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I've been teaching myself how to resolve deadlocks occurring in our database and completely removed one deadlock scenario from occurring (it was occurring hundr

I've been teaching myself how to resolve deadlocks occurring in our database and completely removed one deadlock scenario from occurring (it was occurring hundreds of times per day) and reduced another scenario down to about 1 deadlock per day from about 200 per day. It was really hard stuff for me at first (although I think I've got the hang of it by now). My managers will simply not do anything about the phone ringing on my desk that several other people at the office can handle (including themselves). On the one hand, I feel like acting like a child and just giving up on the problem I'm currently solving since nobody asked me to do this but on the other hand I know every year during our peak season these deadlocks bring our system to its knees and it doesn't look like anyone else is going to do anything about it (I just got access to the codebase a couple months ago and thought of adding error logging a few weeks ago which showed me the thousands of deadlocks that were happening everyday). I'm not sure why I even try to help if they don't try to help me.

sukilot 12y ago
You have choices: Do what makes your boss happy with you, for security. Do what will help you get the next job you want. Find a niche where they pay you and forget about you, and do what is fun.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
Don't work for free. I don't just mean in terms of monetary compensation (although that too). If you haven't explained the value of your efforts to your bosses, then you should do that. If they can't understand the value of it, or don't want you to put effort into it (or aren't willing to support you while you put effort into it), then you shouldn't do it. Spend the time instead answering the phone -- that's what they want to pay you for -- and keep looking for a better job. Somewhere up the chain of command is, hopefully, someone who thinks about everything in terms of money. Find that person and explain that the downtime and performance issues cost some amount of money every year. Do the math, come up with some real and plausible numbers. Then explain that you can fix it for probably some other amount of money. Before you go to them, make sure the first number is bigger than the second, otherwise they'll tell you you probably shouldn't be spending your time on it, and they'll be right. Engineers have a bit of a tendency to focus on technical inefficiencies without giving enough consideration to the human or financial things in a business. The ringing phone might actually be costing the business more money than the deadlocks; some customers hate it when they call up and the phone consistently rings a dozen times or goes straight to voicemail. There might be other things that would be more important than fixing the deadlocks -- documentation tends to be a pretty common ailment. It's great that you're taking initiative to fix some problems in the company, but be careful about feeling resentment over a lack of support for it if you haven't talked to anyone first to make sure you really should be working on this particular problem to the exclusion of other duties. And don't do it for free.

sukilot 12y ago

You have choices: Do what makes your boss happy with you, for security. Do what will help you get the next job you want. Find a niche where they pay you and forget about you, and do what is fun.

thaumaturgy 12y ago

Don't work for free. I don't just mean in terms of monetary compensation (although that too). If you haven't explained the value of your efforts to your bosses, then you should do that. If they can't understand the value of it, or don't want you to put effort into it (or aren't willing to support you while you put effort into it), then you shouldn't do it. Spend the time instead answering the phone -- that's what they want to pay you for -- and keep looking for a better job. Somewhere up the chain of command is, hopefully, someone who thinks about everything in terms of money. Find that person and explain that the downtime and performance issues cost some amount of money every year. Do the math, come up with some real and plausible numbers. Then explain that you can fix it for probably some other amount of money. Before you go to them, make sure the first number is bigger than the second, otherwise they'll tell you you probably shouldn't be spending your time on it, and they'll be right. Engineers have a bit of a tendency to focus on technical inefficiencies without giving enough consideration to the human or financial things in a business. The ringing phone might actually be costing the business more money than the deadlocks; some customers hate it when they call up and the phone consistently rings a dozen times or goes straight to voicemail. There might be other things that would be more important than fixing the deadlocks -- documentation tends to be a pretty common ailment. It's great that you're taking initiative to fix some problems in the company, but be careful about feeling resentment over a lack of support for it if you haven't talked to anyone first to make sure you really should be working on this particular problem to the exclusion of other duties. And don't do it for free.