There are no companies where union values are desired by management, and there are no companies where ethnic minorities are free from discrimination (although there's always nepotism, but that's hardly a sustainable economic practice.)

I thought it was common knowledge that "all gigs have a rigid culture they're selecting for." I am confused and surprised by your assertion that the status quo is otherwise.

Again, "finding a role that matches who you are" is easier said than done for most people on earth. Perhaps you've lucked into a privileged identity in a region of relatively greater social mobility. (I certainly have, but not without limit, and that is why I dare not risk "bringing my whole self to work" and must, instead, compromise. But, then again, why should we tolerate "whole selves" at work? If you've an obsessive penchant for matchbox cars — frankly, you can leave that at home as far as I'm concerned.)

Username checks out.

I’m very relieved that we have finally seen the sense in about 75% of the stuff Kent Beck wrote down in ‘99. Not that he invented most of those things, because a lot of them were done somewhere in isolation in the 80’s but more seeing the complimentary nature. That doing 6 things could be 8 times as good as doing none of them. When the refactoring book came out some of us said, “oh yeah, so that’s what you call that” and half the people said “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, why would I ever waste my time doing that?” I still meet people like this, but many try to keep it to themselves.

Kanban seemed so intuitive that I accidentally made a kanban board in 1995, when the only thing I knew about Japan was tiny trees.

But really the biggest thing for me was that I was poorly served by the education system and spent my first few years thinking there was something wrong with me instead of something wrong with them, so you ten I was having introspective conversations with myself and by twelve overhearing other frustrated learners and interjecting things like, “yeah that didn’t make sense to me at all until I thought of it this way”.

The teachers who say they learn as much as their students aren’t lying (or at least not all of them). Watching - actually watching- people struggle with things teaches you a lot about that thing, that person, and people in general (problem solving and task management). Being able to take a proposed solution and extrapolate on whether this will help or hurt a lot of people. Most only get as far as whether it’ll be awesome for them or horrible, and sometimes they’re wrong.

What’s difficult though is that you see is that what people think they know and how they know it is usually wrong, for better and for worse. Most people aren’t open to hearing that until they are well and truly stuck. There are people who make their whole life about helping people with this. One of the advantages they have is that they are not personally invested in your experience, because they aren’t sharing in it. Whereas your coworkers are either stuck in it with you, or seen as distant and uncaring because they aren’t getting upset too.

> Sounds like you've an abrasive personality.

Well if that ain’t the voice of experience then I don’t know what is.

Most of what makes Scrum successful today is that they are doing half of XP, and not necessarily calling that out. Kent Beck published the first XP book in 1999, and people were still arguing - energetically - about adopting aspects of that book in 2010.

Google’s secret sauce was based on an algorithm that was 28 years old at that point (and yet never came up in any of my classes).

It’s not invention that limits us. It’s adoption.

Howard Aiken clearly understood this:

    Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.