Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

Few things are truer in software than this:

If you expect people to use a tool for your benefit, you’re going to be disappointed and/or bamboozled every single time.

Managers are experts in this. They don’t seem to see why they are always having to harp on people to keep visibility tools up to date because “not getting harped on” is not a motivation to do something. Most of my job is keeping track of my responsibilities. If I’m keeping track of yours, then why are you even here?

People use tools for their own benefit (if even then). If that helps out someone else, that’s a bonus feature, not a core one. So we use testing frameworks if it helps us stop our own regressions. We use issue trackers to fight pre-emption and weekend amnesia. If you don’t honor that (by mandating that they be used in a different way that raises the cost/benefit ratio) then you’ll get less compliance, not more.

So if the SREs want something, they better have a self-interest angle, otherwise they’ve just got a platform for lecturing, not for progress. Of course, there are a few people in any org who are satisfied with lecturing.

Not getting harped on is indeed a motivator for a lot of folks. And managers take advantage of this sometimes consciously sometimes unconsciously.

Re: SREs and observability, unfortunately sometimes the power imbalance tips the scale in their favor because if as a service owner you let observability out of your control then guess who will report your SLA to your boss?

Of course every org and every SRE org is different. Except yours. The Anna Karenina principle applies.

My phrasing was poor. I agree it's a motivator, but it's a pretty poor one. Not quite bottom rung, but close enough to it.

This is an excellent overall comment. One thing: As a sibling has pointed out I do enjoy not getting harped on so usually its either a small enough task so ill just do it or it’s difficult enough that I give reasons why I can’t do it (or need some dedicated time to get it done).

Ive had managers who have understood this dynamic and others who have ignored and try to use force by continuing to harp after Ive provided reasons. Generally I haven’t lasted that long under the latter.

The "self-interest angle" in my experience has been that the people who are getting paged also hold the keys for launching new things. If they think the thing is too hacky and unpolished to be allowed to page them in the middle of the night, then they won't launch it. Often these are SREs, but not always. Experienced, healthy non-SRE teams usually have similar standards.

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