Geeks vs. Management: "dialog" when something is broken.

[azurelunatic]

When a geek notices something wrong and reports it, the geek is not interested in a "dialog", or hearing the conversation that is about to occur called a "dialog", or especially "opening up a dialog". As far as the geek is concerned, there are approximately four parts to this discussion, although some of them are expandable and/or not the geek's own personal problem.

1. What, specifically, is wrong, which is sometimes not the geek's responsibility to track down as long as they're reporting the symptoms accurately.
2. How they know it (or something) is wrong, which can be expanded to include
   • The symptoms they have observed
   • The person to talk to about diagnosing these things
   • How urgent this issue is
3. How it should be fixed, which can be expanded to include some items, but is sometimes not within the geek's realm of knowledge or responsibility.
   • The technical details involved in fixing it (note that for some things there can be several possible ways, all of equal or similar merit)
   • The person who will know the technical details involved in fixing it
   • The skill set describing a person who will know the technical details involved in fixing it
4. How it will behave when it is fixed, which is sometimes merely "Not broken!"

Everything else in a possible "dialog", including the phrase "opening up a dialog" is probably marketing babble, and not considered relevant to getting the bloody problem fixed.

This can extend to social issues, which makes things even more fun when there's no clear technical solution.

Comments

[pauamma]

YES!

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes. That's certainly how I feel sometimes, which is why it bewilders me when I get all this flack from certain members of LW about telling everybody, at the same time, not to do certain things, because I don't mention names, and I don't want to have to have that lovely ego-soothing private conversation nine times!

[azurelunatic]

Sometimes, but not always, this includes "Make sure it will never happen again", which can mean "Put in place a process for ensuring this will never happen again" but also can mean "Find out who was responsible for this clusterfuck, and either educate them to the point where they will never have this happen again, or remove them from a place where they can affect this." Education can optionally be performed with a baseball bat in the case of sufficiently advanced clusterfuckery.

[azurelunatic]

And if you're not part of fixing it, sometimes you look like a great big bug.

[azurelunatic]

It is a bit Ravenclaw-social, though -- efficiency in a communication that has social aspects is weird.

First, you've got the "you are singling me out in front of everyone else, because I know how obvious I am when I'm doing this, so everyone will have noticed", and then you've got the "what, I am not special enough to you that you will have this conversation with me privately also?" So I understand that reaction.

It really is more efficient, though.

[pauamma]

AKA "Lead, follow, or get out of my way."