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Don’t point out something wrong immediately

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Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#121

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

financetechbro wrote: post #27
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #16

> "feel sad" -> "eat chocolate" -> "feel good" cycle. > For engineers, the cycle is "see a problem" -> "spot flaws" -> "feel good". Maybe I'm missing some aspect of the text? AFAIK, "feel sad" and "eat chocolate" are different things (with a cause and effect relationship) and "see a problem" and "spot flaws" are the same thing expressed in different words, so what's the cycle here?

You are overthinking it. An alternative to “spot flaw” here would be “point out flaw”. The author is just giving an example on how engineers have a habit of pointing out flaws

> You are overthinking it. “spot flaw” here would be “point out flaw”.

You could be correct, but you are assuming something that's not in the text. I don't think this is "overthinking": to spot (to perceive, notice, become aware of) _does not mean_ to "point out" (to show, to tell people)

I checked the dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spot

"Spot: to see or notice someone or something, usually because you are looking hard." e.g.

"If you _spot_ any mistakes in the article just _mark_ them with a pencil."

If we're talking about "things that the word doesn't mean" then there's a lot of options.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#122

Post by rocqua »

kodah wrote: post #6

I've learned to ask questions instead of utilizing call-out culture. I can ask what some component is doing, strategy to scale, etc... That usually works very well in place of me saying that I perceive something is "wrong". Example I saw empathy in the tags. How does empathy apply to this post?

Empathy applies in two ways.

Firstly in realizing that saying 'you are wrong' is hurtful and can be damaging to relationships.

Secondly in realizing that other people might already know your objection, but had reasons for proceeding this way anyway.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#123

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

lazide wrote: post #25
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #16

> "feel sad" -> "eat chocolate" -> "feel good" cycle. > For engineers, the cycle is "see a problem" -> "spot flaws" -> "feel good". Maybe I'm missing some aspect of the text? AFAIK, "feel sad" and "eat chocolate" are different things (with a cause and effect relationship) and "see a problem" and "spot flaws" are the same thing expressed in different words, so what's the cycle here?

I think the second example is probably meant more as ‘point out flaws’. Having someone point out flaws, while sometimes an important ingredient in actually fixing flaws, can just as or more often be about as useful in really solving something as eating chocolate can be in addressing why someone is feeling sad. Aka, not much.

> I think the second example is probably meant more as ‘point out flaws’.

OK, that seems likely, but why use a word "spot" that does not mean "to point out" ?

The distinction is clear here: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/spot

Spot: "to see or notice someone or something, usually because you are looking hard" e.g.

"If you _spot_ any mistakes in the article just _mark_ them with a pencil."

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#125

Post by randomsearch »

accountLost wrote: post #116

I can't agree with that. If there is something wrong, it must be dealt with as soon as possible. We engineers must learn to be professional and not let our ego get in the way. Maybe it is a cultural thing ? I worked once in Germany and thought at first that the error pointing was brutal. But you get used to it and learn not to involve your self esteem. And retrospectively I found it to be a fair and effective work en…

Think you have to deal with the world as it is, rather than as it should be, if you want to make progress.

I’ve always found accepting that ego thing to be very difficult as I’m quite happy for people to scrap my ideas if they’re bad, but a lot of people aren’t wired like I am and I don’t hold that against them. Could be a genetic thing. I have other faults that they don’t, so tolerance is needed in both directions. Humans are buggy.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#126

Post by rocqua »

alexashka wrote: post #99
HWR_14 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether someone's feelings are hurt should be a primary concern. That doesn't mean you cannot correct people making errors, you definitely should. But if you're hurting people's feelings regularly you are bad at providing feedback. I notice the only "softening" of the message you suggest is to allow pushback if you happen to be wrong. It seems you are more likely to cause persistent fixes by treating people as people…

> Whether someone's feelings are hurt should be a primary concern No. Whether shit gets done is the primary concern, when the primary reason we get together, is to get shit done.

I wanna argue that not hurting people's feelings is better for getting shit done. Because you cannot do things on your own.

But I disagree with you more fundamentally. Getting shit done together is a way to enjoy spending time, but in the end, the enjoyment is more important than the result. A job where you are successful but miserable is not worth it. So a job where you are successful by making others miserable isn't either, unless you are somehow special.

That doesn't mean bend backwards trying to avoid any hurt feelings. It does mean putting in some effort to not be hurtful when avoidable.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#127

Post by hguant »

philsnow wrote: post #102

This "blue tape walkthrough" approach is one concrete way of introducing the delay between stimulus (hearing/seeing something obviously wrong) and response ("correcting" them on it): https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-blue-tape-list/ > It’s a surprise when a month passes, and you review your blue tape list and discover how items that seemed urgent at the time now seem entirely irrelevant.

I, like a lot of other nerds, play Magic the Gathering[0], specifically cEDH[1]. This process really speaks to my deck building process - after coming up with my archetype, color pie [2], and win conditions, I grab everything that I think could be applicable, and throw it in a pile. Then, on my first pass, I sort into yes, no, and maybe. Invariably, I end up throwing out all of the cards in the maybe pile, but the process of taking it aside, considering it, thinking "this could work", then coming back with fresh eyes struck me as similar to this process you've described.

[0] for those of you who don't know, MtG is a card game for two or more players who have a 'library' of cards they draw from, and play. It has a very simple premise - win the game by reducing your opponent's life total to 20, removing all the cards from their library, or playing a card that says that you win the game - and an insane amount of complexity; for example, one of the standard variants is provably Turing complete using the base rule set.

[1] One of the reasons for the longevity of MtG (been going strong since 1993) is that there are many variants of the standard rules that allow for a wide variety of play. Standard uses only the most recently released card lists, while Vintage lets you play with (almost) any card ever printed. cEDH stands for competitive Elder Dragon Highlander, which is a format where you have a 100 card library that has no repeating cards ("there can only be one!"), and they all have to share colors with a chosen 'commander'.

[2] MtG mechanically uses cards called 'lands' to produce a resource called 'manna'. Manna is used to pay for spells, which when resolved have some effect on the game state. Spells have color - 3 blue, for example - which can only be payed for by appropriately colored manna. There are 5 colors of manna, and each color is associated with different types of spells. Red is fast and aggressive, green is ponderous but mighty, etc.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#128

Post by mhitza »

_9omd wrote: post #87

Yes, please don't be that guy. I was a lead at the last startup I was at, and we hired a guy who loved to point out everything we were doing "wrong". Literally weeks into the job and he's already writing up huge docs about everything we need to improve, with having almost no context for why we made certain decisions. The majority of things he assumed to know better on we also knew better about, but there simply wasn'…

I've been that engineer at a particular time in my career. And saw others be that person as well, since.

In my view, commonality between I and others I've known with that behavior was that we came from a long multi-year project. After experiencing daily maintenance of big projects for a couple of years, you tend to have a strong opinion of things you don't want to see again when moving for greener pastures.

It just seems to disappear with time. Maybe because at some point people accept that telling others what to avoid is pointless, people tend to learn only from their own mistakes.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#129

Post by Barrin92 »

randomsearch wrote: post #125
accountLost wrote: post #116

I can't agree with that. If there is something wrong, it must be dealt with as soon as possible. We engineers must learn to be professional and not let our ego get in the way. Maybe it is a cultural thing ? I worked once in Germany and thought at first that the error pointing was brutal. But you get used to it and learn not to involve your self esteem. And retrospectively I found it to be a fair and effective work en…

Think you have to deal with the world as it is, rather than as it should be, if you want to make progress. I’ve always found accepting that ego thing to be very difficult as I’m quite happy for people to scrap my ideas if they’re bad, but a lot of people aren’t wired like I am and I don’t hold that against them. Could be a genetic thing. I have other faults that they don’t, so tolerance is needed in both directions.…

If you want to make progress you change the world as it is to the way it should be and throw out notions like thinking people are 'wired' in certain ways to rationalize the status quo.

These bug issues or bad software practices are results of a culture, and work cultures can be fixed. Hence OPs example of experiencing a very different culture in another country, and presumably German's aren't genetically built different to respond better to software error reports.

And the best time to fix it is right now because it'll be more expensive in a year.

Re: Don’t point out something wrong immediately

#130

Post by abel_ »

Completely disagree. I agree that the _delivery_ is important, but the interval between when discovering a problem and announcing it should be minimal.

There's a huge difference between maintaining the social etiquette of allowing your conversationalist to explain themselves fully, and waiting a little while before announcing a problem. Announcing right away in a respectful manner also let's you get a correction right away.

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