
The Door Problem (2014) - windsurfer
http://www.lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/
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tjchear
I like that the author brings up all the different roles in a company and
explains succinctly what each one does with the door.

This could be a good way to explain an industry or the roles within a company
to newcomers.

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ineedasername
I think all jobs have that component in many ways, though not all with the
veneer of glamour. In my job, it's not doors. It's "I count things".

I'm probably something like a data scientist (my work precedes the
popularization of that term) but I'm sort of merging of data/statistical
analyst, report writer, occasional programmer, occasional ETL writer etc.

An extremely large amount of my work results in output that is a count of some
measure or metric or whatever. It might be something that happened, things
happening now, things that might happen. But a lot of it comes down to counts.
I recently finished a month-long analysis of 10 years of data to validate
potential operational changes. The result? Counts of what happened in the
past, counts of what might happen if we make changes.

The list of questions I have to answer, and ask people, is as long as the
"doors".

Most jobs are rarely as simple as they appear from the outside. On a novel
project, it might take me a week to come up with a single number. I have had a
few occasions where I have had to explain in a similar "doors" list why that
is often the case. It often ends with me saying something like, "So I can get
you a bad number in a day. I can get you something minimally usable in 3 days.
Or I can get you the correct answer in a week."

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LoSboccacc
> Character Artist: I don’t really care

"I'll have to detail the hand for the door animation"

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dang
If curious see also

2017
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16021509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16021509)

~~~
Y_Y
If incurious await further instruction.

~~~
dang
That case is meant to fall through. Is there a bug?

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andreareina
And here I thought it was about the other door problem, where they're used as
a chokepoint, enabling a more timid playstyle.

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amirmaleki
That was quite an insight. But wait, isn't it middle-managers job to address
those conflicts and take steps to resolve them?

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muststopmyths
there aren't really conflicts. all the "problems" with the door are things a
designer needs to spec out as behaviors of the "door system".

The rest is just how each cog in the whole machine deals with implementing the
design.

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supernova87a
If you have a good team, 2/3 of those roles can be avoided, saving you from
bloating your company and diluting your value.

~~~
sound1
Reminds me of this Dilbert strip:
[https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-04-14](https://dilbert.com/strip/2011-04-14)

