Don't Crutch It

There are a small number of things that I truly have as pet peeve's, but this is one of them!

The other day, during my normal work stuff, I had the pleasure of finding an issue. I am pretty good at doing that, to the chagrin of the development team I am sure, because I tend to find some real doozy's.

I brought the issue to the right folks, gathered the evidence and had them take a look and help me understand why it's happening. We spent a few hours going back and forth and come to find out, we were doing things the way we expected, but it was the other side of this that was doing something a little fishy.

Now what was going on for sure is small potatoes and not a BIG issue, but it is an issue nonetheless and the individual felt that they were in the right.

I don't want to go into any of the details but the jist of it is that this individual does things half-ass, but is skirting the line of what is allowable and what is possible. What is possible is not always allowable in the technology space. Just because you do something does not make it right!

The individual was hitting that grey territory pretty hard and it was comical because they were trying to throw shade at us. They said we were defective basically, but not because I work with who I do and take pride in what we do, but knowing the space this individual is coming from, they are doing things poorly and don't want to spend the time correcting bad behavior.

In my previous role before I switched over to the side I am now the last few years, I was very passionate about not throwing an IT/technical crutch into a situation because they can. I would rather spend a bit more of my time to correct a shitty workflow than I would to put some ridiculous fix in place so the person would shut up. Even before I was in the IT world that I'm in now, I was always one to not throw a bandaid on the problem, but rather try to get to the bottom of it and address it there.

I find it very frustrating that people will perpetuate bad training and workflows over so pervasive an area like this one was doing. Instead of understanding that the workflow they had was suboptimal. Yes it was possible, but if you slice open your finger, it's possible to throw a needle and thread through it and you might be okay. The best thing would be to get it cleaned by a nurse and sealed up properly to reduce future infection. The infection has certainly been brewing at this individuals place, because they did things that are not best practice but refuse to work to modify the behavior.

I know that we are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things for this individual, so there is no desire to spend any extra effort for what they might deem as low-reward.

I think the challenge of people who work for anything, really, is trying to balance what we know is the best and cleanest way, with whatever is going to pass the test and nothing more. A nurse isn't going to sew up your sliced-up finger, give you a pack of take-home strips and a bunch of supplies to change the dressing every day. They are going to fix the immediate problem, and pass it off to someone else to take care of the rest.

Thankfully, I won't have to deal with this group much longer but these last few days have been painful to keep my mouth shut lol

What about you, do you find it frustrating when things are done that would technically work, but are not done to a step above bare-minimum? Let me know in the comments!