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also, fairly unrelated to what you mentioned... I hate the junior engineers "its so easy to ask a more experienced engineer a _quick_ question" comments.. If y

also, fairly unrelated to what you mentioned... I hate the junior engineers "its so easy to ask a more experienced engineer a _quick_ question" comments.. If you're asking me a 'quick' question - google it dammit. Interrupting more senior engineers should be reserved for more 'difficult' problems - specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. If you're interrupting me for stuff you could find by browsing the repos, or googling - I'm gonna be annoyed. If its something more technical/nuanced and it takes me 10+ minutes to resolve, I'm going to be impressed. Again, I realize you made no claims about this, but the conversation always seems to pop up in these WFH articles

johnnyanmac 3y ago
The problem is "easy" is relative. "quick" for a senior =/= "quick" for a junior who may not even know what terms to google. > specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. so most of the proprietary workplace tools, likely with shoddy or outdated documentation? Yeah, that sounds like a big issue that is definitely not the junior's fault.
- mech422 3y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't find a junior not knowing what terms to google to be a compelling argument. Nor do I find "proprietary workplace tools" to be a compelling arguement. Either the on-boarding sucked, or they didn't pay attention to it, either way that "is definitely not the" seniors fault. If you can't expend the basic effort, don't expect someone else to bail you out...
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    In that case I am glad you've only had properly functional workplaces with perfect on-boarding, documentation that properly explains all jargon and tribal knowledge, lack of legacy code with random landmines that would take weeks to understand from scratch, and no directors that will change the entire trajectory of a project on a whim. My reality is a lot more bleak. That and/or you went straight into a truly elite workplace where a "junior" is still someone with years of experience in industry. It is hard to sympathize with truly green workers when you have none. And industry seems to be leaning towards that as of late.
    - mech422 3y ago
      >>If you can't expend the basic effort, don't expect someone else to bail you out... Wow - you really went out of your way to ignore that basic statement I made (and I stand by). No one expects juniors to come in with perfect knowledge (wouldn't that make them a senior/god? :-P) but they do expect them to do the basics. Why does that seem to sound so unreasonable to you? >>legacy code with random landmines that would take weeks to understand from scratch I also specifically mentioned something like this would be something I don't expect juniors to know and would have no problems helping a junior dev. with (it takes more then 10 minutes to explain...) Also, if a junior dev is getting a project like that either the Team Lead or the 'resident expert' will probably go out of their way up front to point out the 'landmines'. Seniors know the organizations don't have perfect training. We got bit by it when we were juniors, we saw what all the juniors before had problems with ... we understand that (and often try to help with some stuff when you walk in the door eg "oh - the company directory is out of date, here's a list of updated names and phone numbers for people" or "Neteng doesn't use jira anymore, they use XXX - ask Mr. Foo to give you access") By the same token, seniors can tell when you haven't "expended the basic effort" on something and thats when it gets annoying. If the answer to something is "search your email for 'onboarding' - all your logins are in that", we're gonna wonder why you didn't read it to begin with. P.S. if the situations you describe above are what you consider 'bleak', you're probably not gonna have much fun in tech as it sounds pretty average to me. Especially Directors/Mgmt changing project scopes/priorities/etc on a whim - that probably happens daily :-P (Also, it probably accounts for 50%+ of the issues with on-boarding docs and 'landmines') Enjoy the Weekend
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        I think ultimately the issue here is we won't ever come to an agreement of what is "basic effort." and this is why juniors can get mixed signals between "struggle for days on something that can be resolved with one quick question to slack". And "ask any question that comes to mind with zero thought". I personally hit the former extreme a lot due to early careers outright refusing to give me help as some sort of "proving grounds" to show I can setup my own admin portal (I wasn't even in IT, I asked one and they were told by management not to help me), and that caused some extreme correction in later roles who encouraged me to simply ask. I see it a lot more often than a junior asking what what some language keyword is. So my advice will be biased toward encouraging juniors to "asked stupid questions". It just feels like bad faith (again based on my experiences) to assume juniors are stupid, lazy, and don't respect others' time. >P.S. if the situations you describe above are what you consider 'bleak', you're probably not gonna have much fun in tech as it sounds pretty average to me. Been in for a while, I'm just numb to it. But just because I suffered doesn't mean I want everyone else coming in to go through the same things. The top comment here is talking about society becoming more and more isolated and this attitude of chastising newcomers for their lack of experience will just discourage them further from using their co-workers as a relationship to give and take from, instead of some cold evaluator to gain approval of. At the end of the day a lot of work relationships isn't different from social relationships; co-workers remember how you made them feel, and not as much how many PRs you merge in. So even if you have some machine like efficiency you will simply be seen as an avatar on a chat screen if you don't make attempts to reach out. And being afraid of "stupid questions" will make you afraid of asking about anything else.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

The problem is "easy" is relative. "quick" for a senior =/= "quick" for a junior who may not even know what terms to google. > specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. so most of the proprietary workplace tools, likely with shoddy or outdated documentation? Yeah, that sounds like a big issue that is definitely not the junior's fault.

mech422 3y ago
I'm sorry, I don't find a junior not knowing what terms to google to be a compelling argument. Nor do I find "proprietary workplace tools" to be a compelling arguement. Either the on-boarding sucked, or they didn't pay attention to it, either way that "is definitely not the" seniors fault. If you can't expend the basic effort, don't expect someone else to bail you out...
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  In that case I am glad you've only had properly functional workplaces with perfect on-boarding, documentation that properly explains all jargon and tribal knowledge, lack of legacy code with random landmines that would take weeks to understand from scratch, and no directors that will change the entire trajectory of a project on a whim. My reality is a lot more bleak. That and/or you went straight into a truly elite workplace where a "junior" is still someone with years of experience in industry. It is hard to sympathize with truly green workers when you have none. And industry seems to be leaning towards that as of late.
  - mech422 3y ago
    >>If you can't expend the basic effort, don't expect someone else to bail you out... Wow - you really went out of your way to ignore that basic statement I made (and I stand by). No one expects juniors to come in with perfect knowledge (wouldn't that make them a senior/god? :-P) but they do expect them to do the basics. Why does that seem to sound so unreasonable to you? >>legacy code with random landmines that would take weeks to understand from scratch I also specifically mentioned something like this would be something I don't expect juniors to know and would have no problems helping a junior dev. with (it takes more then 10 minutes to explain...) Also, if a junior dev is getting a project like that either the Team Lead or the 'resident expert' will probably go out of their way up front to point out the 'landmines'. Seniors know the organizations don't have perfect training. We got bit by it when we were juniors, we saw what all the juniors before had problems with ... we understand that (and often try to help with some stuff when you walk in the door eg "oh - the company directory is out of date, here's a list of updated names and phone numbers for people" or "Neteng doesn't use jira anymore, they use XXX - ask Mr. Foo to give you access") By the same token, seniors can tell when you haven't "expended the basic effort" on something and thats when it gets annoying. If the answer to something is "search your email for 'onboarding' - all your logins are in that", we're gonna wonder why you didn't read it to begin with. P.S. if the situations you describe above are what you consider 'bleak', you're probably not gonna have much fun in tech as it sounds pretty average to me. Especially Directors/Mgmt changing project scopes/priorities/etc on a whim - that probably happens daily :-P (Also, it probably accounts for 50%+ of the issues with on-boarding docs and 'landmines') Enjoy the Weekend
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I think ultimately the issue here is we won't ever come to an agreement of what is "basic effort." and this is why juniors can get mixed signals between "struggle for days on something that can be resolved with one quick question to slack". And "ask any question that comes to mind with zero thought". I personally hit the former extreme a lot due to early careers outright refusing to give me help as some sort of "proving grounds" to show I can setup my own admin portal (I wasn't even in IT, I asked one and they were told by management not to help me), and that caused some extreme correction in later roles who encouraged me to simply ask. I see it a lot more often than a junior asking what what some language keyword is. So my advice will be biased toward encouraging juniors to "asked stupid questions". It just feels like bad faith (again based on my experiences) to assume juniors are stupid, lazy, and don't respect others' time. >P.S. if the situations you describe above are what you consider 'bleak', you're probably not gonna have much fun in tech as it sounds pretty average to me. Been in for a while, I'm just numb to it. But just because I suffered doesn't mean I want everyone else coming in to go through the same things. The top comment here is talking about society becoming more and more isolated and this attitude of chastising newcomers for their lack of experience will just discourage them further from using their co-workers as a relationship to give and take from, instead of some cold evaluator to gain approval of. At the end of the day a lot of work relationships isn't different from social relationships; co-workers remember how you made them feel, and not as much how many PRs you merge in. So even if you have some machine like efficiency you will simply be seen as an avatar on a chat screen if you don't make attempts to reach out. And being afraid of "stupid questions" will make you afraid of asking about anything else.