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The distinction between trying to solve a problem yourself vs ask for help is: are you figuring out a new problem, or figuring out the system? If you're trying
by ZephyrBlu 3y ago
The distinction between trying to solve a problem yourself vs ask for help is: are you figuring out a new problem, or figuring out the system?
If you're trying to figure out the system, you should probably ask for help ASAP and build up some knowledge. Over time you'll need to ask questions about the system less frequently.
If you're trying to figure out a new problem related to your work, slogging away at it for a while is more ok because it's value-add and a good learning experience.
The lines are a bit blurry, but that's how I tend to think about this.
- smeej 3y agoI had a manager when I was a new hire who had no concept of this difference at all, and it led to his firing me in my 4th week because I "should have been coming in with more knowledge." He actually told me I should have just come in and started doing things whatever way seemed best to me, like he did, when he was the first employee in the company in the role. Never mind that it was a compliance-heavy role in risk analysis and I was the 5th person on a 5-person team. Sure, I knew plenty of ways to solve the problems. What I didn't know were what systems they had (or, in most cases, didn't have) in place to document investigations, which absolutely must be done. I know plenty about what I'm doing. What I need to know is how you want it recorded. And in fact he had reinvented the entire documentation system during my 2nd week, on a whim. Firing me that fast was the best gift that company could have given me, because things would not have improved between us.