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This is interesting. And definitely a "real thing". To me it raises an interesting question about effectively demonstrating value to one's higher ups. It's a

This is interesting. And definitely a "real thing". To me it raises an interesting question about effectively demonstrating value to one's higher ups. It's a little sad that pushing for "visibility" is so important, especially in large corporations, but it helps to put yourself in the boss's shoes - how will he/she know you're doing good work unless you blow your own trumpet? Arguments that a good boss "should just know" certainly have merit, but it's up to each of us to determine whether our own boss fits in that category and emphasize our accomplishments accordingly if we're to be "performance reviwed" with bonus etc depending on that perception. Edit: s/now/know/

knightofmars 13y ago
This (as most things are) is far easier said than done. Someone who is in the business of "putting out fires" can easily cite the numerous times they tirelessly fixed a production bug or worked a 60 hour work week. Managers quickly understand those concepts as they see a direct correlation to their own job or can visualize the impact. Explaining that you "wrote a unit test suite that has minimized the long-term impact of bugs" or that you architected an elegant solution to a design issue that will help foster extensibility and testability in the long-term will also likely be met with "this guy is blowing smoke up my rear" because there is no way for the manager to verify those claims. Anecdotal case, I worked with an individual who was labeled as a "trouble maker" who everyone said constantly raised issues that weren't relevant and that didn't do any real work. The individual ended up quitting because they got sick of the work environment. Next release cycle, all of the projects they were a part of began falling apart. The contribution that this person had been making was identifying shortcomings of the requirements, processes, implementations, and verification steps. Nobody could see past their own bias and lack of understanding about what was happening. They just kept getting frustrated (including management) because from their perspective this individual was just "creating more work".
- brianmcc 13y ago
  I agree with you, I hate that so many places are like this. It really isn't right, and rewards the wrong behaviours. From my own perspective I have been lucky for the most part in having had good managers/team leads even in organisations where this culture pervades. It's taught me to be wary though and "manage upwards" until I feel confident my own direct manager appreciates and recognises my input. Raising awareness with my manager's manager is harder: still working on that, I suspect and element of "HELLO HERE I AM FIXING STUFF, IT'S QUITE LATE, BEEN DOING IT FOR A WHILE NOW, OK THEN GLAD WE'VE CONFIRMED WE ALL KNOW THIS" is still needed!

knightofmars 13y ago

This (as most things are) is far easier said than done. Someone who is in the business of "putting out fires" can easily cite the numerous times they tirelessly fixed a production bug or worked a 60 hour work week. Managers quickly understand those concepts as they see a direct correlation to their own job or can visualize the impact. Explaining that you "wrote a unit test suite that has minimized the long-term impact of bugs" or that you architected an elegant solution to a design issue that will help foster extensibility and testability in the long-term will also likely be met with "this guy is blowing smoke up my rear" because there is no way for the manager to verify those claims. Anecdotal case, I worked with an individual who was labeled as a "trouble maker" who everyone said constantly raised issues that weren't relevant and that didn't do any real work. The individual ended up quitting because they got sick of the work environment. Next release cycle, all of the projects they were a part of began falling apart. The contribution that this person had been making was identifying shortcomings of the requirements, processes, implementations, and verification steps. Nobody could see past their own bias and lack of understanding about what was happening. They just kept getting frustrated (including management) because from their perspective this individual was just "creating more work".

brianmcc 13y ago
I agree with you, I hate that so many places are like this. It really isn't right, and rewards the wrong behaviours. From my own perspective I have been lucky for the most part in having had good managers/team leads even in organisations where this culture pervades. It's taught me to be wary though and "manage upwards" until I feel confident my own direct manager appreciates and recognises my input. Raising awareness with my manager's manager is harder: still working on that, I suspect and element of "HELLO HERE I AM FIXING STUFF, IT'S QUITE LATE, BEEN DOING IT FOR A WHILE NOW, OK THEN GLAD WE'VE CONFIRMED WE ALL KNOW THIS" is still needed!