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Other People’s Problems

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Re: Other People’s Problems

#91

Post by flawn »

methyl wrote: post #80
jmbwell wrote: post #28

It’s true that sometimes an outsider can offer a fresh perspective. From where you sit, there might be a solution you can’t see. The nearest exit might be in the row behind you. Maybe this applies more often when the one giving advice has more experience than the one receiving it, or when the person who is stuck has habituated a narrow perspective or some form of learned helplessness. But I recoil at something I thin…

This is why it’s critical to provide new angles to the problem itself, not just a bunch of solutions many of which has obviously been considered already.

You're so right. Thanks for this perspective

Re: Other People’s Problems

#92

Post by kayodelycaon »

lazide wrote: post #72
kayodelycaon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has no bearing on this entire discussion. I am not happy I have to play by social norms. However, playing by those norms is the optimal solution in maintaining important relationships with people I care about.

Ah, but it is directly applicable no? Showing the issue, even. Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc? Because #2 then is not actually optimal or perfect then for that stated goal, correct? It isn’t playing to social norms. #3 and #4 tend to produce better outcomes in that sense. And #4 also can provide useful contextual information on a person, which i…

> Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc?

Because I care about people as people. They have their own lives. Their existence isn't defined by their utility to me.

I just can't instinctively navigate verbal communication and social norms. I had to learn everything through logical analysis, which is very slow and difficult to apply in real time.

It's no different than if I had a significant speech impediment. My dislike of social norms is solely due to the barriers it creates to communication.

And no, I don't hate you. I'm just frustrated with the assumptions you're making.

Re: Other People’s Problems

#93

Post by deathanatos »

It's sort of related, but too often other people's problems end up forced into being my problem.

Other people's problems are fun to solve when you're like "hey, I've seen that before / I know something about your problem", and I think I can advance you in your pursuit of a solution. Fun, win/win for everybody.

But too often you try to use some product or service, either of another company, or of another team at your company, and it doesn't work. And the other team is just "but I don't waaaaannnna" about figuring out why their shit is broken. And so it becomes your problem, because you're probably trying to do something that isn't shaving this teams yak, but here you are, blocked on them. So it's either "do their job for them" or be blocked by them.

And managerial chains are just, IME, utterly ineffective at dealing with this. My current boss does not want to handle these, ever. He wants me to fix the problem. Problem is I have no authority over others teams, so I can't get them to act, and so … now it's my problem! And soon I'm doing the work of 3 teams, it feels like, and shaving yaks all day.

Google, internally — at least way back in the day; I've got no idea if this is still a thing — had a philosophy at several levels of "it's our problem", and in internal team-to-team stuff, that meant if a customer of your team's junk was having a bad time, that was your problem. Not your "customers'", internal or external. One of the many things I think that led them to being a FAANG.

Re: Other People’s Problems

#94

Post by al_borland »

It’s easy to tell people how to solve their problem, as it doesn’t include the burden of actually doing the work.

The classic example would be that it’s easy to solve someone else’s weight problem. Tell them to eat a proper diet of X, get enough sleep, get to the gym X times per week, etc. Saying all these things is very easy, but overcoming the barriers to actually implement each one in a life isn’t already doing these things, is much harder.

Providing a path is much more difficult than walking the path.

Re: Other People’s Problems

#95

Post by okwhateverdude »

samus wrote: post #90
JohnFen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem. This. And not just for personal problems. I have a rule when I start working in a new place to not offer any real criticisms or unsolicited advice for the first year. This is because it's very likely that my advice is too naive and is coming from a place of being ignorant of some a…

I think you might doing some disservice by not pointing out such things. Outsider's perspective can be very valuable to improve processes. Even if there are good reasons why things are how they are, you'll find out much faster why. Contrary to when interacting with people where advice is often simply not wanted, you are pretty much paid to treat an organization's problem as your own. Sometimes problems persist becaus…

> I think the most common reason might be toxic or ineffective management, fighting their own problems, real or imagined. Newcomers should read the room whether that's the case as fast as possible since in that case offering "solutions" could indeed be counterproductive or outright dangerous to one's career.

This. I am currently facing such a problem having very recently joined a new company. They recently had a very expensive incident and would like to not repeat it. I was handed an analysis task for the system that caused the incident with the expectation for me to make recommendations to improve the reliability. And, so far, my recommendation would be to refactor/rewrite large chunks of it (reduce cyclomatic complexity, greater test coverage and from the perspective of use cases, strict exception handling, fully documented state chart with all transitions validated, etc). When I gave a status update on my analysis that isn't finished yet, my manager was concerned that I would recommend exactly what I am going to recommend.

So now I am kinda stuck. Do I openly say exactly what they don't want to hear even if I was tasked to do exactly that? Luckily, I don't really give a shit about "career" nonsense, I am too old for that. But at the same time, I do want to build credibility and social capital in this org. My experience in building highly scalable, resilient systems says that the current implementation is sub par, and it shows with amount of break-fix work the team is constantly doing. I don't really want to be Cassandra and say "If you don't do this, the risk of another catastrophic error is really high". And I don't have enough data or time in the org to know what kind of persuasive arguments tend to find sympathetic ears.

So I have to gamble a bit, follow my principles, and honestly explain why their system is shit, in palatable terms, and hope they don't give me the boot.

It is stressful and I hate it.

Re: Other People’s Problems

#96

Post by throwway120385 »

mft_ wrote: post #12
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #10

My general experience is often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem. Thus you can often find communities of people with disabilities who understand the problems and the people from the outside who offer insulting and simple solutions to the problems. As soon as someone falls from group B into group A the problems stop becoming simple and easily solubl…

I agree with you, although his first point is a subset of this, I think. In reality, it's something like "they don't understand the problem space" , which includes not just not understanding the problem itself, but also understanding the history, context, and realistic daily details of the problem, and the real or imagined blocks that are created by personal philosophy, mindset, and psychology, plus the impact of rel…

As an example of "not understanding the problem space" it's mind-blowing sometimes to think about how a disability is only a disability in the context of a particular way of living. If you're confined to a wheelchair and all the work surfaces and other affordances are above neck level for you, then it's a disability. But if those work surfaces are moved and extra space provided it's not a disability in that environment. It's just that people outside of a wheelchair can't identify the little assumptions and design features that accommodate them because they're the default in our culture.

Re: Other People’s Problems

#97

Post by lazide »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #92
lazide wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but it is directly applicable no? Showing the issue, even. Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc? Because #2 then is not actually optimal or perfect then for that stated goal, correct? It isn’t playing to social norms. #3 and #4 tend to produce better outcomes in that sense. And #4 also can provide useful contextual information on a person, which i…

> Why do you care about relationships at all except for your short/long term emotional needs, safety, etc? Because I care about people as people. They have their own lives. Their existence isn't defined by their utility to me. I just can't instinctively navigate verbal communication and social norms. I had to learn everything through logical analysis, which is very slow and difficult to apply in real time. It's no di…

Then I’m deeply sorry, as you’re disconnected from a deep well of non-rational (really ‘not ok to acknowledge socially’ but rational) protective instincts. It makes everything much harder. That’s why you’re having to compensate with relatively expensive rational analysis.

Personally, I’ve found EMDR to be helpful to reconnect, but it’s not an easy road. And it may not be applicable here either.

Re: Other People’s Problems

#98

Post by jmbwell »

kevindamm wrote: post #55
doubled112 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skipping avocado toast!

I've skipped skipping avocado toast, I just look for good deals on avocado and buy limes no matter what their price is.

No matter the price? No wonder we're drowning in limeflation!

Re: Other People’s Problems

#100

Post by Tijdreiziger »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #29

Local maxima and sunk costs should not in reality be ignored. For example, I could find a better job, but with opportunity costs of paying less attention to my health or my family for a couple of years, and it may be difficult to fully recapture these opportunities later. Or say, I made an effort to get to know my current coworkers well. New job may have better pay and more respect from higher ups, but that's still o…

The way I’ve been thinking about this is that you shouldn’t jump on every idea you have.

You can acknowledge the ideas, but if you jump on every one that comes to mind, your life ends up being extremely chaotic.

However, if you find yourself thinking about a certain idea a lot of times, it might be worth considering it, because your subconscious might be trying to tell you something.

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