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The Enterprise Experience

churchofturing.github.io

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Re: The Enterprise Experience

#151

Post by kaffekaka »

al_borland wrote: post #93
pigbearpig wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me a while to realize that there is no getting ahead. Something else is always waiting, so better for my health to prioritize and make those whose job it is to prioritize actually make the hard decisions they're paid to make.

There is always more to do, sure. But I’ve found there is value to being ahead of expectations. In my experience, no one is willing to make decisions on what is actually a priority. To channel Peter from Office Space, my only real motivation is to not be hassled.

I think that your motivation is going to burn you out.

In order not to burn out one has to start prioritizing other things higher than work, like your health or your hobbies. That means thinking: "someone wants this done and will hassle me for it, but I'm letting it go now."

Edit/addition: there will always be more things to be hassled about.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#152

Post by kaffekaka »

nlawalker wrote: post #15
teddyh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People adopt the communication style of others. If the “quick call?” method is common, it means that many of its users don’t want their communications logged , meaning they commonly ask for sketchy stuff. Act accordingly; i.e. always send a follow-up email summarizing what they asked you to do, and give them the opportunity to change their tune.

>If the “quick call?” method is common, it means that many of its users don’t want their communications logged, meaning they commonly ask for sketchy stuff. In my experience, the reason for most "quick calls" isn't quite this nefarious. It's usually just about making a request for which the asker wants immediate confirmation of handoff, and/or for which they haven't done much thinking or built a good justification, a…

The cynic view is so true. Quick calls are so often made to not have to meddle with actual requirements, and indeed to have the freedom to change the requirements in a future "quick call".

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#153

Post by lelanthran »

kaffekaka wrote: post #148
lelanthran wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never understood why anyone would care about titles at all. I cannot understand this sort of notion at all. 1. You don't care about $SOMETHING - great, I can understand that. 2. You don't understand why others care about $SOMETHING - Sure, I can understand that too. 3. You feel a need to broadcast this lack of understanding to the world - wtf? I mean, I'm ignorant on a lot of subjects, but I hardly ever boast…

Aren't you doing exactly the same thing yourself? Your reply literally begins with the words "I cannot understand ..."

> Aren't you doing exactly the same thing yourself? Your reply literally begins with the words "I cannot understand ..."

Yeah, but mine was contextual; I replied to someone complaining that they can't understand. That reply was not contextual, it was simply virtue signalling.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#154

Post by lacoolj »

> Maybe I'll come back in 9 years and see how my views have changed.

I'm in year 10. My views are pretty much how you've outlined here. Some differences based on my $ENTERPRISE vs yours, but overall not a wide gap.

And I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing. Once you've adapted and realize where to look for who and what and how to prioritize and estimate your time, you're pretty set. Company succeeds and you succeed.

Good luck, OP!

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#155

Post by [deleted] »

jiggawatts wrote: post #47
BrenBarn wrote: post #23

Always worth keeping in mind Remy's Law of Enterprise Software ( https://thedailywtf.com/articles/graceful-depredations ): if a piece of software is in any way described as being “enterprise”, it’s a piece of garbage. Joking aside, I was intrigued by the list of good things at the end of the post. Some I could understand, but some seemed to fall into that strange category of things that people say are good but really…

> ... Remy's Law of Enterprise Software ... the list of good things at the end of the post. Like the poster of the blog article, I too have worked in very large enterprise. Think 200K staff, 10K distinct servers, etc... I had the lucky opportunity to assist the CTO in hundred-million-dollar enterprise software purchasing decisions. I got to interview vendor after vendor, grilling them to see if they're compatible wit…

[deleted]

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#156

Post by elevation »

Aeolun wrote: post #108
jiggawatts wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... Remy's Law of Enterprise Software ... the list of good things at the end of the post. Like the poster of the blog article, I too have worked in very large enterprise. Think 200K staff, 10K distinct servers, etc... I had the lucky opportunity to assist the CTO in hundred-million-dollar enterprise software purchasing decisions. I got to interview vendor after vendor, grilling them to see if they're compatible wit…

You shouldn’t have 700k security groups though. I know that you end up with that, but it feels like a sign of organisational disease (not that we’re doing much better, but the ratio is more 1 to 1, instead of 3.5 to 1

> You shouldn’t have 700k security groups though

The 700k groups also comes about when the security tools are all inter-operating at the wrong abstraction level. If a third party appliance needs to import all 700k of your security groups it means the appliance is performing authorizations itself, logging it differently than your other apps, and even make decisions based on stale data it's cached (you can't load all 700k groups on every request.)

This task should really be delegated to a dedicated authz system, too bad more of the world doesn't run on Zanzibar.

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#157

Post by jodrellblank »

lelanthran wrote: post #104
BrenBarn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why anyone would care about titles at all.

> I've never understood why anyone would care about titles at all. I cannot understand this sort of notion at all. 1. You don't care about $SOMETHING - great, I can understand that. 2. You don't understand why others care about $SOMETHING - Sure, I can understand that too. 3. You feel a need to broadcast this lack of understanding to the world - wtf? I mean, I'm ignorant on a lot of subjects, but I hardly ever boast…

Hint: he's not broadcasting a lack of understanding, he's boasting, posturing, that people who think titles mean something are dumb and he is too smart to be taken in by it. Ideas like "titles look better on a resume to future employers" or "titles make my extended family proud when they know nothing about my job or industry" or "bigger titles get a default level of respect from distant employees within the company" are lost on him.

It's not like when people tell you about their low maths ability, that's generally not boasting it's more trying to make a social connection. Like "I'm humbling myself and admitting flaws, not putting myself above anyone else (which would be rude)" or "you computer guy must be a math person, don't hate me because I'm dumb, please be kind" or "I've never liked people, you're like me, right?" where is book-smart people (or any target group).

Re: The Enterprise Experience

#158

Post by PokerFacowaty »

> In these situations a good manager is what makes the difference; some will fold to the pressure in the hopes that being a "team player" will get them brownie points from leadership (it wont), and some will stick up for their team out of decency and hoping it will get them brownie points from their colleagues (it will).

One of the dimensions I judge my managers on is the "I screwed up, what now?" factor. A good manager will be the shield between me and the higher-ups and will meet with me to discuss the issue to understand it better. A bad one will tell me everyone including them is angry at me. So far I've been lucky to mostly have seen the former.

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