I'm not in sales at all. Having an overview of the different bits of the business isn't a sales attribute. It's just an example of "what your job is" - which might range from weeks of uninterrupted detailed technical work at Microsoft Research, to presenting to clients, to running teams, to making technical decisions and getting agreement, to writing code.
Thinking every engineer's job is "writing code" and anyone who thinks wider is wrong is what the pushback in this thread is all about.
My fault.
> Thinking every engineer's job is "writing code" and anyone who thinks wider is wrong is what the pushback in this thread is all about.
Writing code is not the only activity of an engineer that requires focus and concentration. Most of my activities require that.
But 90% of the time someone taps on my shoulder, they want me to think for them. You can do that by yourself. Just send an email.
We might have the same access, but rather than dig through 20 medical textbooks, I'll go ask a doctor. Access is a really poor way of thinking about things.
> But 90% of the time someone taps on my shoulder, they want me to think for them. You can do that by yourself. Just send an email.
Why send an email when they're thinking for themselves?
Because, the act of writing down a question --- with the necessary details to state the question precisely --- is often enough to find the answer yourself. Unless it is simple matter of a missing fact. But that is rarely the case in my line of work.
Some businesses have huge depths of technical content to understand that can't all the memorised in a training session. Nothing difficult can. Even knowing who to talk to about an issue is going to be found out via a question.
You get an appointment. Here noone is against appointments, here people discuss the notion of going to ask a doctor in the middle of a surgery a "quick question".
It also
1) forces (or at least encourages) laying the whole thing out in a coherent order
2) leaves a record of both the question and the answer, so that the asker can refer back to it if they forget
3) leaves a record so that if the asker is asking obvious questions, or repeatedly asking the same questions, or failing to formulate their questions in a sane and coherent manner, there is documentation to take to their supervisor, not only to prove it, but to show exactly the shape of the problem, and have a possibility of getting them the kind of help they need
Need help? Send an email or make an appointment and he will respond with help.
How is it your assumption that the team member asking the question can’t possibly be delayed 30-45min for them to be available. Seriously? Are they in an active shooter situation and need to phone a friend or something. Lives on the line?