The Stability Conundrum

Doing what’s right or what makes you money? This is the paradigm that we live in today.

The professional landscape in so many areas of the US are becoming far too calculating and focused on money and revenue instead of doing what’s right for people and customers.

The work that I do is one of the things I thoroughly enjoy, it allows me to be able to combine a number of different aspects of my personality and hobbies into one thing that I am able to enjoy and excel at.

Where this gets challenging though is when you are navigating the realm of working for a company which in the end is a business. They have things they need to do such as hitting numbers, revenue forecasts and all that other financial stuff that isn’t very enthralling to me but I know is important.

What I am having a tough time with though is the notion of focusing on the revenue primarily above all else. I think this is one of the biggest issues that I have with what I call the Wall Street-ification of every sector of our lives. It’s broken down into purely a numbers and revenue game instead of aiming to do what’s right and best above the potential short-term financial implications of the scenario.

It’s difficult when there are a number of issues with a piece of software that we know we need to fix. We are trying to fix them as quickly as we can but then there’s the other side of the coin that is making sure that we complete and bring more people onto that already buggy software that is possible. On most days it feels like bailing out a sinking ship with a ladle. You can make good progress on it if the consistent number of people are on the boat. When you start adding more and more people to the boat though it sinks further and gains water quicker.

This predicament is certainly a time where it’s important to be able to deliver concise and important information rapidly and assist in the resolution of these issues. That’s where I am having good enjoyment, because I think I’m able to do well under pressure and handle the craziness of these situations with people talking to me, another sending me a message on the side and juggling it all. It’s when I feel invigorated for sure!

The downside to that is when people get mad, and worse when lots of people get mad. Word of mouth travels pretty darn quickly when people are frustrated or having issues and this is where I know the challenge is going to lie. Having reliability on a product is incredibly important and when the reputation is consistently getting hits eventually it’s going to crack which will take years to recover.

I guess I don’t have a formal coherent topic on this one other than I’m hoping we shift back to making sure products are solid before releasing them to the wild. An isolated group of validators is important but deep dives into this validation need to be complete before jumping both feet into throwing it up into the wind and spreading it like pollen on a field. If that pollen is rotten or poisonous you’re going to have to do way more cleanup than if you kept it local!