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Comment by nevatiaritika | Hacker News Reader

My manager at work especially has the reverse attitude where the person who broke it is more significant than what broke/how we fixed it/ how to avoid it in the future. I have seen people get taunted for a bug they caused two years ago, a bug which didn't affect any revenue or was pretty easy to fix. And of course it still gets pointed out during appraisals.

Its a nightmare, because there's no room for experiment left anymore. Everyone just sticks to the template, afraid to do more than required, never deleting unused code etc. An attitude like this never ever helps!

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We don't touch production. We don't upgrade. We are are a X million company we can't afford the risks.

These are some of the excuses they put up.

And then they sit 10 years or more with that bad stuff in there, build even uglier ways around it.

But the time comes to actually do something about. And what was once a one day job becomes "we will hire a consultancy firm to guide us".

Are you my coworker? Because you sound like him /s

No really I appreciate risk management but when it cripples your ability to make decisions, innovate or otherwise ACT on information that could help you be a more efficient team and the develoment team becomes a room full of people doing nothing but maintenance for years on end people leave and companies fail.

I just watched that very thing happen this year to my company for exactly that reason. Someone with the word "senior" in their job title was so risk averse that the market caught up, passed us and started eating our lunch.

God help them because I can't do it anymore, and writing on the wall says they'll be closing up shop this fall. I'm out the door for good at the end of the week.

Ha. "Outsourcing of blame"!

Outsourcing of blame - as a Service. Where's my VC???

Accenture. You've invented Accenture.

Damn.

(Second thought - did they patent it? "A system and method for reallocating blame and responsibility for business related negative outcomes. The negative outcomes include a plurality of career limiting moves and hastily made decisions." ... )

What do they do, exactly?

http://exposingevilempire.com/accenture/bigtime-consulting/

http://exposingevilempire.com/accenture/bigtime-consulting2/

http://exposingevilempire.com/accenture/bigtime-consulting3/

code rots, whether it is being used in production or not, and should be consistently refactored and updated to accommodate the current status quo

So much so that I don't think "refactoring" should even be a concept - that's what coding is. Every feature, bug fix or change should take into account the new relationships and structure of the model. Leaving refactoring for later is ignoring the fundamental required task of coding.

Eh, refactoring is distinct from feature developement, prototyping and testing.

They are different modes of thought.

This must be how data leaks/vulnerabilities happen.

Im going to say this -

When it is all said and done, if you fucked up, you should get some shit for it. However this should be good natured, YOU should be laughing at it and everyone else laughing WITH you.

In the quiet isolation of a one2one, perhaps.

Publicly i.e. I front of the team? No. It serves no purpose than to stroke some egos and reduce the "Overton window" of development discussion and experimentation.

To me the one2one situation would feel like I’m surreptitiously getting bollocked for making the mistake, under the guise of humor. In public, on the other hand, I don’t care if someone takes the piss out of my code - I’ll laugh right along with them as long as it’s not overly malicious. IMO it sets a good example not to be precious about your code.

> if you fucked up, you should get some shit for it

If you're intending that you (and the rest of your team) should learn from your mistakes, then I fully agree

Yes, and it should be good natured... not at someones expense.

Hence the reason YOU should be leading the laughter.

There is a case that laughing indicates that the stressful situation has passed:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/69830/why-do-we-laugh-when-we...

No one has right to demand what I laugh about or not. There is enough shit I have to take regularly to have zero desire to have to pretend laugh to it.

The discussions about everybody mistakes should be open, with emphasis on everybody, but leave mockery out of it. Inform everyone when they make mistakes without mocking them or attacking their egos and keep it factual. Don't assume everyone is friend with everybody nor that everybody is happy, it is not true. The line between laughing at it and with me is thin and oftentimes muddled.

Relaxed laughing at mistakes is result of good teamwork, but you don't get to good work by demanding that people accept being laughed at or mocked.

Fully agreed. No one should "get shit" for mistakes on their job. Mockery has no part in productive organizations.

The importance of this person is the part where i agree.

But defining this person important is independent from the action of loading this person with guilt and financial, career relevant or social sanctions . That makes access to the important knowledge actually difficult, because no one will want to admit errors and share how they happened and what could have been done to prevent them...

Sounds like it's past time to go job-shopping.

Unless you’re on a visa, I don’t understand why anyone would tolerate this. Why not leave this company?

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