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Mon, May. 12th, 2008, 02:57 pm
Why bother?

I really need to start counting how many times a day this happens, but for my job, people regularly (50+ times a day) email me to ask for a solution to something.

When I give it to them, sometimes there are multiple solutions, and sometimes both are equally good/bad. You could argue that I should never give them both solutions, and instead just give them one and insist it is the best, but instead, I am an idiot and must be honest and give them both and explain why each one is good/bad, and why neither can be ruled as the best and in this case perhaps there is no "best".

But I add that while one is not necessarily better than the other in the current situation - one choice is going to be better down the road if we decide to fuck everything up like we always do and therefore we should probably go with that option.

So what do they do? Always? Every single time?

Whatever I recommend, they do the opposite, and then down the road when we fuck everything up, we are screwed because we went with the wrong option given the future scenario.

So my question is twofold:
1) why in the hell do I keep giving them the two solutions - I should just tell them the one I would suggest is THE ONLY WAY?
2) why, if the point of me having this job is to give suggestions, do they then ignore the suggestions?

My extreme hate for everything is superseded by my extreme apathy. But if my apathy really were so strong, then I wouldn't care about this.

And therein lies the problem.
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Mon, May. 12th, 2008 08:00 pm (UTC)
[info]easy_wind: I think I need more context

and i'm probably being simplistic, but you write that the two options are "equally good/bad."

but you say, "they then ignore the suggestions."

this seems inconsistent? if one option is best, don't give them options!

I guess what I'm saying is that it sounds like these people view you as a subject matter expert, that is why they solicit your advice. so it is your job to sift through those two potential options and tell them what they should do. don't give them the choice.
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Mon, May. 12th, 2008 08:09 pm (UTC)
[info]stenz: Re: I think I need more context

That's part of the problem - I don't think the people are at fault here, it is my own failing in that I for some reason keep giving them too much choice - in that there is any choice at all.

So then they ask for the better of two choices - and I tell them which I feel is better, and why - and they go with the other one.

I think I need to just only tell them one thing, but for whatever reason, I'm an idiot.

The most recent one that made me think of this is that the IT guy at one site keeps being given jobs to do programming. I am supposed to be his boss, but someone who is above me keeps stepping around me, and giving the work to this guy (fine) or (worse) the guy just takes it on himself and "fixes" things. (worse yet, he "fixes" things to the point they are broken, as happened twice today, and even worse than that is when I ask him if he is doing this, denies that he is doing it, and then continues to do it - and when I tell him he is doing it and specifically ask him not to, he then goes above me - great!)

But the case that we saw today was just something small - he wanted to know if some code that registers one of the helper apps in a larger application suite should be loaded once when the person logs in, or each time they use a report that would load this helper app.

I could see either way being fine for the immediate need - but down the line I could see many reports being loaded that would never need this helper app, and we already have many - so while it is nice to only do it once, I suggested that he do it on the per report level, only where it is needed, since we confirmed that registering the app more than once in some multi-hour period doesn't seem to matter to the app.

So after asking me which to do, he came back and said that he feels that enough of the reports use this that he is putting it at the base level, so now all users to this tool will activate that code, instead of just the spots where it is specifically needed.

To his credit, the few reports he works with all do need this, so he is likely biased into thinking that they all need this.
But I work with all of them (on our way over 50 at this point), not just the 10 he has - and very few will need this.

As I said, doesn't really matter too much now - but down the road, these things always end up mattering.


On a side note, today he setup a user in an infinite loop of email forwards.
Not really relevant, but the sort of thing where he doesn't think through the few steps that any given thing might impact.

All of this is a really vague way of me being whiny and instead of doing anything about it, I just whine.
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Mon, May. 12th, 2008 08:23 pm (UTC)
[info]easy_wind: Re: I think I need more context

so as i think you are saying, an area where you can make yourself more more valuable to these companies is to be more precise in your guidance.

it is easy to be imperfect, but not so easy to be conscious enough to identify areas of improvement. just my 2 cents... good luck anyways.
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Mon, May. 12th, 2008 08:29 pm (UTC)
[info]stenz: Re: I think I need more context

Just one company these days - got bought out or merged, depending on your view of things.

Thanks for the comments - I am trying to catch myself before giving out the info instead of ex post facto, but old ways are hard to change I guess.
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Mon, May. 12th, 2008 10:40 pm (UTC)
[info]pt

For common issues with common solutions, I'm using Camtasia Studio to create Lynda-like video tutorials. This, in my naive world, is my attempt at getting people to fix their own damn problems which they repeat endlessly like a 10 print "sigh" 20 goto 10 program.
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Tue, May. 13th, 2008 11:08 pm (UTC)
[info]stenz: Re: Apathy

lol - I don't recall seeing that movie, but that might be my new favorite reference!
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Tue, May. 13th, 2008 11:20 pm (UTC)
[info]evwhore: Re: Apathy

It's a one-minute setup for a lame cheesy joke, but it works!

This spoof of Enter the Dragon is by far the longest in the series of sketches that makes up Kentucky Fried Movie, which is definitely worth watching.
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