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Comment by Talanes | Hacker News Reader

If you're being that pedantic about your metaphors, I don't think a good metaphor exists.

I tend to agree with him. It takes too long to tell that story. In a boardroom meeting type environment people don't have time or the attention span to settle in for story time. You need to be able to illustrate your point in 3 sentences or less.

Thus, "technical debt"...

that is pointless. It isn't about message, it is all about messenger. If they don't want to listen to you, they wouldn't. My friend who has made his way pretty high here in the SV told me recently how the same CXX/"boardroom" people who wouldn't listen even to his 1 sentence, now have all the time and attention in the world to listen to him all day long.

This is true. You can always try to convince people but if you're not string puller, you're in mercy of listeners. If they fix on something (e.g.profit, own promotion), your story should be aligned to that(their KPI). Then only you can have hope.

When shit breaks, no one wants to take blame and people start to forget 'selectively' your earlier warnings of shit.

Whenever I had to explain it to management I tell them something along the lines of: When was the last time you clean your office cupboard? If anyone else from management needs to find something in there without your help how long would it take compared to you? It's the same with our scripts. They need cleaning up and documenting in case one of us decided to call it a day.

Edit: When the situation allows(tbh I rarely miss a chance) I follow up with: You have to thank our sales guys making unrealistic promises for our lack of documentation.

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