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> you DON'T get to pick the good parts of crazy I used to rant a lot. At times it was perceived as an attack on someone's work, when it wasn't meant to be. The

> you DON'T get to pick the good parts of crazy I used to rant a lot. At times it was perceived as an attack on someone's work, when it wasn't meant to be. Then, I'd apologize, assuming it was ok. I was experienced, and I thought I was being paid to mentor and oversee as part of my work. I thought that others would understand and sympathize that I ranted because I was under a lot of stress. They didn't. They would tell others, and they would not confront me about it, which eventually resulted in a hellish working environment and semi-isolation. I believe at least one was even being unethical in their reaction to me speaking my mind, causing problems for me, probably with the best intention to wear me down, to get rid of the toxicity in their work environment "for the good of the whole". I now try to think about what I say, even when being direct would solve a problem more quickly. Sometimes that means that when I'm on calls, others will run over me. To get over that, I also try to act and believe that the other person is more qualified. I don't do that with everyone, and it's not appropriate for speaking with young children, but it's usually good.

throwaway98797 6y ago
The question I pose myself is: “Am I trying to say the right thing or am I communicating”
Balgair 6y ago
Aside: Consulting and mentoring share some things in common. One thing that is gold for a consultant is to be sitting in a meeting and have the client repeat your ideas, word for word, back to the execs. and claim the idea as their own. To outright 'steal' the idea and get all the credit. It means that the client actually listens to you and thinks your ideas are good [0]. The same mechanism is true with mentoring. If your mentee nearly parrots your ideas, you're gold. If they continue to do bull-headed things, you're sunk; you must how you mentor as it's clearly not working [1]. [0] This means you can raise your rates without fear, btw. [1] To be clear, mentoring is a lot more than just this. Whole books have been written about mentoring, read them.
- andi999 6y ago
  "[1] To be clear, mentoring is a lot more than just this. Whole books have been written about mentoring, read them." Probably a lot of bad books about mentoring have been written as well. Could you recommand the good ones?
proverbialbunny 6y ago
This is why Agile's Retrospective is so awesome to have on your team. Agile doesn't work for a lot of the work I do (data scientist) but if there is anything worth grabbing and incorporating into other PM frameworks is the restrospective. If done right, it would have prevented this issue and other team community communication related issues. I highly recommend it. That and a time machine would be nice.
- beckingz 6y ago
  Had a recent data science experience where the exploratory part of the project was shoehorned into a micromanaged scrum framework. Apparently they discarded their task tracker entirely the same week I left.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    Me too. I'm currently working on an Agile engineering team, due to it being a startup, so they like to group people together. (We got a data engineer, an infrastructure engineer, a consultant of all things, a firmware engineer, a hardware engineer, and a jack of all trades.) This at first bothered me a lot, due to Agile micromanagement, but after a few months the company realized my work load is nothing like engineering, and because I have to become the domain expert on a topic to solve the challenges at hand, I end up knowing best what the next steps should be. After realizing this the company has since put me in the team lead meetings (which is excessive imo) and has personally requested that I make my own epics, issues/pbis, and do my own refinement. The only downside remaining is the company wants presentations every two weeks, but now I'm in control to slowly grow my pbis into whatever time span I want (within reason), allowing me to present as often as I want. Responsibility comes with rapport.
    - loopz 6y ago
      Getting the work done should be enough, though it only works when management has some technical oversight. If they do not, or squeeze the sand out of their hand, they lose that edge.

throwaway98797 6y ago

The question I pose myself is: “Am I trying to say the right thing or am I communicating”

Balgair 6y ago

Aside: Consulting and mentoring share some things in common. One thing that is gold for a consultant is to be sitting in a meeting and have the client repeat your ideas, word for word, back to the execs. and claim the idea as their own. To outright 'steal' the idea and get all the credit. It means that the client actually listens to you and thinks your ideas are good [0]. The same mechanism is true with mentoring. If your mentee nearly parrots your ideas, you're gold. If they continue to do bull-headed things, you're sunk; you must how you mentor as it's clearly not working [1]. [0] This means you can raise your rates without fear, btw. [1] To be clear, mentoring is a lot more than just this. Whole books have been written about mentoring, read them.

andi999 6y ago
"[1] To be clear, mentoring is a lot more than just this. Whole books have been written about mentoring, read them." Probably a lot of bad books about mentoring have been written as well. Could you recommand the good ones?

proverbialbunny 6y ago

This is why Agile's Retrospective is so awesome to have on your team. Agile doesn't work for a lot of the work I do (data scientist) but if there is anything worth grabbing and incorporating into other PM frameworks is the restrospective. If done right, it would have prevented this issue and other team community communication related issues. I highly recommend it. That and a time machine would be nice.

beckingz 6y ago
Had a recent data science experience where the exploratory part of the project was shoehorned into a micromanaged scrum framework. Apparently they discarded their task tracker entirely the same week I left.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  Me too. I'm currently working on an Agile engineering team, due to it being a startup, so they like to group people together. (We got a data engineer, an infrastructure engineer, a consultant of all things, a firmware engineer, a hardware engineer, and a jack of all trades.) This at first bothered me a lot, due to Agile micromanagement, but after a few months the company realized my work load is nothing like engineering, and because I have to become the domain expert on a topic to solve the challenges at hand, I end up knowing best what the next steps should be. After realizing this the company has since put me in the team lead meetings (which is excessive imo) and has personally requested that I make my own epics, issues/pbis, and do my own refinement. The only downside remaining is the company wants presentations every two weeks, but now I'm in control to slowly grow my pbis into whatever time span I want (within reason), allowing me to present as often as I want. Responsibility comes with rapport.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Getting the work done should be enough, though it only works when management has some technical oversight. If they do not, or squeeze the sand out of their hand, they lose that edge.