A worry junior engineers frequently have is that they ask too many questions

Re:A worry junior engineers frequently have is that they ask... by specialist on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @01:11AM (#25924885)

I dunno. Some people really don't like being questioned.

I was porting a network management (SNMP) app to Java & Swing. The app had no documentation and I'd never done anything like SNMP before. The only requirements given were "make the Java app look and work exactly the same." Can do. To respect my manager's time, I batched my questions together for the upcoming 1:1. I was told that if I couldn't figure stuff out on my own, perhaps I should find another job. Um, ok, I guess I'll figure it out.

I was trying to explain why burying blocking I/O under layers of abstraction (Spring FTW), and just eating the exceptions (no logging), makes debugging the app a wee bit harder. The "senior architect" expressed surprise that someone with my experience didn't understand design patterns and brushed me off. Um, ok, I guess I'll just have the debugger break on every exception.

I considered myself tenacious, if not especially fast. And I have zero problem admitting "I don't know".

But experiences like this have made me gun shy.

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Re:A worry junior engineers frequently have is that they ask... by bartvk on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @01:43AM (#25925051)

You have to realize that sometimes, your work environment is just not good for asking questions. I've had the same experience in recent years. My whole career I haven't been shy to ask questions, until I started working at a certain client where a certain developer would react negatively when I'd ask questions. But that's just one particular case.

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Re:A worry junior engineers frequently have is that they ask... by username90 on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @08:26AM (#25927939)

Asking questions people can't answer that they should be able to answer makes them angry. It isn't more complicated than that, you just triggered their "impostor syndrome".

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Re:A worry junior engineers frequently have is that they ask... by mcv on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @09:26AM (#25928606)

Sounds like a case of an insecure manager and architect not wanting to admit that they don't know either, so they use their status as argument why they're right and you should automatically know what they know.

It's utterly unreasonable, but probably far too common.

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Re:A worry junior engineers frequently have is that they ask... by jailbird_bd on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @02:22AM (#25925284)

I know it's not always a feasible option, but perhaps you should find another job indeed. That sounds like a very hostile work environment.

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