Warning: I was feeling super stabby when I was writing this. If you have delicate sensibilities enter at your own risk. As Corey Taylor says: if I offended you, you needed it.
I might have posted on this topic once before or perhaps touched on it while covering another topic. I normally stick to SQL and PL/SQL goodness but I'm fucking pissed and I need to vent. I usually only post when I do something wicked awesome or some asshat pisses me off. What is the term for a collection of asshats? A Bing? A Sharepoint of Asshats, perhaps? Hmm. A douche maybe? Asshats are like Frat boys in that they run together in packs and they delight in ruining other people's days. Sometimes developers, analysts, project managers or other work teams do the same thing. Perhaps they don't realize they are being asshats and perhaps they even think they are being helpful or working hard. That is usually not the case.
Virtually no one has 100% code coverage in their due diligence efforts. It if fucking difficult to stay vigilant in this. You see the signs for a certain condition that you've seen a dozen times before so you jump to the conclusion and don't fully investigate the issue. Snap judgments are fucking awful. They are almost never correct. They are often wildly off the mark. Look, I get it. You've answered tickets or investigate issue for 10 weeks or 10 years and you know what you are doing. Sure. We all feel that way some of the time. But calm the fuck down. If everyone you rush to talk to looks like they just stepped in a big pile of dog shit, slow your motherfucking roll. You are a problem. You are not adding value. You are derailing someones efforts on something. Every little interruption is a loss of several minutes trying to get back into the zone or trying to remember exactly where you were before someone tapped on your wall or your shoulder.
Interruptions are a necessary evil and they are bound to happen to a certain degree. But make EVERY EFFORT to limit the times that you bring bullshit to someone. If you know how to fucking do it and you have the ability to fucking do it and you have the access to fucking do it, FUCKING DO IT YOURSELF! WTF? If you think something is wrong, how many times did you check it? Are you fucking sure? Are you confident enough to go to the CEO or the VP and tell them your thoughts? If not, then double or triple check it yourself. And then, send someone else an email or an IM that they can get to in their own time. Not every goddamn thing is an urgent thing. Not every goddamn thing has to be done right this motherfucking second.
And this is one of my worst pet peeves. If everything you are working on is a fucking stop the presses all hands on deck kind of thing in your mind, yet every single time someone else needs to interrupt you, you are too busy and it'll be a minute or two, you've got delusions of grandeur or some shit like that. Not everything you fucking do is important. Not every time you feel the need to interrupt someone about something do you really need to do that. But for damn sure, if you do that, you best answer my fucking questions in a timely fucking manner when I come to you with something urgent. Goddammit!
We are (or should be) all trying to add value to the organization, find and resolve issues quickly, and prevent bugs from going into production. Every time you interrupt someone, you are increasing the probability that some setting won't get set right or some task won't get 100% completion or the turnaround on that particular task is going to run long. Be very careful when doing this. And reciprocate. If you tell someone this has to been done right now, tell them fucking why. Not just because you are working on it right now. That's not a good enough reason to derail someone else's productivity. Manage your interactions with people and err on the side of caution.
I've heard managers and people say they have an open door policy. I don't have a door but if I did it would be shut and have a do not disturb sign on it. I like to be left alone so that I can focus and dive deep on things. Some of this shit is really complicated stuff. If I am just about to get to the bottom of some issue and someone taps me on the shoulder or on my wall, it better be fucking important. I like to think that I'm a friendly person and I am almost always willing to help someone but your lack of proper planning doesn't mean your problem is urgent for me. If you have triple checked your issue and have done all you can do, send me an IM or an email and let me know. I take periodic controlled breaks from my work to read email and I usually will read IM when I notice them and calculate the need for immediate response against how close I am to finishing something or getting to a decent break point. Allowing me to manage my interactions and interruptions is crucial to stabilizing my mood and minimizing the errors in my work.
Some of you may be reading this and thinking, "This motherfucker is throwing stones in his glass house!" Well, there may be some truth to that. I don't always succeed in sussing out the next thing to to and I can rely on others a little too heavily sometimes. But most of you who know me personally have seen me stand around quietly until a conversation ends before asking a question and most of you have seen me apologize profusely for the need for the interruption. We all do it sometimes. Most of us endeavor to minimize the need for it and most of us struggle with finding a balance.
You may be wondering why I am so stabby about this right now. Well, I was interrupted a few times the last two weeks because people forgot how the calendar works or some such bullshit. Maybe you need a sheet of paper and maybe you need to jot down notes and think about things a little bit. If you are asking someone how the calendar works, don't try to save face. Own up to the fact that you were dumb or hurried or just didn't think. Honesty is a good thing. I have used that. I told someone this week that if I had more time I could probably have found this thing I was looking up, but I was on the phone with a customer and knew that the people I was bothering could find it quicker and we wouldn't make the customer wait long for me to find it. Maybe that's not cool, but it makes sense to me. There's a reason for my urgency that is something more than that I just feel like I want to get this done and that's enough to make me interrupt someone else's productivity.
Some of you may be thinking, well we are a team and that means I get to interrupt you whenever I want. I say that working in a team means that you need to respect your teammates feelings. Maybe not always putting them above your own, but giving them equal footing. Your teammates will notice your balanced approach and maybe not look like they stepped in dog shit every time you talk to them. If the dog shit face continues, check your shoes, perhaps shower more often or considering changing your soap.
For those of you that need step by step instructions:
1. Check if everything you see is dark and smelly.
2. Remove your head from your ass.
3. Really think about what you are going to ask someone to do for you or to help you with.
4. Do as much of the task yourself that you are able to do.
5. How urgent is it really?
6. If it can wait, approach the teammate via electronic means. Approach directly only if really super urgent.
7. State your perceived urgency and when the deadline is.
8. Don't say ASAP unless it is a prod down situation or a customer waiting on the phone.
9. Remember all of the times you've asked for someone's urgent help.
10. Respond quickly when someone else approaches you with an urgent request.
11. Say thank you!
If you can't figure out which person you work with is the worst offender here, either you work in a utopian environment or you are the biggest asshat at your office. Take immediate steps to stop wearing your own ass as a hat. For fuck's sake, we are all adults here. Act like it. When you fuck up, admit it, say sorry and move on. Excuses are for the weak. But above all else, pull your own weight and treat your teammates decent. This completes my psychotic ramblings for today.
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