@inthehands At a certain point, managers, leaders have to exercise judgment about what the company's going to do that's not grounded in metrics. Either that, or we're going to climbing the top of some very shallow hills, heedless of the mountains all around.
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The exact meaning of a certain setting in Calendly (app I use w/students for office hours) was really unclear in the UI. -
The exact meaning of a certain setting in Calendly (app I use w/students for office hours) was really unclear in the UI.@inthehands Like, maybe I could stroke my chin and posit that you'll get a 35% reduction in support case volume and time, but I don't believe it, not really. I don't think those data are clean enough to support that analysis, or could possibly be disentangled from everything else that's changing.
You also aren't gonna see customer happiness in those metrics. You won't see the potential customers that said nah, this isn't good enough, based on the shitty docs.
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The exact meaning of a certain setting in Calendly (app I use w/students for office hours) was really unclear in the UI.@inthehands This is exactly the kind of thing I bemoan about the dAtA-dRiVeN fad that's overtaken tech management over the past decade or so.
I've gone to managers with these concerns and been told, how can you prove e.g. these docs are inadequate, that investing more in tech writers will pay off? Come to me with the metrics and we'll talk.
I can't? I don't think it's possible, not in general? Certainly not a priori.
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This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/@polotek Oh, come on, Marco. You know exactly what you’re doing — even here, you can’t help but exaggerate and read in bad faith.
I will be moving on though; I’ve said my piece, you’re making your choices.
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This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/@polotek Literally never said that. I take great care with my words when I’m trying to engage respectfully and earnestly with folk who have different perspectives; you don’t seem to be granting me that courtesy with your reading.
Even if we take your interpretation here as accurate, though — what of it? Is it not rational for labor to be scared of adverse consequences from management for doing unauthorized work? You can insult me all you want, but the point remains.
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This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/@polotek (checks out the tire fire of tech industry job openings in 2024)
I think you just neatly demonstrated why these conditions obtain for too many folk.
It’s sad to me that I don’t really think we disagree about the importance both of management and principled, competent engineering.
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This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/ -
This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/ -
This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/@polotek Lack of authority and fear of being punished for doing work other than that assigned.
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This is the kind of thing I think about whenever people say "managers should trust engineers and leave them alone to do their work".https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/09/meta-slapped-with-101-million-fine-for-storing-passwords-in-plaintext/@polotek Every time in my career I’ve seen anything close to this level of garbage, engineers have been screaming to fix it and management couldn’t be bother to develop the fake-ass data-driven justification to do it.
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Stem cell transplant reverses Type 1 diabetes, enabling woman to produce her own insulin. -
I've noticed a trend recently - perhaps it falls into the "lots of anecdotes don't constitute data" bucket, but it seems that many companies are reacting badly when people put in their notice, and immediately terminating them, rather than letting them ...@hobbsc @jerry If you can’t trust your workers to do their jobs ethically after they’ve given notice, you can’t trust them before then either.
If they’re being fired, sure, terminate access immdiately. If you think it’s too risky to allow access after notice has been given, you owe it to the departing employee to pay them for the notice period.
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Some important reminders of history and the reality of our society’s power structures in this thread from @seachanger:@inthehands Some years back, I recall Sanders getting some guff online from some leftists about being friendly with McCain at some event or another and it’s like, my dudes, literally that is part of his job. It’s awful and exhausting and probably mostly pointless and he has to try anyway — in democratic politics, you win when you get a voting majority for your thing. Of course you have to lobby folks you don’t like, find common ground with them!