The nice part of my job was that it was in the position to tell the owners of the batch jobs, i.e. the application programmers, to actually fix the damn things, so the ops folks didn't have to keep dealing with problems. Ah, the power!
2025-08-23 19:14:40
What russell said.
Plus, some people are sufficiently insecure that they are afraid not to flaunt their nominal superiority (or at least superior position) by being obnoxious to everybody else. Remind you of any current Presidents?
2025-08-22 11:31:44
these structures often evolved and were negotiated among people, rather than being carefully designed and well-recorded.
Being nice to (not just junior) administrative staff is the right thing to do. Assuming one is, or aspires to be, a decent human being.
But this is why it is also a useful thing to do. Those administrative staff are the ones who know how to navigate the system in order to get things done. Including the back channels that can dramatically reduce the time and effort required. Or get something done at all.
I would hope that anyone who has worked in a large organization would know that. But experience shows that remarkably few do. Including at the senior levels, where it is not obvious how they get their jobs done without knowing. (Perhaps theur Administrative Assistants grease the wheels for them...? That would explain why such staff frequently follow the executive from job to job, rather than remaining where they are to work for the new guy.)
2025-08-21 10:48:35
Always be polite and considerate to the lower level administrative/service people. It costs you nothing and can make someone's day.
As Marty suggests, it can have big benefits for you, too. And not just admin folks. Perhaps the best thing I did, as someone (at least nominally) in Systems Programming, was to spend time with the computer operations people and listen to them.**
Operation folks get no respect. Even if the Systems Programmers are polite enough to them in passing, it's strictly superficial. But I found that they knew far more about the state of the systems than any monitor could tell me.
As an early warning system, they were unbeatable.
All it took was spending some time occasionally hanging out in Operations. Not only would they tell me, and show me, where things were deteriorating, after a while they would reach out when something didn't look right. Made my job a lot easier, and improved my performance too. I kept doing it, every place I ever worked.
It was helpful enough that my boss push the other members of our team to do the same. Pushed pretty hard. But they just couldn't be bothered to walk ten yards, go thru a door, and visit. I never understood it. I was willing to fly from San Francisco to Phoenix and spend a couple of days talking to all three shifts. But they just wouldn't budge.
** I still remember the first time that, as a very junior Systems Programmer at Bank of America in the mid-70s, I happened to be passing thru Operations and overheard somebody griping about something which was making their job difficult.
I did a little digging when I got back to my desk, found they were right, wrote it up, and got it fixed. Because, after all, I was in a position to get something done. Next time I was in Operations they were waiting for me. With lists! Because they'd found a channel where their problems would get addressed.
2025-08-19 16:23:21
Required disability insurance for seamen, too. But not farmers, or artisans, or merchants, or anyone else.
I'm sure a general public interest can be construed in there - most foreign trade was conducted by sea - but why just them?
Perhaps it was too difficult to assure an adequate number of people willing to be cod fishermen. That kind of insurance may have been seen as necessary to keep a major export industry going strong. No need for the carrot for other jobs.
2025-08-19 15:51:01
The tariff thing is idiotic. Not because tariffs are always or inevitably bad, but because they are being applied to correct a problem (trade imbalance) that is not necessarily a problem in the first place.
Not to mention that they are being used more to extort foreign policy goals (or, see Brazil, to benefit Trump's personal pals), rather than having anything to do with, you know, actual trade issues. Even if done by someone with a clue, that's a terrible use.
2025-08-19 15:40:51
If you are going to give out food stamps, make sure that you cut some for Jeff Bezos.
That's actually not a bad idea. We have a hodgepodge of programs to support poor people, especially children, to attempt to get them enough to eat. They're better than nothing. But expensive to run, overlapping in places, and less than effective.
We can afford, as a country, to simply give every person enough food to live on. Maybe not prime rib every day, maybe not the junk food they love, but enough decent quality food for them to live on. Quite possibly for less money than we now spend, not least because we ditch the overhead of determining eligibility. If you're breathing, you're eligible.
Now most likely people like Bezos and Musk, or you and me for that matter, won't bother to collect the benefit. We can eat basically what we like without it. But still, it's worth doing.
Not that I'm optimistic about getting such a thing enacted. But the fact that it's not politically popular doesn't negate it's merits.
The nice part of my job was that it was in the position to tell the owners of the batch jobs, i.e. the application programmers, to actually fix the damn things, so the ops folks didn't have to keep dealing with problems. Ah, the power!
What russell said.
Plus, some people are sufficiently insecure that they are afraid not to flaunt their nominal superiority (or at least superior position) by being obnoxious to everybody else. Remind you of any current Presidents?
these structures often evolved and were negotiated among people, rather than being carefully designed and well-recorded.
Being nice to (not just junior) administrative staff is the right thing to do. Assuming one is, or aspires to be, a decent human being.
But this is why it is also a useful thing to do. Those administrative staff are the ones who know how to navigate the system in order to get things done. Including the back channels that can dramatically reduce the time and effort required. Or get something done at all.
I would hope that anyone who has worked in a large organization would know that. But experience shows that remarkably few do. Including at the senior levels, where it is not obvious how they get their jobs done without knowing. (Perhaps theur Administrative Assistants grease the wheels for them...? That would explain why such staff frequently follow the executive from job to job, rather than remaining where they are to work for the new guy.)
Always be polite and considerate to the lower level administrative/service people. It costs you nothing and can make someone's day.
As Marty suggests, it can have big benefits for you, too. And not just admin folks. Perhaps the best thing I did, as someone (at least nominally) in Systems Programming, was to spend time with the computer operations people and listen to them.**
Operation folks get no respect. Even if the Systems Programmers are polite enough to them in passing, it's strictly superficial. But I found that they knew far more about the state of the systems than any monitor could tell me.
As an early warning system, they were unbeatable.
All it took was spending some time occasionally hanging out in Operations. Not only would they tell me, and show me, where things were deteriorating, after a while they would reach out when something didn't look right. Made my job a lot easier, and improved my performance too. I kept doing it, every place I ever worked.
It was helpful enough that my boss push the other members of our team to do the same. Pushed pretty hard. But they just couldn't be bothered to walk ten yards, go thru a door, and visit. I never understood it. I was willing to fly from San Francisco to Phoenix and spend a couple of days talking to all three shifts. But they just wouldn't budge.
** I still remember the first time that, as a very junior Systems Programmer at Bank of America in the mid-70s, I happened to be passing thru Operations and overheard somebody griping about something which was making their job difficult.
I did a little digging when I got back to my desk, found they were right, wrote it up, and got it fixed. Because, after all, I was in a position to get something done. Next time I was in Operations they were waiting for me. With lists! Because they'd found a channel where their problems would get addressed.
Required disability insurance for seamen, too. But not farmers, or artisans, or merchants, or anyone else.
I'm sure a general public interest can be construed in there - most foreign trade was conducted by sea - but why just them?
Perhaps it was too difficult to assure an adequate number of people willing to be cod fishermen. That kind of insurance may have been seen as necessary to keep a major export industry going strong. No need for the carrot for other jobs.
The tariff thing is idiotic. Not because tariffs are always or inevitably bad, but because they are being applied to correct a problem (trade imbalance) that is not necessarily a problem in the first place.
Not to mention that they are being used more to extort foreign policy goals (or, see Brazil, to benefit Trump's personal pals), rather than having anything to do with, you know, actual trade issues. Even if done by someone with a clue, that's a terrible use.
If you are going to give out food stamps, make sure that you cut some for Jeff Bezos.
That's actually not a bad idea. We have a hodgepodge of programs to support poor people, especially children, to attempt to get them enough to eat. They're better than nothing. But expensive to run, overlapping in places, and less than effective.
We can afford, as a country, to simply give every person enough food to live on. Maybe not prime rib every day, maybe not the junk food they love, but enough decent quality food for them to live on. Quite possibly for less money than we now spend, not least because we ditch the overhead of determining eligibility. If you're breathing, you're eligible.
Now most likely people like Bezos and Musk, or you and me for that matter, won't bother to collect the benefit. We can eat basically what we like without it. But still, it's worth doing.
Not that I'm optimistic about getting such a thing enacted. But the fact that it's not politically popular doesn't negate it's merits.