There are so many of us (including me) who have learned these lessons the slow and hard way. With some luck, your writing will save a few from our fate!
that's punchy - i want to be someone, who someone would want to be! nice!
what you are talking about is easy to relate to in a different way as well. i think rather than a psychological pathology, it is normative defense.. you may be reacting not to the error per se..but to *erosion* ...erosion of rigor, craftsmanship, earned understanding, hard-won nuance etc. when someone devalues something of value, there is an innate compulsion to protect it..so my take is that the correction is a respect for truth, while others may interpret it as a status threat. a good test of this is when you yourself do not feel bad when someone corrects you for a mistake.
but i think this issue (at least for me) is resolved once you elevate yourself above the level at which the problem is created - widening the perspective. in systems terms, you stop optimizing locally and zoom out to the population level. in a large playing field, there will be players of every hue imaginable and the implications are - variance is not a bug, noise is not malice, and incompetence isnt personal.. with this, i think the sense of responsibility to fix every instance sort of..dissolves?
i guess the whole thing with "blameless post-mortems" is a byproduct of this line of reasoning..keep the focus on the situation, not the people.
I tried my best to make the not nice team nicer, which culminated in my departure 😂
That was much appreciated.
I'd like to think it improved eventually, but I arrived some time after your departure.
It improved significantly, due to lots of good work by many people, especially K.
This was a lovely read!
There are so many of us (including me) who have learned these lessons the slow and hard way. With some luck, your writing will save a few from our fate!
And, FWIW, this really vibes well with something I saw in an interview with Ethan Evans (formerly a VP at Amazon): "Jobs are [still] with other humans". https://youtu.be/40-ENZmqcz0?si=rhpdo3UBC4hJDoHO&t=3092.
(It's a long video, but the link goes straight to the relevant part.)
Right, engineering is a team sport, and nobody likes a bully.
I agree that this is a great article. People need to learn the less "You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar".
My dear uncle used to say that too, though he did not learn that lesson himself, because he always said what he thought :-)
that's punchy - i want to be someone, who someone would want to be! nice!
what you are talking about is easy to relate to in a different way as well. i think rather than a psychological pathology, it is normative defense.. you may be reacting not to the error per se..but to *erosion* ...erosion of rigor, craftsmanship, earned understanding, hard-won nuance etc. when someone devalues something of value, there is an innate compulsion to protect it..so my take is that the correction is a respect for truth, while others may interpret it as a status threat. a good test of this is when you yourself do not feel bad when someone corrects you for a mistake.
but i think this issue (at least for me) is resolved once you elevate yourself above the level at which the problem is created - widening the perspective. in systems terms, you stop optimizing locally and zoom out to the population level. in a large playing field, there will be players of every hue imaginable and the implications are - variance is not a bug, noise is not malice, and incompetence isnt personal.. with this, i think the sense of responsibility to fix every instance sort of..dissolves?
i guess the whole thing with "blameless post-mortems" is a byproduct of this line of reasoning..keep the focus on the situation, not the people.
The punchy line is a from a song :-)
Well, I for one have always found you to be incredibly nice, Jos. 😍 Happy New Year to you as well!
Thank you for your kind words!
Wow Joe, one of your best articles so far. So much relateable.
Thank you for your kind words!