On Wed, Jul 28, 1999 at 09:32:15PM -0400, Wagner Lipnharski wrote:
> Hey Bob, I don't know about the hotel at the ESC, but I read the bottom
> phrase at your posts, it says:
>
> "It's not a problem, until something bad happens",
>
> actualy I think it would sounds better if said:
>
> "It's not a problem, until something happens".

Wagner,

But that would be cynical :-)

Actually, as it is, it is a nice, symmetric statement;
it is both a commentary and some advice. If y'all will
forgive me:

On the one hand, I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced
going to a manager and trying to explain why the latest
policy or strategy or design or whatever is not going to
work -- why it will cause some sort of problem, and then
having the manager insist that you must be wrong because
nothing bad has yet happened.  However, when something
bad does happen (anyone else read Jack Ganssle's latest
column in Embedded Systems Mag?) then all hell breaks loose
and, well, we all know what runs downhill.  That's the
commentary side: It's not a problem until something bad
happens.

On the other hand, I know many people who will bust their
behinds to ensure that nothing bad ever does happen.  I had
a boss once, for five years ending about six years ago, who
I believe would, if she was on her deathbed, still answer
the pager. She had no life except to keep bad things from
happening, and this took an increasing toll on her because
she never would admit that we were understaffed, she would
never delegate, she would never even let her staff see
what was going on or what she was telling her managers,
(apparantly) because she was scared to death that she
would somehow be seen as a failure. [About a year before
she left, I got her to let me review a policy memo, and
I corrected where she had mis-identified the name of an
important committee, something that would be embarrasing
to her if her boss had seen it.  She never let me see
anything again.] Our entire operation became reactive; it
was virtually impossible to do anything proactive because
we never had the staff, and she would never assign staff
away from operations -- because something bad might happen.

Later, she left (she's still doing the same kind of work,
like a moth drawn to a flame) and we got a new boss,
also a woman in case you think I see this as a gender
thing which I don't. This boss knows how to say no, and
she is usually quite good about not overcommitting staff.
She has a family, she goes home at night, and she lives a
life. Guess what? Bad things occasionally happen.  Guess
what else? We've now got about 20% more staff than we had
six years ago, and the frequency of bad thing occurances
has significantly declined, even though most of us are
able to have a life. This only happened because our senior
management started to see our understaffing as a *problem*,
that had to be *dealt with*. That's the advice part: It's
not a problem until something bad happens.  So sometimes,
if you want someone else to see a problem, you gotta let
bad things happen. I've seen this over and over again in
more situations than I can even count anymore.

Of course, you do have to be pretty careful about what
bad things you let happen...

--Bob

--
============================================================
Bob Drzyzgula                             It's not a problem
bob@drzyzgula.org                until something bad happens
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