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Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

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Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#151

Post by heavenlyblue »

Aeolun wrote: post #142
throwaway33222 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The missing piece of the puzzle >the software was compromised by domestic terrorists and the threat was real The missing piece to me is that she says, specifically, that it was under attack by white supremacists. If you know anything about WS types, they are profoundly anti-intellectual. Anyone who has the technical chops to compromise software would almost certainly be labeled a secret jew/antifa/etc. Frankly I fin…

We have literal 17 year olds hacking the twitter account of Obama and a ton of other high profile people. How can you possibly believe that a bunch of white supremacists are not a threat? You need only one marginally competent one to wreck your entire platform.

I would also say that assuming that white suprematists are inherently stupid is wrong. It takes a certain amount of rough intelligence to go against the modern norms (I.e. to justify your beliefs to others, to read just the right books) to keep these beliefs.

Thinking they are “just” idiots is an entirely wrong take if you are trying to play against them.

It’s like saying that Putin is an idiot because he’s against gay rights in Russia. But if he was really stupid he would probably be dead by now.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#153

Post by tchaffee »

theduder99 wrote: post #150
mesozoic wrote: post #66

Why do people still use the term white supremacists to imply some nefarious group? The term has lost all value and is now used in mainstream best selling books and media to describe every white person. It literally now has no meaning and whenever anyone uses it I just think they're hunting the boogey man.

white supremecists is another strawman used by the left. they made the term 'racist' lose all meaning after applying it to so many situations and the same thing is playing out with 'white supremecists' now.

The word racist has lost all meaning? Could you provide evidence of that? I anecdotally still see the word used often enough and correctly. No doubt it is sometimes overused, but considering there are a lot of racists in the USA and that racism is a currently an important social issue the USA is widely discussing on a very regular basis, one would expect to see the word used a lot and for people to be actively trying to work out what is and what is not racism.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#154

Post by mcrad »

throwaway33222 wrote: post #127
shadowgovt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The missing piece of the puzzle is that we never meet the idiot manager in the story. She's in an organizational situation where her team has oversight over a team in the government implementing on a project but does not have the ability to directly set policy, constrain goals, or otherwise apply direct managerial leverage. The idiot in the story is the guy charging full speed ahead with a deployment of a product tha…

>The missing piece of the puzzle >the software was compromised by domestic terrorists and the threat was real The missing piece to me is that she says, specifically, that it was under attack by white supremacists. If you know anything about WS types, they are profoundly anti-intellectual. Anyone who has the technical chops to compromise software would almost certainly be labeled a secret jew/antifa/etc. Frankly I fin…

Your obsession with the token Racists in this essay is very funny. AND Sexism? There's an interesting conversation about "Humanity" happening, isn't there?

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#155

Post by opendomain »

keenmaster wrote: post #29
supernova87a wrote: post #17

Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…

I think she's saying that it's odd to her, as someone who innately enjoys doing highly consequential work, that other people don't share in her enthusiasm. Similarly, coworkers must find it odd that she doesn't actively dodge such work or deal with it in a robotic, CYA manner, devoid of enthusiasm. Her realization about them and their realization about her are asymmetric in consequence. Even if she judges them it won…

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain this from your interpretation. It helped me understand more about jobs is large organizations I never though of before.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#156

Post by ordu »

bllguo wrote: post #54
supernova87a wrote: post #17

Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…

I don't see how the title or the concluding statements are justified by this story whatsoever. And publicly blasting a former manager for this when their described behavior doesn't support it at all? I don't know who the author is so maybe there's some context I'm supposed to know, but this just seems distasteful, on top of the confusing writing

The story describes a bureaucracy -- an organization of people averse of risk and therefore irresponsible: they did everything to be able to say "it is not my fault". They didn't tried to find a way to stop attacks.

Big bosses were paralyzed by the threat of becoming responsible for a coming failure, and were unable to think straight. They didn't even try to think about avoiding failure. They though about keeping themselves away from risk of becoming responsible of failure. Completely incompetent people.

The story with FBI shows that she did try to solve the problem, and that she took the risk of million years in a jail.

> this just seems distasteful, on top of the confusing writing

I agree, it is confusing. It is not enough to read the article, one needs to stop after reading and think. It took to me five minutes to understand. The title is the most confusing thing: it meant to be a generalized question from an average person, not a question the author asks about her boss, but it is not obvious.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#157

Post by IggleSniggle »

ganafagol wrote: post #135

The article starts with "This is one of my favorite USDS stories:" Such a hassle when authors just assume everybody is also in their bubble and know all thr acronyms. I'm not in or from the U.S. I have no clue what USDS is. Bad start to introduce me to your article.

I am so with you. Even more common acronyms can benefit from being written out.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#158

Post by mcrad »

rdiddly wrote: post #20

Fucking amazing. This was sitting right under my nose my entire life and I sensed it but didn't understand it. Now somebody finally wrote it down. I consider myself pretty courageous or at least indifferent to consequences (which may or may not be the same thing), but yeah that always seems to be the missing or limiting ingredient in every situation. Not that I'm biased or anything! Anyway this is going to be one of…

The young-uns didn't get much out of the article, it seems. If you've been around a certain amount and variety of management failures or conflicts, you can see how much depends on the personality dimension of risk aversion. We often need to step back to understand that being courageous is rarely valued outside the military.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#159

Post by mcrad »

Joeri wrote: post #133
rdiddly wrote: post #20

Fucking amazing. This was sitting right under my nose my entire life and I sensed it but didn't understand it. Now somebody finally wrote it down. I consider myself pretty courageous or at least indifferent to consequences (which may or may not be the same thing), but yeah that always seems to be the missing or limiting ingredient in every situation. Not that I'm biased or anything! Anyway this is going to be one of…

The conclusions are painted with too broad a brush in my view. People don’t split binary into thrill-seekers and conflict-avoiders, it’s more of a spectrum, and people can exhibit both qualities in different circumstances. In my opinion the real difference in leadership style derives from theory x (top-down) vs theory y (bottom-up). If you haven’t read up on that you definitely should. I’ve noticed I can work with ma…

Well, theory Y vs X probably isn't broad enough here. The article depicted a fairly complex management scenario, therefore broad strokes are appropriate.

Re: Why is this idiot running my engineering org?

#160

Post by peterangular »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #84
jacobsenscott wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 20 years ago I was a newly minted CS grad and a new software engineer. I told someone a lot older than me what I do and she said "Oh, that's a great start!". Which threw me because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do next. That's what I wanted to do. Today I am a "programmer", because I realized software isn't really engineering. That's still what I want to be doing today, and I still don't know what she th…

> because I realized software isn't really engineering Competently writing software will involve applying engineering principles and a project management methodology: things like TDD, design-patterns, your system's architecture - they're all part of software-engineering. Writing software is "programming" in the same way that writing a bestseller novel is "typing" or doing mathematics is putting fancy symbols on paper…

Couldn't agree more... and to add my own thoughts, why the heck are we so hellbent on dropping the engineering part from software engineering?

I get that it is a discipline that allows one to self-learn up the ladder to the title but why the hate? I do just as much highly-complex/critical work as my other engineering friends, so why is what I do not engineering all of a sudden?

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