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Why is this idiot running my engineering org?
- fouc 6y ago> "No one else gets into these situations. It’s always you. If someone had told me that one of my employees was hunting white supremacists with the FBI I wouldn’t have to ask who it was because, of course it’s you. It’s always you. Why is it always you?" > The way you process risk and handle fear has more impact on what kind of career you have than any other single factor.
- coderintherye 6y agoThis actually plays out different than you may think. The likely reason the author is the one who always ends up in these situations is because they eschew fear and are willing to take on difficult issues. Most other people, rationally, run from those issues. From my personal experience, this actually works out well for everyone usually because people like me who are happy to wander into difficult things are doing it precisely because those things don't have other power players trying to lord over them. Everyone is running from it, so you can get a good amount of independent autonomy in dealing with it.
- justaguy88 6y agoPlease post the full text, Medium asks for a sign up
- ryneandal 6y agohttps://outline.com/38sRfa https://outline.com/38sRfa
- vezycash 6y agoSerious question. How long before medium starts suing outline, archive.org and others?
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoJust block their JS. All of their dark patterns disappear.
- StavrosK 6y agoThis works: https://bitbucket.org/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clean/src/master/README.md https://bitbucket.org/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-c...
- saas_sam 6y agoGood post. Lots of realness here about the nature of employees and the employed... Also confirms some of my negative beliefs about the government so I love it for validating my biases!
- reidjs 6y agoI’m curious what those negative beliefs are? The article seemed pretty pro-government orgs in the way I interpreted it.
- jcheng 6y agoAww, after all that, we don't get to hear how the episode with the website and the white supremacists ends??
- Shared404 6y agoPossibly it's under an NDA or something.
- austhrow743 6y agoProbably she doesn’t know. Her role in it was connecting the researchers with the FBI, which she did. No reason for them to keep her in the loop.
- patja 6y agoAnd who is the idiot? It was really interesting until it became extremely general and vague. It almost makes it sound like Matt Cutts is the idiot since he's the only specific manager mentioned.
- felipemnoa 6y ago>>And who is the idiot? She kind of talks about it in the last paragraph. I don't think she was talking about someone specifically (although she may have somebody in mind) but in general. "Eventually you end up spending all your time trying to look busy, avoid responsibility and save face by scapegoating others. " "The end result of this is that it often feels like everyone at the top is maliciously incompetent." This, according to her, is how you end up with an idiot running an engineering org.
- vezycash 6y ago>And who is the idiot? Short summary: Woznaik vs Jobs. The technical guy vs. the smooth talker. Longer summary: Some people are perpetual resume builders. They want quick promotion, bigger job titles, higher salary... The ladder growth is their reward. And they'll avoid anything that jeopardizes their career path. They'll grab the glory for good stuff and push the blame for bad stuff. The hacker, risk taker on the other hand does not optimize for career growth. Does difficult, critical stuff often without knowing that what they've accomplished is actually a big deal. Even when know they've accomplished something big, they won't toot their own horns. They do it for the 'love of the game.'
- replyifuagree 6y ago>The end result of this is that it often feels like everyone at the top is maliciously incompetent. What's really going on is that a torrent of digital change is being unleashed on the world. That change is significantly changing the skills needed by leaders. I'm not sure if the flood of wildly successful leaders having a technical background is correlation or causation, but I am looking forward to knowing someday.
- coderintherye 6y agoI share your opinion, but I think the digital change leads to more data-driven decision-making which in turn tends to highlight where nothing is actually getting done. In effect, digital change exposes the people who like big titles but don't actually like doing anything. In my personal opinion, this is also why those people prefer voice chats over written or recorded communication. When proof of work is open and transparent, it becomes glaringly obvious when your record is empty.
- ImaCake 6y agoSomeone downvoted you for this comment, but that was the wrong action. I am personally skeptical you are right about digital change exposing bad leadership. But I value your ideas here and think it is a shame to see them obscured because they appear controversial to others.
- mynegation 6y agoI am all for leaders taking risks but talking to law enforcement without a lawyer or without contacting HR first (for professional matters) would probably be outside my limits.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoUS Digital Service (whom this person worked for) is under/within the Executive Office if the President. USDS folks have latitude others do not (this is from coffee with those who had a tour of duty and from interviews for a role within).
- markus_zhang 6y agoSounds like dream job, close enough to authority to avoid beimg burned frequently, and have access to enough interesting stuffs.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIt is equal parts empowering and exhausting is what was communicated to me. “Be The Change” as quickly as possible and then GTFO.
- dkhenry 6y agoSome people ( like Marianne ) have the capability to stick around a bit longer and effect much greater change. Its exhausting, but there is a strong community that helps you make it though the really hard days.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoI appreciate the service of everyone at USDS and 18F. Thank you.
- polynomial 6y agoMy friends at USDS have indicated to me it's a highly politicized agency. (Though it's unclear to me what exactly they have been doing for the past ~4 years, besides releasing a new sans font.)
- Aeolun 6y ago> The way you process risk and handle fear has more impact on what kind of career you have than any other single factor. Depends on how the organisations you are in value risk taking and fear. If your manager is running from death, your appetite for risk is not a positive.
- dasil003 6y agoIf your boss is a muppet then you are fucked either way. Rule #1 is you have to trust your manager, if you don't then you need to make a change.
- shadowgovt 6y agoI imagine this is something that can be quite exhausting for people in the federal bureaucracy. There's nothing to be done when the American public elects a muppet President.
- vezycash 6y ago>Leadership did not want to stop development work to fix security issues, but they also could not be seen to be ignoring security issues. >...So they would engage with the researchers, put on this big performance with meetings and field trips and PowerPoint decks, >...and then DO NOTHING.
- supernova87a 6y agoSorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't clearly understand from her writing what problem did she just cause without knowing it?) Without that spelled out, I have a hard time really being on board with the rest of the essay. Actually, it's almost like they're 2 different essays broken at that point above. Anyone else experience the same issue in reading it?
- lern_too_spel 6y agoSame experience. I didn't know if the second half was talking about Matt Cutts.
- jmmcd 6y agoI know what you mean, but no. It wasn't that she had done something wrong, it was just amazing (to her manager) that she had done something so (apparently) brave as reaching out to the FBI. The point of the essay is -- some people are brave in this way, and some aren't. I'm not sure if it's a good essay, but what I loved was the way she described connecting people as "just" doing her job. She didn't see it as brave. I'm not sure what degree I would need to take, or what job title I would have to have, to see "making connections" as my job.
- loopz 6y agoConnecting people, she'll gravitate to being a natural leader. You could say she might already be a leader, and she even recognize people can act as a leader without having the position. People are cut out for different things. You have "brave" teachers, and you have "brave" managers. We all recognize them, but don't appreciate them as people enough, even when these breeds are rare gems. Even for someone shy, with experience and hard work, one might end up becoming a death-defying samurai. What the text doesn't recognize is that many people just don't feel all that much or have that much empathy. So there's less of a spur to actually do the work to become a natural leader or go into enough depth.
- rdiddly 6y agoFucking amazing. This was sitting right under my nose my entire life and I sensed it but didn't understand it. Now somebody finally wrote it down. I consider myself pretty courageous or at least indifferent to consequences (which may or may not be the same thing), but yeah that always seems to be the missing or limiting ingredient in every situation. Not that I'm biased or anything! Anyway this is going to be one of those rare days when I read something that's going to be a life-changer. And those don't happen that often at my ripe old age.
- vr46 6y agoI loved this too. Some writing really does speak to you and you see parts of yourself reflected in it.
- Joeri 6y agoThe conclusions are painted with too broad a brush in my view. People don’t split binary into thrill-seekers and conflict-avoiders, it’s more of a spectrum, and people can exhibit both qualities in different circumstances. In my opinion the real difference in leadership style derives from theory x (top-down) vs theory y (bottom-up). If you haven’t read up on that you definitely should. I’ve noticed I can work with managers regardless of their risk profile, but I do not thrive under theory x leadership because it is too stifling.
- mcrad 6y agoWell, theory Y vs X probably isn't broad enough here. The article depicted a fairly complex management scenario, therefore broad strokes are appropriate.
- mcrad 6y agoThe young-uns didn't get much out of the article, it seems. If you've been around a certain amount and variety of management failures or conflicts, you can see how much depends on the personality dimension of risk aversion. We often need to step back to understand that being courageous is rarely valued outside the military.
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- RustyRussell 6y agoThis hit home: I worked over a decade at IBM. > When you are in a work situation where you are respected and admired, that is often its own reward. If you don’t have that, the components of your job that give you a sense of value and satisfaction are all connected directly to the career ladder. What is your title? What is the prestige value of your projects? My current official job title is "Code Contributor". I was quite proud of coming up with something that would be evergreen even if as my projects changed, yet emphasized what I consider key. But it seems to confuse people that it doesn't have "Senior", "Lead", "Chair", or "Manager" in it. Maybe I should just stick all those at the end? :)
- jacobsenscott 6y agoAbout 20 years ago I was a newly minted CS grad and a new software engineer. I told someone a lot older than me what I do and she said "Oh, that's a great start!". Which threw me because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do next. That's what I wanted to do. Today I am a "programmer", because I realized software isn't really engineering. That's still what I want to be doing today, and I still don't know what she thinks I'm supposed to do next.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago> because I realized software isn't really engineering Competently writing software will involve applying engineering principles and a project management methodology: things like TDD, design-patterns, your system's architecture - they're all part of software-engineering. Writing software is "programming" in the same way that writing a bestseller novel is "typing" or doing mathematics is putting fancy symbols on paper.
- folkhack 6y agoCouldn't agree more... and to add my own thoughts, why the heck are we so hellbent on dropping the engineering part from software engineering? I get that it is a discipline that allows one to self-learn up the ladder to the title but why the hate? I do just as much highly-complex/critical work as my other engineering friends, so why is what I do not engineering all of a sudden?
- default-kramer 6y ago> Fleeing death doesn’t just hurt the people they throw under the bus, it also hurts them. They want to be respected by their employees and often know they are not. They want to be admired and often know they are not. They also feel guilty screwing people over to survive. Wow, I never considered there must exist some people who know they are bad at their job, feel bad about it, and yet have to continue doing it to keep paying the bills. This has to be true considering the sheer number of people employed by large organizations.
- marshmellman 6y agoAccording to the author, it’s not just to keep paying the bills. It seems like a lack of self-awareness (or maybe courage) prevents them from realizing that avoiding risks results in self loathing.
- ImaCake 6y agoI would be in the same boat as you a year ago. But I since found myself in a job I was definitely not good at. It sucked very badly. Amusingly enough, most of the reason it sucked was because it was completely dominated by bad faith actors busy keeping their jobs at any cost. Fortunately, I was let go from that job before my probation period ended. Having been in a bad job, it truly feels terrible. It causes stress and you feel like you are always running to catch up but you will never actually make it. It is not difficult to see how this could lead to very negative feelings about the politics of one's workplace as well.
- slim 6y agoall of them know. some of them invent and believe intricate fantasies in which everybody is faking it, nobody is comptent, and is actually secretly behaving like them.. to justify their behavior.
- twirlock 6y agoCool story bro.
- alexashka 6y agoThis was a good read. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't offer any solutions, it just diagnoses the problem of cowards and the peter principle.
- shadowgovt 6y agoUnfortunately, I think the solutions are context specific. It depends on what the larger organization's goals are.
- motohagiography 6y agoHow do we identify, support, and promote people with her understanding?
- NateEag 6y agoWatch for the troublemakers. The ones who violate the bureaucratic rules but don't get the bad outcome the rules are there to prevent. Those are the people you're looking for.
- cjbprime 6y agoIt's really hard to take a positive story away from the FBI interaction. Accidentally ending up in an FBI interview without a lawyer present or briefing you on how to avoid perjury is the stuff of nightmares.
- shadowgovt 6y agoHer "mistake" was assuming everyone in the federal government is on the same side, including the FBI and whatever org USDS had oversight on in this story.
- polynomial 6y agoShe contacted the FBI to initiate an active investigation without informing her boss? Did I misread or misunderstand that?
- icebraining 6y agoI think she contacted the FBI in the expectation that they would just do a preliminary, informal assessment of whether an investigation should be started, without realizing they would immediately start one upon her contact.
- sukilot 6y agoIt's like when you call the police over a noise complaint and don't expect them to roll up guns blazing.
- polynomial 6y agoNo one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
- romualdr 6y agoSounds like whining to me. Why are so jealous ? Why don't you run the engineering org ?
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago> “ How much are you getting paid? How much equity do you have? All that shit becomes very important because it is often all you have.“ Yeah, “all that shit” like the way you can buy food or send your kid to college...
- austhrow743 6y agoI’d put money on this lady coming from a privileged background. Story was a person who works recreationally being disgusted by having to interact with all the filthy proles who need to put food on the table.
- wtracy 6y agoI think you're overstaying things a bit, but you do have a point. She probably has never experienced poverty, and no doubt believes (probably correctly!) that she could easily walk out and get another job for a similar (or higher) wage.
- sukilot 6y agoNot necessarily. She was a talented, young, attractive, single person who was in the adventure phase of her career, hopping from job to job around the world with no expenses of note, working in government with older staid stable people.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago> “ adventure phase of her career” what are you talking about? I’ve had to prioritize money over meaningful work since my early twenties due to complex and upsetting elder care issue. Adventure phase? Get real. If your life contains an adventure phase please stop and acknowledge you are in some overwhelmingly small group of extreme privilege.
- ezekiel68 6y agoIt's a fresh take on "The Peter Principle" [1] and the author even references the formulaic expressions of it (if not by name). I found the article refreshing because it kind of backs into the topic by pondering an inquiry that might sloppily be expressed as, "I wonder why I have not yet succumbed to complacent fiefdom-ism?" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
- vanusa 6y agoBecause capitalism is broken. And the SV work ethos always has been, to a large extent, part collective hallucination, part massive con game. Whereby the vast majority of us are shoehorned into donating our souls, our creative potential and time away from our families -- for the benefit of the comparatively very few who actually call the shots. In this context, the real question to ask is: why are you still working there?
- hblanks 6y agoCf. William Deresiewicz's address to the cadets of West Point in 2009 (https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/ https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/). I think the most surprising insight is his commentary on Heart of Darkness as a novel about bureaucracy -- it's worth a read.
- m0zg 6y agoSpeaking of USDS, how come in August of 2020 we _still_ don't have a government COVID19 website that doesn't suck? One that's trustworthy, that has accurate data, and decent statistical analysis. Maybe you guys should look into doing your jobs instead of "fighting white supremacists" on taxpayer dime?
- JadeNB 6y ago> Maybe you guys should look into doing your jobs instead of "fighting white supremacists" on taxpayer dime? Wait a moment, you can argue about whose purview exactly this is, but are you saying that fighting white supremacists isn't a good use of taxpayer dollars? It's certainly a cause to which I'd be happy to know my taxes were going.
- m0zg 6y agoWe already pay for law enforcement and the judicial branch. USDS should be handling technology problems (which US government has a ton of), not be political vigilantes on my dime.
- JadeNB 6y ago> We already pay for law enforcement and the judicial branch. USDS should be handling technology problems (which US government has a ton of), not be political vigilantes on my dime. Ah, yes, that was the argument that I hoped you were making—based on purview (these people aren't in the business of fighting white supremacists), not on whether fighting white supremacists is itself a good idea. Note that, initially, the white supremacism was irrelevant—the issue was just that a government website (which definitely does fall under the purview of USDS) was expected to come under attack—and that, to the extent that it was relevant, this USDS employee immediately reached out to the FBI, whose job this definitely should be. The article gives no indication that any more USDS resources were spent on this than the author's being interviewed by the FBI.
- NateEag 6y agoEven if the title is misapplied and overused, there are actual white supremacists in the US and they do occasionally kill people. I see no reason in the article to doubt her choice of labels.
- mesozoic 6y agoWhy do people still use the term white supremacists to imply some nefarious group? The term has lost all value and is now used in mainstream best selling books and media to describe every white person. It literally now has no meaning and whenever anyone uses it I just think they're hunting the boogey man.
- JadeNB 6y ago> Why do people still use the term white supremacists to imply some nefarious group? The term has lost all value and is now used in mainstream best selling books and media to describe every white person. What is an example of mainstream best selling books or media that use it that way? (I mean which specifically, not just in the sense of "it feels that it's used so much that it might as well mean that.") I'd argue, even if you are right about this useage, that "white supremacist" should still be used to describe white supremacist activities—responding to the dilution of a word by refusing to use it at all does no-one any good—and that activities properly so described should be regarded as nefarious.
- mesozoic 6y agoWhite fragility applies the term so broadly that it implies the author herself is a white supremecist.
- JadeNB 6y agoBased on a quick search through it, White Fragility mostly but not completely avoids the term "white supremacist" (as applied to people), instead using "white supremacy" or "white supremacist culture". In that context, she says: > White supremacy in this context does not refer to individual white people and their individual intentions or actions but to an overarching political, economic, and social system of domination. Note the specific disclaimer about not so referring to individuals. In this context, it is true that much of the world is part of a white supremacist culture. As the author says: > … within a white supremacist society, I am rewarded for not interrupting racism and punished in a range of ways—big and small—when I do. Pointing this out does not, I think, dilute the term; it rather insists on confronting the fact that "but I'm not racist" is not a sufficient response to claims of systemic racism. (The author does use the phrases "explicit white supremacists" and "avowed white supremacists", thus referring to individuals; but, as far as I can tell, she does not define the term, and I think that it is clear that she means by this to separate out people with overt white supremacist ideas from those of us who are merely a part of the culture—a clarification, rather than a dilution.)
- reincarnate0x14 6y agoThis may seem obvious to older people that have navigated highly structured organizations for a while, but it's a good insight. I've used a similar "bushido vs bureaucracy" dichotomy in the past. Leadership necessitates accepting that failures will occur, planning on how to handle them, and learning from them. Sadly in the US at least, we've had decades of implicit training otherwise and it shows up as a paucity of adults in the room when problems that aren't bullshittable come around. The "don't rock the boat" mentality that makes people accept all kinds of personal risk aversion and cognitive dissonance is rife in any organization that is putting money in people's wallet. Delaying the consequences of any decision or event until after your last paycheck works when enough people buy into it, sort of a meta-Ponzi scheme of responsibility that facilitates the real Ponzi scheme of getting paid today on tomorrow's bill. Sort of tangential, but if you find this article whatever combination of interesting or eye-opening, you may want to read Locke's Confronting Managerialism. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11532185-confronting-managerialism https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11532185-confronting-man...)
- centimeter 6y ago> If someone had told me that one of my employees was hunting white supremacists with the FBI I wouldn’t have to ask who it was because, of course it’s you. It’s always you. This is obviously heavily embellished by the sort of person who’s really into Harry Potter as an adult.
- sukilot 6y agoIt surprised me that USDS, an org specifically created to disrupt government IT, only had one "maverick".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- browsergap 6y agohehehe. chuckle. it's like giant orgs make an art out of dysfunction, more sophisticated and sophisticated levels of dysfunction. as if refinement of dysfunction to its highest potential was the ultimate aim.
- bane 6y agoHer observations on risk are really right on. It helps explain why so many incompetent people with sociopathic risk taking psychologies end up in senior positions while incredibly capable people hit retirement in middle-org positions.
- ridaj 6y agoThis is a good analysis of a very common issue in organizations that do not actively fight this. I wonder if there are tools to counter this effectively though, such as evaluating managers based on how they are perceived by well-calibrated reports, or collegial evaluation of manager performance
- underwater 6y ago> The way we fought the bureaucracy was to build networks of people whose goals were aligned and whose skill sets or resources were compatible. During my stint in a bureaucractic organisation I always considered this types of people as a huge part of the problem. Instead of being candid about what they wanted, open to dialog, and making the whole system better, they forced through ideas that aligned with their own world view via back channels. This meant that instead of getting the best outcomes, we got the ideas pushed by people who had longest tenure or were the most political.
- a1371 6y agoThese sort of networks are also either completely reactive, or show proactivity based on how a new idea "sounds" from a high level perspective.
- TheMagicHorsey 6y agoBureaucrats are drawn to startups? What? I feel like the author is really clueless and has never worked in a startup. You can't not get work done and survive in a startup. There's too much visibility into who is doing what to hide. That's not true in the US Government. I've met lots of losers in government who haven't done a bit of useful work in years. The whole story seems like a concocted ... "oh look how badass and cool I am" scenario. The author is so full of herself.
- solatic 6y agoDefine "startup". There's the startup that's 50-100 people or smaller. In that case, you're completely right. Then there's the "startup" that employs thousands of people and just closed a Series D in anticipation of hiring more. The second is still a completely different beast from old stalwarts of industry like IBM, GM, big Wall Street banks, etc.
- ganafagol 6y agoThe article starts with "This is one of my favorite USDS stories:" Such a hassle when authors just assume everybody is also in their bubble and know all thr acronyms. I'm not in or from the U.S. I have no clue what USDS is. Bad start to introduce me to your article.
- IggleSniggle 6y agoI am so with you. Even more common acronyms can benefit from being written out.
- KineticLensman 6y ago> Such a hassle when authors just assume everybody is also in their bubble and know all thr acronyms Yes, totally agree. And for those who say 'well you got Google don't you?' or similar, my searches found United States Department of State and United States Digital Service. Both of these seem plausible but who knows.
- pavlus 6y agoThis is one of the reasons I hate acronyms so much, they have a place when definitely put in context (previous conversation, or spelled out first), but if it's an article (kind of paywalled btw, but that's another thing) and not follow up on something nor quick letter to someone, as article it is designed to target broader audience who are out of context what it will be about (especially with that clickbaiting title) it has no place for acronyms right from the start and so ambiguous ones. The whole thing looks like a rushed rant written to get some views on Medium and not to share "favorite story".
- jonnypotty 6y agoAwesome article. Every now and then someone introduces a concept that helps me understand the world a little more. Shitty out of control managers running from anxiety and death. The idea that being in charge of a team where you can't control it being like being in charge of your life but not in control of it...amazing. How you deal with that inherant anxiety is key. Thanks.
- binbag 6y agoStrangely constructed narrative.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]