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Chesterton's Fence works when the people in authority are willing and able to change things with adequate understanding and justification. Sometimes no one know
by Kye 7y ago
Chesterton's Fence works when the people in authority are willing and able to change things with adequate understanding and justification. Sometimes no one knows why the thing is there and the options are remove it and see what happens or keep devoting resources and accommodations to it while it reduces quality of life.
I'm usually critical of SV style creative destruction, but sometimes asking for forgiveness instead of permission really is the only way to get things done. As long as it's a strategy, not the strategy.
Asking someone why the printer does that would have been good. It would have been an opportunity to show initiative to superiors either way. One way you get to remove something everyone hates. Another way you get to find a less intrusive system to solve whatever problem the printouts solve.
It may not have been a problem as they suggest, but not hearing anything is not the same as not causing a problem. I've had people just do things thinking I was making up the issue with what they wanted to do. Of course, it caused the problem, and I didn't know the source until they mockingly said "I did it and you never complained!"
- magduf 7y ago>Asking someone why the printer does that would have been good. It would have been an opportunity to show initiative to superiors either way. One way you get to remove something everyone hates. Another way you get to find a less intrusive system to solve whatever problem the printouts solve. There's a big downside here. If he had asked the purpose of the printer, that would have identified him as the one who disliked it, and the most likely perpetrator if something happened to it. Also remember the old saying, "it's always better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission". It's true usually. If he had asked to do something about the printer, the likely answer would have been "no", because the superiors didn't want to expend any energy on it and it wasn't bothering them.