4 ms·

The most stressful version of this for me is when someone sidles up to you on chat and asks "is X working?" or "is Y supposed to do Z?" Like, if you're saying

by thom 6y ago

The most stressful version of this for me is when someone sidles up to you on chat and asks "is X working?" or "is Y supposed to do Z?" Like, if you're saying it's not working: say that. If you're saying it's not doing what you expect: say that. It's the QA version of "we have to talk" and I'm instantly anxious until you clarify.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
We work in an open space and people usually ask to make sure they arent the crazy one. It can go either direction: we had to do that cause x, or yeah thats not how its supposed to work... Followed by... Well its how it works for now cause of this and this... Along with everyone agreeing its wrong. They arent trying to mess with you just confirm intended behavior.
- Groxx 6y ago
  In-person I almost universally heard stuff like "is anyone else having problems with X? the site won't load for me" and that second part is crucial. In chat, something like 1/4-1/2 are "is X working?" followed by total silence. Sometimes they really are just asking if it's running, i.e. does X still exist. Sometimes they're having a failed build on a different system because their dependency manager cache is broken and it's blaming random libraries. Sometimes the frontend is busted. What they're doing in practice is asking for 1:1 dedicated help on literally anything, so the only reasonable choice for a responder is those unicorn devs who know everything somehow. They almost never exist, so those "questions" go unanswered for a long time.
  - giancarlostoro 6y ago
    Thats usually who I try to be but I have been burned by it cause I didnt mention why I was falling behind at two former jobs. It did cost me a job cause of that plus the fact they were over engineering what would of been a few months into a few years effort just to be bleeding edge. It sucks how some environments are worse than others. I think the biggest quality for software developers is humility. Without humility you could end up with some nasty devs. I have worked with people who get personallu attached to their code being quality but they dont follow project protocol or write hacky code.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
smabie 6y ago
I dunno it's definitely happened to me before that the company's git repo was only down for me, or whatever. Networking is weird, so it's good to confirm that others are having the same issue.
vsareto 6y ago
Lots of folks will guard against strong assertions like that out of habit, especially if it's not their area of expertise. They're leaving open the possibility that they could be wrong.
- rgoulter 6y ago
  Yes. This sounds pretty similar to the "askers vs guessers" cultural difference. If it's okay to receive a 'no', then you're free to ask whatever. If you're expected to know before you ask, then you can't ask until you know what the answer will be. But, yes, it's valuable if someone is asking can clarify "here's what I tried..".

by thom 6y ago

giancarlostoro 6y ago

We work in an open space and people usually ask to make sure they arent the crazy one. It can go either direction: we had to do that cause x, or yeah thats not how its supposed to work... Followed by... Well its how it works for now cause of this and this... Along with everyone agreeing its wrong. They arent trying to mess with you just confirm intended behavior.

Groxx 6y ago
In-person I almost universally heard stuff like "is anyone else having problems with X? the site won't load for me" and that second part is crucial. In chat, something like 1/4-1/2 are "is X working?" followed by total silence. Sometimes they really are just asking if it's running, i.e. does X still exist. Sometimes they're having a failed build on a different system because their dependency manager cache is broken and it's blaming random libraries. Sometimes the frontend is busted. What they're doing in practice is asking for 1:1 dedicated help on literally anything, so the only reasonable choice for a responder is those unicorn devs who know everything somehow. They almost never exist, so those "questions" go unanswered for a long time.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Thats usually who I try to be but I have been burned by it cause I didnt mention why I was falling behind at two former jobs. It did cost me a job cause of that plus the fact they were over engineering what would of been a few months into a few years effort just to be bleeding edge. It sucks how some environments are worse than others. I think the biggest quality for software developers is humility. Without humility you could end up with some nasty devs. I have worked with people who get personallu attached to their code being quality but they dont follow project protocol or write hacky code.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

smabie 6y ago

I dunno it's definitely happened to me before that the company's git repo was only down for me, or whatever. Networking is weird, so it's good to confirm that others are having the same issue.

vsareto 6y ago

Lots of folks will guard against strong assertions like that out of habit, especially if it's not their area of expertise. They're leaving open the possibility that they could be wrong.

rgoulter 6y ago
Yes. This sounds pretty similar to the "askers vs guessers" cultural difference. If it's okay to receive a 'no', then you're free to ask whatever. If you're expected to know before you ask, then you can't ask until you know what the answer will be. But, yes, it's valuable if someone is asking can clarify "here's what I tried..".