That used to confuse me too. I've come to the conclusion that the reason people focus on things that don't ultimately matter is because it's easy. Anyone can see that someone isn't wearing a suit, works odd hours, doesn't file their TPS reports in triplicate, etc...

On the other hand big problems are hard to solve. People frequently bemoan the glut of poorly skilled individuals who claim to have software engineering skills. One would assume that that there could be a similar ratio of crap people in other fields, management, for example.

In short; managers focus on these things to an extreme because they are bad at their job and policing people's wardrobe is the fizz buzz of the management world.

I don't think it's that the trivial problems are easy, but rather they don't understand the hard ones. Everyone has an opinion on the color to paint a bike shed [1], but technical problems are much tougher to conceptionally deal with.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality

Edit: fixed link - thanks

You have a slight typo in your link, it should be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality

You're describing bikeshedding

http://bikeshed.org/

I love finding out there is a single word for something it would take an entire paragraph to describe.

Sounds like we need a word to describe the occasion of finding a single word for something that would otherwise take an entire paragraph to describe.

succinct

I'd love it even more if I could use the word without explaining it to every person I talk to.

I mean these laws should be taught at school.

Every so often I scan through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws for a reminder.

> I've come to the conclusion that the reason people focus on things that don't ultimately matter is because it's easy.

Absolutely.

I don't excuse the individuals who embody such behavior. Nobody held a gun to their head and forced them to internalize this type of culture.

I have a pet theory on the whole thing. Humans are pretty much pattern matching machines. I get the feeling that a certain percentage of individuals in abscense of a known crisis will value the pattern over basic feelings. It gets worse after someone else has had to perform actions and now the person who did nothing must do something. So resolving out of pattern things is a priority.

I know it sounds weird and I am probably doing a bad job explaining, but it just seems like some people cannot stretch beyond the pattern that the rules say should be there. You are absolutely right, it doesn't excuse anything, but it just seems like you can make some amazing predictions of post-crisis behavior based on what you think they think the "pattern" should be.

>I have a pet theory on the whole thing. Humans are pretty much pattern matching machines. I get the feeling that a certain percentage of individuals in abscense of a known crisis will value the pattern over basic feelings.

That's the core of "Parable of the Monkeys." I'm not sure what the canonical source is, but here's a concise rendition: http://allhazardscontemplations.blogspot.com/2009/06/monkey-...

That is some scary reading. I would love to find the canonical source of the study. So, breaking a pattern requires ignorance or innovation.

If you are right about the pattern matching, why doesn't he focus on the guy being there in the middle of the night and encourage him instead?

A pattern-matcher (and I think you are right about that) would focus on the most out of the ordinary thing, would he not?

I mean a Tiger in coming towards you. Do you notice (or care about) the bustling leaves on the bush?

> I mean a Tiger in coming towards you. Do you notice (or care about) the bustling leaves on the bush?

I think you missed the clause "in abscense of a known crisis will value the pattern over basic feelings". Not being a zoo keeper, I would think a Tiger constitutes a crisis.

I cannot help but think the manager found that there was no current crisis, someone had taken action, he must now take action, then we get the thing out of place. I would assume (yeah, that word) the normal behavior would be to send the tech home with a "great job" and a "we got it from here". Nope, let's fix the pattern.

I don't think it's a conscious decision.

Sometimes petty issues come from an even darker place, like punishing non-conformity.

Well not just that, large organizations have policies which perfectly echo with saying 'No good deeds go unpunished'.

In my case I observed a few things which I could not believe from my own eyes. When you put in a lot of effort to deliver to things you are considered not a good team player, some how even the guy who performs the least is considered better than you. You are expected to share both credit and hard work rewards with some one who had absolutely nothing to with your work. Refuse to do so and you suddenly become a bad team player.

You are always expected to be in full dress code, sometimes this takes so much precedence that its often taking as bargaining thing in performance appraisal discussions. You have to be good to your boss, revere him as hacker extraordinar even if he is actually a Jack ass.

The list goes endless. If large corporations spend even 10% of the effort they spend on these things on work, they could move mountains.