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Doing Everyone Else's Job

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Re: Doing Everyone Else's Job

#11

Post by Brajeshwar »

exmadscientist wrote: post #8

The other powerful thing about being able to do everyone else's job is that you, personally, gain a lot of leverage, and in a lot of different ways. Someone else needs a favor? You probably know how to deliver. Something's on fire? You probably know what to do next, or at least who to call, no matter what's on fire today. Someone isn't budging on something? You might not have any bigger of a lever than anyone else, b…

LOL! My bosses used to tell me that I need to learn to be more `rude` and not just do what others says because I can. I have learnt a lot and one of the biggest is to say NO, in big Uppercase—I can do anything for work but I won’t do that, NO, I won’t do that.

Sometime, I still do and I like the fun and thrill of locking in a hotel room after a meeting and coming out in lot less days these days (pppppsssstt, because of AI) and get into the next meeting showing off what can be done that was discussed 48 hours ago.

Re: Doing Everyone Else's Job

#12

Post by Brajeshwar »

perelin wrote: post #6

I do enjoy learning new things and having a generalist approach. But its not for everyone.

I learned this the hard way. I have been training a bunch of 5-10 years experience tech-leads, architects, and what not. But on the job, I realized quite a lot cannot switch context and subject at all.

I've found people who have spent decades on one topic in a very specific vertical. It is amazing how they know EVERYTHING in that and I can listen with my jaws dropped to the floor for hours. Then I will wake up, with that spine-chilling shake all over my body on how patient and dedicated one has to be to be on that straight line their entire life.

Re: Doing Everyone Else's Job

#14

Post by exmadscientist »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #11
exmadscientist wrote: post #8

The other powerful thing about being able to do everyone else's job is that you, personally, gain a lot of leverage, and in a lot of different ways. Someone else needs a favor? You probably know how to deliver. Something's on fire? You probably know what to do next, or at least who to call, no matter what's on fire today. Someone isn't budging on something? You might not have any bigger of a lever than anyone else, b…

LOL! My bosses used to tell me that I need to learn to be more `rude` and not just do what others says because I can. I have learnt a lot and one of the biggest is to say NO, in big Uppercase—I can do anything for work but I won’t do that, NO, I won’t do that. Sometime, I still do and I like the fun and thrill of locking in a hotel room after a meeting and coming out in lot less days these days (pppppsssstt, because…

You don't do these things because they benefit your boss. (They might happen to, but that's not the point.)

You do them because they benefit you.

Not going to benefit you? There's lots of ways to say no to a back-channel request. Not a back-channel request? Then I guess it's not someone else's job!

Re: Doing Everyone Else's Job

#17

Post by cik »

I tend to apply this to myself, within an organization (as opposed to those who like to generically try it all - fair enough). I've always been an enormous fan of touring the organization. Whether I join as a dev, or an exec, I always make it a point to spend some time with product, with support, and with marketing. It ends up providing me a unique vantage point. I encourage others to do the same, and when I 'control' onboarding, make it part of the process.

It's literally the fastest way to have someone get up to speed with the customer profile and product. They can play with it whilst listening in to support calls (if a thing). They can learn about pain points and "hard edges" that as developers we don't always come across.

Re: Doing Everyone Else's Job

#18

Post by RevEng »

I disagree with the centralization thought. I'm working on a project to create a central AI platform for a very large corporation. As you can imagine, such a large company already has several different platforms made by different branches within it. Each branch has something they are relatively happy with. But corporate sees this redundancy as waste, so they want to consolidate it into one.

The problem with one is the same with any other single source: you are stuck with whatever they offer on whatever timelines they provide. You are sharing this with a hundred thousand other people, so it's not tailored to your use case, but either made as generic as possible, or full of irrelevant features. Both of these cases make it worse for you.

I have often made in house libraries either based on or completely replacing a free equivalent because the free one doesn't meet our needs and has extra complications we don't need. Yes, it comes with its costs, but sometimes it's worth it for something that genuinely meets your needs.

By forcing everybody to use the same common platform, you are either forcing them to work around the mismatch between the platform and their needs, or your are forcing the platform to provide for everyone's needs. Neither is efficient and it harms every other user.

If you are going to make your own, you had better have a good reason for it, but you shouldn't be forced into a single solution for everything - it can end up being more expensive than making a few special purpose applications.

Re: Doing Everyone Else's Job

#19

Post by anon48293 »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #11
exmadscientist wrote: post #8

The other powerful thing about being able to do everyone else's job is that you, personally, gain a lot of leverage, and in a lot of different ways. Someone else needs a favor? You probably know how to deliver. Something's on fire? You probably know what to do next, or at least who to call, no matter what's on fire today. Someone isn't budging on something? You might not have any bigger of a lever than anyone else, b…

LOL! My bosses used to tell me that I need to learn to be more `rude` and not just do what others says because I can. I have learnt a lot and one of the biggest is to say NO, in big Uppercase—I can do anything for work but I won’t do that, NO, I won’t do that. Sometime, I still do and I like the fun and thrill of locking in a hotel room after a meeting and coming out in lot less days these days (pppppsssstt, because…

Nice reference
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