Re:How to Pick Your Battles on a Software Team
by cookiecaper on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @02:50PM
(#11948335)
>Sorry but that is terrible advice. Most people would be out of a job with that kind of attitude.
I agree, and I've had to learn this the hard way after leaving 4-5 separate gigs that went fine for several months until someone new came on, or until an issue came to a head, etc. As software engineers, we have a lot of mobility and it's almost too easy to throw in the towel and move on; in any career, there are going to be conflicts, and you have to learn to confront and neutralize them in a positive way that doesn't involve the departure of yourself or the person with whom you're conflicting. "I'll quit" is too often the go-to and can stifle the development of individual professional conflict resolution skills. That option should stay off the table practically up until the point of complete collapse.
>Sure, that looks excellent on paper, but I have found that it doesn't work with actual humans who are actually very _human_ with all of the associated (incl. negative) traits that humans have in varying amounts including pride, pettiness, jealousy, egotism and others.
Right on again. This is another thing that I had to learn in the crucible after years of reading idealistic navel-gazing in trade outlets and message boards. There was a time I believed that while it required being highly selective, you could get a team together that would hold these values and function without pettiness. I now believe that's not really possible long-term and we must accept the petty and political nature of man as a fact of life (and we should be aware of this nature within ourselves as well, instead of naively claiming that we are above all of it; only regular rigorous self-analysis can reveal the influence of these natural tendencies). Not only is that political nature a fact of life, but it is exacerbated and brought to the forefront by the economic structure and corporate culture that we've developed in the West (which is not to say those things are necessarily bad).
I'd really like to see more content about coping with the reality of what we have in the real world, instead of the fantastic idealistic drivel that makes some tech writers popular.
I agree, and I've had to learn this the hard way after leaving 4-5 separate gigs that went fine for several months until someone new came on, or until an issue came to a head, etc. As software engineers, we have a lot of mobility and it's almost too easy to throw in the towel and move on; in any career, there are going to be conflicts, and you have to learn to confront and neutralize them in a positive way that doesn't involve the departure of yourself or the person with whom you're conflicting. "I'll quit" is too often the go-to and can stifle the development of individual professional conflict resolution skills. That option should stay off the table practically up until the point of complete collapse.
>Sure, that looks excellent on paper, but I have found that it doesn't work with actual humans who are actually very _human_ with all of the associated (incl. negative) traits that humans have in varying amounts including pride, pettiness, jealousy, egotism and others.
Right on again. This is another thing that I had to learn in the crucible after years of reading idealistic navel-gazing in trade outlets and message boards. There was a time I believed that while it required being highly selective, you could get a team together that would hold these values and function without pettiness. I now believe that's not really possible long-term and we must accept the petty and political nature of man as a fact of life (and we should be aware of this nature within ourselves as well, instead of naively claiming that we are above all of it; only regular rigorous self-analysis can reveal the influence of these natural tendencies). Not only is that political nature a fact of life, but it is exacerbated and brought to the forefront by the economic structure and corporate culture that we've developed in the West (which is not to say those things are necessarily bad).
I'd really like to see more content about coping with the reality of what we have in the real world, instead of the fantastic idealistic drivel that makes some tech writers popular.