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I think both sides are true. On the one hand, dysfunction exists in all organizations. On the other hand, it takes effort to maintain a high functioning organ

I think both sides are true. On the one hand, dysfunction exists in all organizations. On the other hand, it takes effort to maintain a high functioning organization and most people don’t want to put in the real hard work. Not only are most people resistant to change, but the gratitude/reward probably won’t be there. It’s far easier to complain and wallow in a stuck situation than to sit through the discomfort of pushing for change. Schools, non-profits, government programs, corporations, they all experience it. While I can’t say I support this way of life, I can definitely understand why it exists.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> gratitude/reward probably won’t be there. It’s far easier to complain and wallow in a stuck situation than to sit through the discomfort of pushing for change. That's the job of management, that's why they get rewarded for that, and I have a feeling we have a lot of bad management.
- Xylakant 3y ago
  “managing” their workspace and surroundings is the jobs of every senior person in a workplace. Having a line manager that cares and is good at their job helps, but if technical folks believe they can just care about the technical part of a job, they’re setting themselves up for failure and frustration. Getting a solution adopted needs much more than technical excellence, it needs communication, an eye for human factors, an idea of costs and tradeoffs. Complaining about “bad management” is a symptom of a lack of awareness. There’s a lot of bad management, but there’s about as many technical people that just ignore all of those non-technical factors and then constantly complain that their solutions never make it anywhere.
  - generic92034 3y ago
    In my eyes there is a good deal of victim blaming in that view. Time and again engineers pushing for changes, ignoring borders of teams or (sub-)orgs and the management hierarchy are met with highly toxic reactions, usually by managers who are seeing some kind of dangerous insubordination.
    - Xylakant 3y ago
      I’m a tech person by trade and spent more than a decade in operations - the ones that need to deal with the results of it all. And I can tell you that I’ve met a fair share of developers and ops people that would just ignore all constraints, to the point of blaming management that they required developers (and ops folks) to implement legal requirements. as an example: I’ve worked in an environment that managed sensitive (and legally privileged) data and people would rather circumvent security measures that made their work harder than take security up on the explicit offer to figure out better measures that would put less burden on ops. And the same people complained about the crackdown that followed. Yes, the rules made work harder. Yes, they could have been changed to make things less onerous. But security was reasonable, they were willing to invest time and money to work with the ops folks - so going around the because you know better is a stupid move. Yet people did.
      - generic92034 3y ago
        I believe you. No doubt that this also happens. But I have also experienced developers pushing for simplifications (think customer service UI, extremely convoluted process for testing corrections, etc.) being put into their place, leaving no doubt that they were seen as "troublemakers". So I just wanted to point out that aspect. Of course, things like that are showing a significant degree of organizational dysfunction, but that is big corp today.
        Xylakant 3y ago
        I don't believe we're in disagrement. Yes, there's bad management which will resist all attempts to improve things. Quit, move on. You won't fix the place. I'm specifically pushing against the stance of > That's the job of management, that's why they get rewarded for that, and I have a feeling we have a lot of bad management. It's just not. And with that stance, you won't get things moving forward because it displays a major disregard for other peoples motivations, priorities and constraints. It displays the assumption that technical solutions can be judged on purely technical merits while real-world tradeoffs are so much more complex. If you want to be able to move things forward, you need to work with the organizational structure, not shunt off work to them.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> gratitude/reward probably won’t be there. It’s far easier to complain and wallow in a stuck situation than to sit through the discomfort of pushing for change. That's the job of management, that's why they get rewarded for that, and I have a feeling we have a lot of bad management.

Xylakant 3y ago
“managing” their workspace and surroundings is the jobs of every senior person in a workplace. Having a line manager that cares and is good at their job helps, but if technical folks believe they can just care about the technical part of a job, they’re setting themselves up for failure and frustration. Getting a solution adopted needs much more than technical excellence, it needs communication, an eye for human factors, an idea of costs and tradeoffs. Complaining about “bad management” is a symptom of a lack of awareness. There’s a lot of bad management, but there’s about as many technical people that just ignore all of those non-technical factors and then constantly complain that their solutions never make it anywhere.
- generic92034 3y ago
  In my eyes there is a good deal of victim blaming in that view. Time and again engineers pushing for changes, ignoring borders of teams or (sub-)orgs and the management hierarchy are met with highly toxic reactions, usually by managers who are seeing some kind of dangerous insubordination.
  - Xylakant 3y ago
    I’m a tech person by trade and spent more than a decade in operations - the ones that need to deal with the results of it all. And I can tell you that I’ve met a fair share of developers and ops people that would just ignore all constraints, to the point of blaming management that they required developers (and ops folks) to implement legal requirements. as an example: I’ve worked in an environment that managed sensitive (and legally privileged) data and people would rather circumvent security measures that made their work harder than take security up on the explicit offer to figure out better measures that would put less burden on ops. And the same people complained about the crackdown that followed. Yes, the rules made work harder. Yes, they could have been changed to make things less onerous. But security was reasonable, they were willing to invest time and money to work with the ops folks - so going around the because you know better is a stupid move. Yet people did.
    - generic92034 3y ago
      I believe you. No doubt that this also happens. But I have also experienced developers pushing for simplifications (think customer service UI, extremely convoluted process for testing corrections, etc.) being put into their place, leaving no doubt that they were seen as "troublemakers". So I just wanted to point out that aspect. Of course, things like that are showing a significant degree of organizational dysfunction, but that is big corp today.
      - Xylakant 3y ago
        I don't believe we're in disagrement. Yes, there's bad management which will resist all attempts to improve things. Quit, move on. You won't fix the place. I'm specifically pushing against the stance of > That's the job of management, that's why they get rewarded for that, and I have a feeling we have a lot of bad management. It's just not. And with that stance, you won't get things moving forward because it displays a major disregard for other peoples motivations, priorities and constraints. It displays the assumption that technical solutions can be judged on purely technical merits while real-world tradeoffs are so much more complex. If you want to be able to move things forward, you need to work with the organizational structure, not shunt off work to them.