
You're Worthwhile, Even When You Make Mistakes - philk10
https://spin.atomicobject.com/2019/06/30/mentoring-you-are-worthwhile/#.XRkm4GAtLuU.hackernews
======
moksly
We once had a Cisco phone setup that didn’t really have a test-system, and I
was tasked with automating phone creation/updates for around 5000 employees.
The documentation for the API wasn’t very good at explaining what each setting
was, and I got one of them wrong. It wasn’t wrong for those of us whom I
tested it on, but it was wrong for quite a lot of people. As a result a few
hundred people in the city of Skanderborg where I work, had their phones
deleted. Which is sort of a big issue. Because it was weakly testet we rolled
it out mostly to departments we knew, but one of those was IT, and suddenly
the phone support for 5000ish employees was out.

The head of IT wasn’t happy when I told him, but his reaction was perfect. I
was pretty new and I think he could tell that I was down about the situation.
He told me that we all make mistakes, but it’s the people who own up to them
that are useful. It’s some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten, and today I
can’t even imagine working in a culture where mistakes aren’t allowed.

I don’t think you should test your phone-automation software in production.
You really shouldn’t, unless it’s the only option you have and the reward far
outweigh the risks. Because after my mistake, I got the settings right, and
the automation saved thousands of man hours.

~~~
mmsimanga
I often wonder whether one of the factors that decides whether boss is
understanding or not is if the boss himself was once in the trenches. I worked
as manager for a decade and the first thing I always did when such things
happened was to try find the solve the problem. No use crying over spilt milk.
As a senior developer now I am definitely more empathetic certain types of
mistakes made by juniors.

~~~
heymijo
I've found one of the quickest things to atrophy for managers is their empathy
for being an IC.

If I had to conjecture, it's much more a person's mindset, the organizational
culture, and their incentives (so the system), that will dictate how they
respond to mistakes.

I have seen this in organizations from to tech, to education, non-profits, and
beyond.

~~~
mmsimanga
You make many valid points that I agree with. On a person's mindset, I would
say a manager's character does play a role in how they will react. Sometimes
some managers are too weak and fear the higher ups so will unleash on the
junior. Sometimes though the manager, themselves are also going through issues
in their own life so yeah the person's mindset will play a role. The type of
organisation will play a role. If incentives are wrong the wrong types of
people get promoted and it has the potential to go downhill very quickly.

------
keyle
When I started, I was an intern. I was lucky to live in a day where not every
metrics were used to rate someone's productivity. So employees had time for
me. Time to help me learn, and figure out stuff.

As I wasn't paid, I had low pressure to deliver good things. That said I was
trying really hard to bring a net positive.

I miss the days where having interns was a common thing. We'd give them the
repetitive boring jobs but they'd also get real experience and see _how_
things were done. Later they'd be trusted to do just about anything.

Now it's all 'senior'. Every job is looking for a heavy-hitter rockstar
superman. Even if it's wrapped into this joly 'hey we're cool and kinda
awesome too, woowee us!' \- they're still wanting to find senior mad-
scientists.

I contract myself out to large/small businesses, all sorts of industries, big
pay jobs. Number of interns: 0.

The net result is I see plenty of 'senior engineers' hired who I wouldn't call
senior. They've got 5 years experience, 2 of them were writing tests, and
they're 'senior'?

Do the future a favour, get a few interns. They'll keep you young!

~~~
treerock
> get a few interns

Pretty much agree, but not sure Internships are the best way to do it.
Expecting people to work for no pay means you only get those that can afford
to work for no pay.

I remember an article on HN from few years ago, about the German apprentice
system. Paid work, coupled with college education.

[https://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/11280301-the-apprentice-
pr...](https://tobi.lutke.com/blogs/news/11280301-the-apprentice-programmer)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5314268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5314268)

~~~
dnh44
Twenty years ago I don’t think the word internship carried an expectation of
being unpaid. The term ‘unpaid internship’ was used for that.

It’s interesting that unpaid internships have become the norm so much that the
‘unpaid’ part of the term has become redundant.

~~~
nostalgk
I don't know anyone who expects an internship to be unpaid, especially in the
tech industry. I've heard quite a few complaints in the medical industry
though.

------
WrtCdEvrydy
I always found this interesting about my junior developers.

When I teach a new concept, I can instinctively tell who will listen, apply it
and be able to move on to tougher concepts while understanding that some of
them will be hard headed and will have to be beaten into submission.

One day, I got fed up with one of them (he kept trying to parse JSON by
splitting the string in Java), and told him I would honestly use GSON to parse
it because I'm lazy. I could see it click in his mind, as he realized writing
a small JSON schema in Java was easier than his convoluted 12-step if
statement chain (he was performing the string splitting based on the URL he
was doing REST requests against). Now I call it the 'laziness as teaching'
tool.

1) Admit you're doing it because you're lazy

2) List the set of items that need to be done in the new lazy approach

3) Contrast it against the previous method

4) Watch it click as they realize their way is so much extra work.

~~~
silveroriole
Question is, what do you do with the juniors who never get it? Those for whom
mistakes/inefficiency aren’t just “mistakes” but are their normal mode of
operation? I’ve had juniors who I did this “well, I’d be lazy and just use a
library/script” routine on, and they essentially ignored me and went straight
back to what they were doing. Either they were afraid of admitting they’d
gotten it ‘wrong’ and were unwilling to abandon that method they’d personally
thought of, or they genuinely didn’t even agree that they were struggling in
the first place - in some weird way they must have ENJOYED struggling and
thought it meant they were learning or solving something hard.

~~~
theossuary
> in some weird way they must have ENJOYED struggling and thought it meant
> they were learning or solving something hard

I'm not sure why you're incredulous about this? If you're struggling to write
your own JSON parser, you are learning something new by doing something hard.
Maybe you're not learning a lot (if you're just brute-forcing it), but you're
still learning. Being in flow means you aren't learning, it isn't deliberate
practice.

If somebody was wasting a lot of time rewriting a library instead of using it,
it might be time to have a discussion on learning vs delivering value. I think
20%-30% is the sweet spot of learning vs producing.

~~~
silveroriole
I think enjoying the struggle will lead you wrong more often than not. I
normally find that if I’m really struggling, it doesn’t mean I’m learning, it
means I’m missing some information and I need to seek guidance. I’ve always
learned more from looking at a successful existing implementation than trying
to brute force my own solution (though it’s fun/useful to have a pop at
something on your own first, of chorse). Sure, you need some tenacity and
concentration, but I don’t understand people who will happily and repeatedly
bash their head against a wall for hours without ever checking whether there’s
a way around the wall!

------
ex3xu
This article reminds me of the analogy made in the anti-procrastination book
the Now Habit [0] called "raising the board". When you or your company culture
tie the stakes of making a mistake into some kind of validation of your worth
as an employee or as a human being, it's like taking the simple task of
walking across a board on the ground, and transforming it into walking across
a board 100 feet in the air with the building on your end also on fire.
Obviously, it creates additional stress and anxiety that makes it
significantly harder for you to get started, iterate, and bounce back from
failures -- even though the actual difficulty of individual tasks hasn't
changed.

If this article's point appeals to anyone and they are looking for a modern
researcher on the topic, I'll gently push them in the direction of Brene
Brown's work on embracing vulnerability as a driver of personal growth:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?langu...](https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en)

[0]:
[https://hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf](https://hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf)

------
purplezooey
“You’re right. That’s okay. I’m here to help you figure out how to make it
better.”

No. It's just not realistic. In today's company your manager will say that to
you then slate you for the "bottom 10%" category and you'll receive
decreasingly subtle signs that they want you to leave. Companies don't
actually train, reinforce or develop employees anymore, at least not for more
than a few weeks.

~~~
excitedNerd
(Author here) That's actually a real conversation that happened over a year
ago, and I ended up becoming technical lead on the project later! No signs of
firing yet. Not all companies are too lazy to care about their employees. It
is, _realistically,_ the smartest financial choice to invest in growing the
people you hire instead of just throwing them away and hiring new ones every
quarter.

~~~
gizmoduck
I don't mean to deride you in any form or fashion but your experience seems to
be the outlier and the OC's experience seems to be the modus operandi (having
experienced it, myself).

As far as could tell, they weren't saying it didn't happen _to you_ but to
infer that's (generally) not how things work elsewhere. For example, if you've
never heard of the phrase " _being managed out_ "[0,1,2], you're lucky, but
others haven't been and will continue to not be for some time.

You're preaching to the choir, essentially. :)

[0] - [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-managed-out-fired-
wel...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-managed-out-fired-welcome-
cliche-olympics-greg-capogna)

[1] - [https://www.mattgingell.com/managed-out-at-work-a-guide-
for-...](https://www.mattgingell.com/managed-out-at-work-a-guide-for-
employees/)

[2] - [https://www.ronankennedy.ie/blog/2017/1/16/am-i-being-
manage...](https://www.ronankennedy.ie/blog/2017/1/16/am-i-being-managed-out)

~~~
MaulingMonkey
> but your experience seems to be the outlier

I'm not sure that follows just from adding your own ancedata ;). I've made my
share of mistakes at every job, and haven't gotten managed out. What _will_
get you fired is consistently under-performing, persistent personality
conflicts, or repeated negligence without visible improvement.

Your company might be too lazy to have any sort of formal training program,
but that cuts both ways - they'll be too lazy to hire a replacement if you're
showing signs of improving, too. Your manager probably has too much on their
plate to train/mentor you themselves, but I work places where coworkers like
talking shop, and will generally be happy to share advice, techniques, thought
processes, etc. - especially if it means they're enabling you to take things
off of _their_ plates to get more stuff done.

Now, granted, this isn't everywhere, but it's far from being OC's
"unrealistic" either.

------
euske
I'm mildly offended by the casual use of the word "wizard" here - I don't
believe that they actually exist.

I'm not American, but I tend to think that assuming the existence of wizards
or geniuses is fundamentally Unamerican.

If anything, the concept of wizard etc. is pretty much in the eyes of the
beholder. In this sense, we're digging ourselves deeper by needlessly
magnifying and exaggerating one's "ability". Different people produce
different outcomes, but the difference in their output is mostly accidental.

Humans are not comfortable with explaining everything as luck. But I think
many things are actually explained by luck, and we should take it easy.

~~~
switchbak
I don't love the wizard metaphor either. Mainly because I don't like buying
into the ego behind it. Kent Beck had a great talk (happiness at work, I
believe) where he talked about the downsides of seeking ego validation through
one's work.

I'd much rather treat these as pretty common sense, learnable lessons that are
accessible to anyone.

As for one's output being mostly based on luck? I must disagree with you. I
find those that care about what they're doing, and why they're doing it -
consistently outperform those that aren't invested in what they're doing. And
I think there are those that are more suited to our line of work than others
(whether due to how their minds work, or otherwise).

Luck does however play a part in the chances we get to learn and to prove
ourselves, especially if you're not born into a relative position of
advantage. But to sum up one's contributions, skills, talents and effort to be
just luck? That seems dismissive.

~~~
excitedNerd
(Author here again) I appreciate your point here! It's true that "wizard"
reminds me a little bit of being called a "rockstar," which I have always had
a distaste for due to the above-mentioned ego thing. I elected to use "wizard"
because I find it to be a useful and interesting metaphor in light of my own
personal love for RPGs and fantasy, and because I was really inspired by Julia
Evans' use of the term to _de_ -mystify learning. I think of it as a
rhetorical device, and nothing more.

~~~
switchbak
Good to hear. That's essentially how I read the article, and I think it has a
special quality to those with the rpg/ fantasy background.

I really love Julia Evan's writing as well, especially the way she's so humble
and open about her path.

I have unfortunately met a bunch of folks that while being brilliant, also
seem caught up in being seen as uniquely gifted/powerful. When their status
gets challenged, they can be particularly nasty in defending themselves. And
it's that connotation where the Wizard metaphor troubles me. Looking back I've
even see myself getting caught up in this, which I think can be an energetic
trap, and really harm relations and even team efficiency.

Funny that a single word has such a dichotomy :) Thanks for the article!

~~~
xtracerx
Ah yes, the power-mad dark wizard. You should avoid that guy and hang out with
the laid back hippy zen wizards.

------
Waterluvian
Watch NHL hockey and count the number of mistakes players make. And they're
being paid millions to do it.

Mistakes are just... Ugh. They're so normal and so important to growth that it
frustrates me that they're ever perceived as a bad thing. If you're not making
mistakes then you're not making those risky plays that turn into goals 7% of
the time. You'll end up being a consistent, mediocre player.

~~~
davnicwil
I totally agree with the message underlying what you're saying but
specifically in sports, I think a really interesting thing is that this only
applies once you're at the very top level.

Below that, I think being as boring and consistent as possible is actually the
key to being an above-average player, paradoxically. It's the same percentages
at work - for averagely talented players, those risky plays don't succeed 7%
of the time, more like 1% (for argument's sake, obviously made up numbers) so
it's actually a better strategy to do the boring thing which might succeed say
5% of the time, consistently. Still low, but better on average than most
people who do try the risky, extremely unlikely to work, plays more
frequently.

~~~
dlphn___xyz
an employees value is being predictable

~~~
Waterluvian
That sounds like one of those reductionist things believed by a Silicon
Valleyist who doesn't know there's a world outside tech. Or maybe a project
manager who depends on reducing everything to point scores.

There are many many roles where you need to be able to make mistakes.
Predictability is

~~~
dlphn___xyz
in my experience companies are very risk adverse - you're better off doing the
bare minimum because any mistakes will ruin your career trajectory

------
rmason
Four years ago I met Carl Erickson, one of the founders of Atomic Object, when
he spoke at Lansing Startup Grind.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxOjJmUtTYA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxOjJmUtTYA)

He was a college professor in Grand Rapids who if I remember started the
company with a student. He impressed me because he had company culture figured
out early and that gave Atomic Object a distinct advantage.

They've expanded to several locations in the state and have an extremely low
turnover compared to other shops. He understands that not every programmer
wants to go into management and they're encouraged to become mentors and help
staff stay current. He also indicated that he was starting to become an angel
investor. I found him to be quite an interesting guy.

------
DoreenMichele
An actual culture of excellence tries to root out bad behaviors rather than
looking for someone to pin the blame on.

Of course, sometimes you still have to cut people out, but it is possible to
foster a culture of growth rather than a climate of terror.

If this sounds strange, it's because so few organizations do it, not because
it doesn't work.

------
Lowkeyloki
This is such an important lesson. Also, you're worth more than "what you've
done lately". I personally struggle with tying my self worth to my
productivity.

------
gilbetron
From my hometown! Atomic Object has their heads screwed on straight, and
recognizes the importance of reality and nuance when it comes to software
development. Other firms I've dealt with are ... less enlightened.

------
RandomGuyDTB
> You're worthwhile

let me stop you right there buddy

~~~
throwaway180118
I'm listening. Go on?

------
jshowa3
You'd be surprised how many companies have a sink or swim mentality. Many
people are just in it for themselves and don't really want to help others, or
they just aren't cognizant enough of their surroundings to bother to offer
aid. If those that don't want to help need to, it's often full of
belittlement. I've been in situations like this, and let me tell you, it
sucks. I feel like I could've grown a lot faster if someone just cared enough
to work with me on some things I had difficulty with. Makes me have a greater
appreciation for culture and communication.

------
LandR
[http://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/learn/](http://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/learn/)

------
janpot
If nothing else, you can always serve as a good example of a bad example.

