3 ms·

I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes. Even if there are go

by samus 3y ago

I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes. Even if there are good reasons why things are how they are, you'll find out much faster why. Contrary to when interacting with people where advice is often simply not wanted, you are pretty much paid to treat an organization's problem as your own. Sometimes problems persist because people simply have stopped caring about them. I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career.

okwhateverdude 3y ago
> I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career. This. I am currently facing such a problem having very recently joined a new company. They recently had a very expensive incident and would like to not repeat it. I was handed an analysis task for the system that caused the incident with the expectation for me to make recommendations to improve the reliability. And, so far, my recommendation would be to refactor/rewrite large chunks of it (reduce cyclomatic complexity, greater test coverage and from the perspective of use cases, strict exception handling, fully documented state chart with all transitions validated, etc). When I gave a status update on my analysis that isn't finished yet, my manager was concerned that I would recommend exactly what I am going to recommend. So now I am kinda stuck. Do I openly say exactly what they don't want to hear even if I was tasked to do exactly that? Luckily, I don't really give a shit about "career" nonsense, I am too old for that. But at the same time, I do want to build credibility and social capital in this org. My experience in building highly scalable, resilient systems says that the current implementation is sub par, and it shows with amount of break-fix work the team is constantly doing. I don't really want to be Cassandra and say "If you don't do this, the risk of another catastrophic error is really high". And I don't have enough data or time in the org to know what kind of persuasive arguments tend to find sympathetic ears. So I have to gamble a bit, follow my principles, and honestly explain why their system is shit, in palatable terms, and hope they don't give me the boot. It is stressful and I hate it.
JohnFen 3y ago
> I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes. They absolutely can, and I make note of my thoughts during my early employment so I can revisit them once I'm more familiar with the context that things are done in. I wait, though, because it's more effective to bring these things up once you're no longer so green. If my criticisms are legitimate, I can refine them to better match the circumstances in the workplace and so be of greater usefulness. Also, nobody likes or listens to the new guy telling everyone how they're doing everything wrong. The (legitimate) defense is "you don't understand the big picture". So I like to get the big picture. None of this is to say that I keep completely silent. I'll totally question my colleagues about things that look off to me. I just won't press about them or push for change until I am standing on more equal ground. But this changes depending on the nature of the employment. I've been talking about being a permanent employee. If I'm a temp or contractor, I am much more vocal about this stuff because very often, that sort of thing is what the company hiring the contractor is wanting.

by samus 3y ago

okwhateverdude 3y ago

> I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career. This. I am currently facing such a problem having very recently joined a new company. They recently had a very expensive incident and would like to not repeat it. I was handed an analysis task for the system that caused the incident with the expectation for me to make recommendations to improve the reliability. And, so far, my recommendation would be to refactor/rewrite large chunks of it (reduce cyclomatic complexity, greater test coverage and from the perspective of use cases, strict exception handling, fully documented state chart with all transitions validated, etc). When I gave a status update on my analysis that isn't finished yet, my manager was concerned that I would recommend exactly what I am going to recommend. So now I am kinda stuck. Do I openly say exactly what they don't want to hear even if I was tasked to do exactly that? Luckily, I don't really give a shit about "career" nonsense, I am too old for that. But at the same time, I do want to build credibility and social capital in this org. My experience in building highly scalable, resilient systems says that the current implementation is sub par, and it shows with amount of break-fix work the team is constantly doing. I don't really want to be Cassandra and say "If you don't do this, the risk of another catastrophic error is really high". And I don't have enough data or time in the org to know what kind of persuasive arguments tend to find sympathetic ears. So I have to gamble a bit, follow my principles, and honestly explain why their system is shit, in palatable terms, and hope they don't give me the boot. It is stressful and I hate it.

JohnFen 3y ago

> I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes. They absolutely can, and I make note of my thoughts during my early employment so I can revisit them once I'm more familiar with the context that things are done in. I wait, though, because it's more effective to bring these things up once you're no longer so green. If my criticisms are legitimate, I can refine them to better match the circumstances in the workplace and so be of greater usefulness. Also, nobody likes or listens to the new guy telling everyone how they're doing everything wrong. The (legitimate) defense is "you don't understand the big picture". So I like to get the big picture. None of this is to say that I keep completely silent. I'll totally question my colleagues about things that look off to me. I just won't press about them or push for change until I am standing on more equal ground. But this changes depending on the nature of the employment. I've been talking about being a permanent employee. If I'm a temp or contractor, I am much more vocal about this stuff because very often, that sort of thing is what the company hiring the contractor is wanting.