the consequences of the glaring problem. The difference is that I can't fix the problem in a few months. There's a lot more coordination and working around other business needs. But again, as long as I'm persistent, I'll have a nice tenure for a decade or more. (And, the work is large enough that I don't think I'll get bored for a long time.)
I get it. This is roughly me, I don't always have the best answers, but I know most things can always be done better. I've coined a few different terms over the years such as "marketing driven development" when I wind up working in places where the marketing team is driving the devs off a cliff, and pushing new features at the expense of ever having time to deal with technical debt. The industry really needs "Tech Debt Thursdays" or something.
There's always way more work to do and those key enhancements or research stories that could improve everything get deprioritized.
Have you ever heard the phrase "man your battle stations"? Turns out in the US Navy there is also "cleaning stations" and there is a call for all hands to cleaning stations on the regular. I have proposed something similar on a few teams I've been on. Daily won't work and quarterly is too long. The problem is the sprawl that comes from cleaning up things that have unintended side effects. But yes, paying the interest on the tech debt needs to be normalized across our industry.
Communication bandwidth is a finite resource, as several years of managers have reminded me.
(Although, it's worth noting that in this era of more remote work, perhaps a little more read-in and context is useful to avoid burning time on back-and-forths that used to take minutes in front of someone's desk but can now take hours over Slack).
In a technical environment the first step is probably to write your ideas down. Sleep on it, review, and then share with a few people you trust for candid feedback. From there you can share more widely, fine tune and adjust, or realize that you mis-assessed.
what this misses (and unfortunately is not always an option, especially in larger orgs) is that instead of talking (read: complaining), just fix the damn thing and present the solution on a platter (on company time, of course). more often than not, if you've already addressed the issue and it's ready for primetime, people will not refuse the change.
if they do, there's an equal chance that you either didn't understand the situation to begin with, or you work in a team with poor leadership and strategy. learn from the former, leave the latter.
There’s an unrelated/related topic to this: people who want to be heard doing something. They themselves won’t do much, so you can expect the royal “we” to be tossed around a lot.
This is terrible advice that will hurt your career progression. The problem isn't that people speak out too much. It's that basically no one is proactive enough to speak out. In my experience the people who speak are the people who get promoted.
Knowing when to shut up is great advice and knowing how the wind is blowing. If I know their is an edict from the top down to be an “AI first company”, no matter how much I disagree with an initiative that comes from on high, I’m going to shut up and be all in.
“The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
The last time I worked for a product company was as at a startup where I was the second technical hire by the then new CTO who was building up the technical staff internally. The founders bootstrapped the company through an outside consulting company.
There I had a relationship with the CTO where I could just say “that’s a really bad idea” and he would listen.
Fast forward a few years and I was working for a shitty consulting company, I kept my head down for a year, let them fail after I was sure they wouldn’t listen to me and started interviewing and only stayed a year.
My career progression isn’t dependent on the job I have at the moment.
> The difference between “annoying senior sysadmin” and “good consultant” is often just whether you’re in a room that opted in.
So much that. No one likes "drive-by advice" - if you want something to be fixed, there should be a person responsible for that. Maybe it's you doing all the work, or you convincing management, or management who is asking for an advice... But if you are just saying "we should fix FOO by doing this and that" with no plans as to whom those "we" are, it's only annoying.
If ever someone should take their own terrible advice, it’s the author of this sad post. Because one reason to shut up is if you what you are saying is BS.
There are times and places and reasons to hold your tongue, of course. None of which are covered by the author.
That might be because the thing is whole-cloth generated from AI, but given that the author has a .in email address, it also might be that English is not their first language but they want to reach a broader audience with their message so they used AI to translate it into the lingua franca of modern technical and scientific discussion (which is, this is always funny to me, not franca).
AI generators do a better job of conversational output than traditional language translators (although there is a risk that if you can't read the target language as a non-native speaker, it can distort or destroy the message).
Yes, it is, 100%. One does not even need an AI detector; it's obvious from the first sentence: "brought a lot of context, more scars, and more pattern recognition." "Like a lineman sees a frayed cable." Lol. This is the sloppiest slop there is.
But you got downvoted for pointing out that it was slop. I got similarly downvoted a couple days ago. Hackernews folk seem uninterested in having it pointed out when AI is being used to generate posts.
I'd guess it's some combination of a) they like using AI themselves, and b) they can't distinguish AI themselves. And they turn to all manner of excuse like "AI detectors do not work" or "non-native speakers need a way to produce articles, too". It's a crappy time to be a humanist, or really to care about anything, it seems.
vrnvu|2 months ago
If I'm not going to change something, I'd rather not talk or give opinions.
Related: https://strangestloop.io/essays/things-that-arent-doing-the-...
NickyD|2 months ago
It’s like we’re moving chopped wood from the forest to the village and I suggest building a wheelbarrow but the boss says what we don’t have time for that we gotta move all this chopped wood. It’s crushing to have a job that could be very interesting but the tooling and processes sap all of that out.
RankingMember|2 months ago
satisfice|2 months ago
jetru|2 months ago
Talking at the right place at the right time on the right topic is.
deelayman|2 months ago
It seems like a matter of knowing who to talk to about what. I don't think the solution is to stop talking to everyone.
Presenting a rationale for something worthy of addressing (need/problem/opportunity) needs to be communicated somehow, and convincingly. In person, in writing, or a simple business case.
From my non-tech background, priorities are fluid, and things that are rationalized as urgent and important are given resources and attention.
If there is someone like the author spinning wheels in frustration, then maybe there's a problem with the organization aligning everyone on goals/objectives/outcomes -> leading to misaligned solutions being raised, and deaf ears. Or, maybe there's no opportunity to raise solutions with the right people.
giardini|2 months ago
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
But I’m not going to stick my neck out and be “the problem”. I will definitely speak up about misgivings over ideas where my manager has some authority to change something. But that’s about it.
But in my experience, line level managers are useless. They have no organizational weight or authority.
When someone reaches out to me about a job where they wanted me to lead strategic organizational changes or initiatives, the first thing I tease out is whether I will be reporting directly to someone who has real authority - in a smaller company someone with C* as their title. In a larger company a director.
rglover|2 months ago
pieisgood|2 months ago
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
Usually the push back from making changes is larger structural changes you need to get buy in for - not minor bug fixes.
Does it take away from your assigned work?
I’m putting myself in the position of a journeyman “pull tickers from Jira board mid level developer”. Not my real position over the last decade of having a more strategic position. But I still know which way the wind is blowing and know when to shut up.
Perz1val|2 months ago
hyperhello|2 months ago
cindyllm|2 months ago
[deleted]
orev|2 months ago
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
mjg2|2 months ago
Sometimes not speaking up is the best thing for future situations. Other times, it's too costly to not speak up, and what should follow is the speaker making right by their words: action.
cindyllm|2 months ago
[deleted]
CGMthrowaway|2 months ago
NickyD|2 months ago
kgwxd|2 months ago
A big problem I see constantly is the mindset that it's "wisdom". It's audible in the voice every speaker that thinks it true. No matter when it's said, no matter how many self-aware disclaimers precede it, it comes out annoying as hell (e.g. Lex Fridman). Some people, even when they know they're are doing it, can't stop themselves.
gwbas1c|2 months ago
I noticed a glaring problem and pushed to refactor a product to fix it, and kept pushing, and kept pushing. In this case, there was a critical need to fix the product, and I was rewarded for it. It lead to a nice tenure for me for almost a decade. (And, I got to stay long enough to get bored.)
More recently, I noticed a glaring problem, and pushed up to the CEO because he frequently complains about the consequences of the glaring problem. The difference is that I can't fix the problem in a few months. There's a lot more coordination and working around other business needs. But again, as long as I'm persistent, I'll have a nice tenure for a decade or more. (And, the work is large enough that I don't think I'll get bored for a long time.)
giancarlostoro|2 months ago
There's always way more work to do and those key enhancements or research stories that could improve everything get deprioritized.
leetrout|2 months ago
> Tech Debt Thursdays
Yes, "Fix it Fridays" is another alliteration.
Have you ever heard the phrase "man your battle stations"? Turns out in the US Navy there is also "cleaning stations" and there is a call for all hands to cleaning stations on the regular. I have proposed something similar on a few teams I've been on. Daily won't work and quarterly is too long. The problem is the sprawl that comes from cleaning up things that have unintended side effects. But yes, paying the interest on the tech debt needs to be normalized across our industry.
https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/display-news/...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyJH8VbFE6g
pizzafeelsright|2 months ago
Until the desired outcome is defined and documented, holding off on solutions and effort would benefit both parties.
shadowgovt|2 months ago
(Although, it's worth noting that in this era of more remote work, perhaps a little more read-in and context is useful to avoid burning time on back-and-forths that used to take minutes in front of someone's desk but can now take hours over Slack).
skmurphy|2 months ago
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
https://medium.com/@unwrittenbusinessguide/pre-wiring-the-ar...
https://www.manager-tools.com/2007/11/how-to-prewire-a-meeti...
https://candidcio.com/2008/05/09/the-value-of-the-pre-wire/
GuinansEyebrows|2 months ago
if they do, there's an equal chance that you either didn't understand the situation to begin with, or you work in a team with poor leadership and strategy. learn from the former, leave the latter.
barfoure|2 months ago
light_hue_1|2 months ago
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
“The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
The last time I worked for a product company was as at a startup where I was the second technical hire by the then new CTO who was building up the technical staff internally. The founders bootstrapped the company through an outside consulting company.
There I had a relationship with the CTO where I could just say “that’s a really bad idea” and he would listen.
Fast forward a few years and I was working for a shitty consulting company, I kept my head down for a year, let them fail after I was sure they wouldn’t listen to me and started interviewing and only stayed a year.
My career progression isn’t dependent on the job I have at the moment.
theamk|2 months ago
So much that. No one likes "drive-by advice" - if you want something to be fixed, there should be a person responsible for that. Maybe it's you doing all the work, or you convincing management, or management who is asking for an advice... But if you are just saying "we should fix FOO by doing this and that" with no plans as to whom those "we" are, it's only annoying.
hedayet|2 months ago
satisfice|2 months ago
There are times and places and reasons to hold your tongue, of course. None of which are covered by the author.
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
catigula|2 months ago
[deleted]
CharlesW|2 months ago
shadowgovt|2 months ago
AI generators do a better job of conversational output than traditional language translators (although there is a risk that if you can't read the target language as a non-native speaker, it can distort or destroy the message).
jsrozner|2 months ago
But you got downvoted for pointing out that it was slop. I got similarly downvoted a couple days ago. Hackernews folk seem uninterested in having it pointed out when AI is being used to generate posts.
I'd guess it's some combination of a) they like using AI themselves, and b) they can't distinguish AI themselves. And they turn to all manner of excuse like "AI detectors do not work" or "non-native speakers need a way to produce articles, too". It's a crappy time to be a humanist, or really to care about anything, it seems.
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
[deleted]
lucasmullens|2 months ago
nh23423fefe|2 months ago