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Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

The situation as I describe it is certainly apt, I'm not calling them out on being "traffic" but it's more like this:

I am dedicated to a project, my sole job is to ensure the continuity and delivery of the product that the project makes. Part of this is relying on central IT, who do not want to delegate responsibility on certain things (IE; firewalls, networking, authentication, timekeeping, package management services, storage, etc). Those people are constrained because they are used by every project.

While it's not their fault they're not fully available to me at all times when I need them; being blocked by a firewall for a week is frustrating. It stops me being able to complete tasks for extended periods of time.

So yes, I am trying to move, and they are not moving. It's not their fault but that's the fact as it stands.

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Classic bureaucracy calls for classic techniques; Radar on MAS*H knows what's up. Your best bet is to cultivate relationships that can help you get things done faster. The more important your project the easier this will be; from official resource allocation to a guy on the inside acting as a back channel. It may be worth working both ends of the spectrum at the same time.

If your project is important enough or the problem pervasive enough you might be able to get people together on an official solution. Raise awareness that your progress is being blocked frequently. An "all on the same team" approach to working on a solution will bring departments together to work out a path forward. This will often appear in the form of limited delegation of IT resource ownership, priority work queues, and dedicated/embedded resources.

If your project is NOT important enough and/or the problem lacks interest at the right levels(awareness raising fails) you might have to game the system. Get friends in the right places that can help you out when you have something blocking you. You might also have to just suck it up.

Traffic is normal, the issue is thinking of yourself as a Ferrari. You are a normal car in LA traffic, just like everyone else. Everyone has to move slower because of the organization, everyone gets blocked sometimes. If you actually can't do anything for a week then talk to your boss, but with the attitude of "this is a fact of life and I'm looking for something else to work on in the meantime", not "these assholes are holding me back".

Option 1. Honk your horn. Sounds like this is what you're doing, and it makes other people around you more stressed, more frustrated, and less willing to do extra work to help you. After a while, noise like that just gets tuned out.

Option 2. Recognize this is an inappropriate metaphor, and that you are part of an organization that has certain policies and procedures, and that anything being done for reasons other than legal compliance can be up for debate and change.

Do you know why the central IT branch is behind? Are they working with shitty software that makes their jobs harder instead of easier? Are the business processes in place to grant a simple request unnecessarily complex? Is a mistake very costly and difficult to fix, meaning that correctness is incentivized at the expense of throughput? How much is it costing the business while you sit and twiddle your thumbs waiting for approval? Who in your organization has these answers? Who has the power to make decisions about these things? What can you do to get those people together in a room to discuss these issues?

You can get a lot further by trying to fix a problem instead of just complaining about it.

@dijit, if you want to improve your relationships, practice the Golden Rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule), treat others as you would want to be treated, and don't treat them the way you wouldn't want to be treated.

Have a look at http://www.thewaytohappiness.org/thewaytohappiness/precepts/... and http://www.thewaytohappiness.org/thewaytohappiness/precepts/... which describe and give examples of both sides of this rule.

Don't concentrate on how others may be treating you (delaying your projects) or what you might be doing wrong (toxic interactions) but focus on the positive way you can treat others (fairly? with respect? helping them? etc.)

I challenge you to practice the Golden Rule assiduously for a week and see how life seems then. =)

Good luck!

The problem is that you prioritize your work over others' work. Being blocked is not an excuse to treat people poorly, so whenever it happens, just focus on another task until you can continue. Use that blocked time to learn something new, make progress on something else or review your work.

You're a Ferrari, and project is very important. So escalate and get it done.

If unable to get that escalation, than you're just another Honda Accord, and there is no dishonor in that. Accept and move on.

It sounds like you're hating the player, not the game.

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