Friday, July 30, 2021

Interview: How would you direct someone else on how to cook an omelet? (Take 2)

How would you direct someone else on how to cook an omelet?

Gather Answers to Follow-up Questions

Why am directing someone?

  • Instructional?
  • To cook me breakfast?
  • For himself? How many tries? How many eggs? Are there eggs?

Who is "someone"?

  • Experience
  • Age
  • Language
  • Customs
  • Culture
How? Where?
  • In-person? Virtual? Text? Amazon how-to? SMS?
  • Language?
  • High elevation?
  • Stove? Campfire? Barbecue?

Goal?

If I get this question in my next interview, I feel like my goal is to keep asking questions and hope to not answer the question. I think it would be entertaining to see how far I can push without actually answering the question which then go back to the first post with modifications to the additional information.

Reference

Take 1: https://douglastclee.blogspot.com/2013/01/interview-how-would-you-direct-someone.html

Monday, July 26, 2021

Work Life: Why do I seem like an enemy when providing fyi? (no answer)

Scenario

A colleague (Bob) who does not report to me became extremely defensive. I suspected that the topic I wanted to share would could be misinterpreted so I had prefaced my call that this is purely informational. I explained that I am not blaming him or blaming anyone. Yet, he really took offense and told me that the process was broken and he will continue to do as he sees fit.

I do know one of the problems was that I am sharing this information because of an issue that came up which was not directly him fault. There is some fault because he made the change directly in production and due to unforeseeable issue, the db team had to restore him db object with one from another environment. Essentially, him change was overwritten. To make matters worse was that he was just on vacation. Him manager had to contact me to get a backup because I audit the promotions. I did not know the origin, and I told him that there has never been a request for that object so I do not have backup. DB did not have a backup because the issue was that it was corrupted... also the DB team did not want to restore an entire enterprise core database just for a single object.

Initially, I called him to let him know what happened since he was not here at the time. The DB team is also implementing processes to audit and log user access which was very loose before. I shared this information, the he started to explain why he had to do what he did. I listened to what he said then I explained that I am not saying that he did anything wrong in the past. Everyone understands people did what they had to before. To address him concern about process, I just shared that we have a process to promote changes. He retorts that the process is too slow so he has to make the changes in production to appease the business. I tried to explain that is not him problem. He continues to reiterate then added that someone needs to define a process (I interpreted that as he is not taking that from me). After a while he continued to repeat herself, and I tried to interrupt because he was addressing poor process. I wanted to share that he will get into policy issues if he continues and that he should take proactive actions. He would not listen and said so directly with "I will not escalate anything" which to me was ironic because he is personally escalating him fixes. So eventually I just let him finish, doesn't ask me any questions,  basically gives me an empty thanks, and hung up on me. 

Since he will not stop doing what he does, I called his manager (Joe). I did not share most of the details from my last conversation. I did tell him that Bob is under the impression that he has to make changes in production to fix the issues. I asked Joe to speak with Bob that he does not need to be concerned with escalating the fix. Bob's focus is to come up with a solution. If my process is too slow for the customer, then that is between the customer, me, and the executive management because my process is dictated from them. My process is typically slow because it requires their approvals. Joe was already on board with my process, probably unaware that Bob did this, and exemplified by these recent issue that he had to support during Bob's absence. I also told him that I am not looking for anyone to get in trouble. I am just trying to keep them from getting in trouble. Joe agrees and will speak with Bob. 

My Thoughts on Above Scenario

First, I felt bad that he thought I was attacking him. Second, I felt a little angry because I am trying to help him by sharing some changes maybe he was not aware of. If anything, he can just ignore my advice and continue as he had before. Third, I felt guilty for being angry.

Then my thoughts turned to an article I read recently about why geniuses have "poor" social skills. I remember my reaction was that geniuses are not the only ones with poor social skills. Every level of intelligence have examples of poor social skills. Back to the topic, one of the comments was that geniuses just don't want to deal with low iq conversations.

Initially I thought that made some sense because the topic is not important to them. Either because they know the answer already (fastest route from A to B) or the topic is inconsequential to their beliefs or values (why did A cheat on B on a scripted show). But after this transaction, I am starting to think the main reasons is that it is just a waste of time.

Either they have to figure it out on their own or they will never understand it. Adding myself to the variable made no difference to the outcome, so why add myself to the problem. So, why do I even bother? I want to see them do well but they do not listen. Even if they listen, they do not do because either they didn't understand or they do not understand the consequence. So if anything, I seem to have made matters worse.

I don't know. I really do feel that I waste more of most people's time. There have definitely been some that it helps. But honestly, it is just tiring to think if I am being more helpful than hurtful.

My Thoughts in General

Then I started thinking of others that have became angry, pissed, upset, or defensive when I was just trying to give some information small or large. In my personal life, I am very sarcastic so I can see some personal relations strained because it seems that I am not very good at explaining what sarcasm is.

So is it maybe me that is the problem? If I could redo my conversation with Bob, what could I have done better? If I didn't have the conversation, then at least Bob wouldn't have gotten unhappy.

I really cannot think of anything to change. Give more apologies? Give more prefaces? The only thing I can think of is to not have brought it up... but then I wouldn't have learned that he was pressured to deliver a fix (as much as I tried to relay that it was not his role to escalate or to resolve the issue).

Another thing that I have trouble explaining to people is that I very rarely get frustrated at people, but I do get frustrated with inefficiencies. For example, people who leave trash near the trash can. Is it really that hard to push it a couple more inches into the trash can? I have to schedule time every week just to clean the pile of trash into the trash, then they complain why I have no time. I explain if they just put in the last 1% effort after they already did 99% of the effort (ie trash, laundry, cling cabinets, turning off the light, locking door, care for things only they care about like garden, plants, etc), they could save me a lot of time. Somehow that conversation always ends up with everyone being upset even though I was only sharing that if they did their part, they would save "me" a lot of time... mind you, I do not bring up this conversation nor have I complained that I do this for them.

I am starting to think transparency is such a farce. Unless people start to be more self-aware, all these things is such a waste of my time. Sometimes I feel like a complete idiot whenever I try. Am I losing hope in people?

Friday, July 16, 2021

Life: Do I need more water to sleep well at night? First night experiment

Lately, I have been waking up in the middle of the night. I also think I have restless leg syndrome at night. I usually go lie on the couch, and somehow that helps me go back to sleep. 

I know I do not drink enough water through out the day, and yesterday was the first time that I reached 5 cups (normal drinking cup not the unit of measure). I cannot remember the last time I even had more than one cup of water. I do drink some milk which I guess could count as some water.

Yesterday randomly, I started drinking more water. I brought the water pitcher to my work desk which reminded me to drink more water. I was wondering why I felt like I had more energy today, and realized that I slept the entire night... it was actually kind of odd to wake up on the bed.

Maybe coincidence, so will continue to test this out. Although I already missed drinking water this morning. I was going to post after a few more tries but given my track record... I may forget to do this after day three and I wanted a record to show when I last tried it.

...

kind of like all my attempts to start exercising...

...

sigh

...



Sequel (Edited 2021-08-17)

https://douglastclee.blogspot.com/2021/08/life-do-i-need-more-water-to-sleep-well.html

Thursday, July 15, 2021

Work Life: Attentive to detail? Detail-oriented? Why do people who claim this seem to be the worst at it?

Although this one instance today triggered this post, the main reason I post this is because I just have flashbacks to all the other individuals who also claim to be very detail-oriented.

I have worked with some extraordinarily detail-oriented people. I worked under a CEO of a company of over 500 individuals. I met him once. He remembered my name and some random information about what we spoke about over 15 months prior. Others may not have been as good but they were still impressive. And if there was one thing in common for all of them... none of them have ever said that they were detail-oriented.

If anything... perhaps I am biased to the data... I find everyone who has ever told me that they were detail-oriented especially after I tell them to correct a minor detail are the worst detail-oriented people. Always something on the line of "so sorry, I don't usually make these mistakes. I pride myself on being attentive to details.", "please let me know because I am very detail-oriented", or some other BS. They are not even average.

There was one guy that was so terrible that I nearly told my manager that I could no longer work with him because it was taking me longer to edit his work than to do it myself. I was really about to, but his work was so bad that even upper management said enough was enough. This was a lot because I've seen them accept pretty bad works before.

And today's example was a developer who talks a mile-a-minute to cover his inability to stay focused. He "prides" himself on his detail-oriented work. Yet every request has some pretty big blunders like misspelled object names, wrong server, wrong types. What really threw me for a loop was that he misspelled a name twice. One was an obvious catch like "label" vs "lable" but the other was OB210. OB is for outbound, so obviously that should be the letter O, but instead it was a number 0. It took me a little bit of time, and I actually tested that... it took me another hour or two because the "misspelling" of label was the actual spelling.

Yes there is human errors but this guy is up there. Developers have to provide me a list of their changes. Because he appears awesome, he gets a lot of new projects so many of his objects do not exist yet he will provide me a list of stored procedures like... spName, sp_Name, NameWithoutSp, NameWithSpAtEnd_SP, SPName, SpName, [spName], dbo.[spName]. It is just pure crazy how inconsistent this guy is. I can understand other developers do a little of this because the name was already that way but this guy gets to create his own names.

Third example, he created a bunch of destination folders. They have the same structure CustomerName_Type_CarrierName_something. A list of maybe 10 of them, then there is one folder that keeps failing because it is called CustomerName_Type_CarrierName _something. Who puts a space in the folder name? Then not catch it because it also needs to be set inside a configuration file where it is even more obvious there is a space.

Last example is he somehow screws up the SQL stored procedure names in such a way that even SQL gets confused. I use C# SMO to create automatically create scripts and he has one where it creates a name [SpName ] in the textheader but sql actual corrects the name to [SpName]. So this creates an error because the textheader doesn't match the actual name.

I just do not understand how these people have such huge egos and still look impressive.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Work Life: Why do managers assign the person with the least meetings to schedule a new meeting?

Managers in general should be creating meetings instead of their underlings or other people's underlings.

Why do managers do that?

1. Because they like that rush of power (intentional or not)
2. They think they are too busy to do it
3. They do not want to appear to not understand what the meeting is for

What I think?

I guess there is nothing that can be done with someone who is power hungry. Feeling too busy is too disrespectful of other people's time. Not understanding what the meeting is for is not even the ask.

Scheduling a meeting with a person who's calendar is full, plenty of double-booking, etc., only makes any sane person just sit there for a minute or two to think things over... like does that person not understand that is calendar is full for the next 2 weeks or year? Do they think we can see why the time is even blocked out to at least see if maybe a block is less important? If they ever scheduled anything, they will realize that 99% no one can see what is there at all... it is just a big blob of unavailable times. So this is easily 5 minutes just to scan the calendar for an open spot. AND THIS IS JUST FOR ONE PERSON!! Most of the time I have to deal with multiple people...

How long would it take him to schedule? 1-2 minutes. Why because he can see his own calendar that he does not even maintain to keep up-to-date so that someone else can schedule a real meeting. He can clearly see that a spot is available. He can see which meetings typically run short.

More importantly, he has more authority to get other people to join the call. If I have a call with more than one manager... I spend another day or two just to reschedule because they respond that they cannot make it or a change in schedule....... then they have the audacity to not even recommend a new time.

So, in best case... 5 minutes vs 2 minutes. That is 2.5 times. If it takes him longer, it'll probably take me much longer, so 2.5X is probably best case.

Company Cost?

Let us take 2.5 times as the lowest difference in our time. Does my manager make 2.5 times what I make? If he's Warren Buffet, I probably should continue to waste the rest of the year rescheduling.. but that's an exception. Most middle managers probably don't even make 2 times my salary. So it is not even worth company time for middle managers to delegate scheduling to someone else.

Also my job isn't scheduling stuff. If anything that is what middle managers do. So what is the company even paying you to do? Sit in meetings and waste everyone's time? (I'd like to say that sarcastically... but it'll probably sound more like a weak laugh while crying inside)

On top of all that, this also wastes the managers time too. More time than if they just scheduled it themselves. Manager has to check calendar. See if it is more important. Then send email that they cannot make it. Read another email on the complicated list of when all the other people are available, put in another time. Then have to read another email because another key person cannot make it (usually their own person), and repeat. 

My Suggestion

Managers should open your outlook, click new meeting, click a time on the calendar, add me to the calendar, then send. It'll take you one minute to do. I will fill in the rest or give you the people who needs to attend.

And if you already know me... I send that list before you even create it.

Stop wasting both our time.



Friday, July 2, 2021

Buggish: transaction rollback in progress. Estimated rollback completion: 0%. Estimated time remaining: 0 seconds. (no answer)

 I tried killing this SQL session, but it never disappears. When I use "KILL ## WITH STATUSONLY", I get:

SPID ##: transaction rollback in progress. Estimated rollback completion: 0%. Estimated time remaining: 0 seconds.


I know what is executing it which was my web tool that edits the sql server. I tried restarting the App Pool but this did not do anything. I eventually IISRESTART and the session disappears.