Wednesday, July 11, 2018
Why I fail at helping
Why I fail at helping
I was thinking about it a lot lately - why I fail at helping others. Is it complicated to help others? Maybe Im just not trying hard enough. Do you have to learn helping? Strange.
Ive noticed two typical behavior that makes my effort really ineffective. First one is that I dont know all the things Im talking about. Its a bit embarrassing but true. In technology you can be successful without that, for sure. You only need to know the patterns and to search. Ive read this report about professionals - where they state that development is one of the easiest profession around. You can learn and practice it in couple of months from scratch. It doesnt require neither hardcore training nor physical interaction. And when you have search skills its really hard to transfer the real knowledge. On the other hand it comes up with the obvious question - so what we should learn? Why not just linking sites and blogs to the ones in need? Maybe the answer is that sometimes its the right question that has to be told. Why should I explain how an API is working when its all documented? RTM and thats it. Its my pointing finger that is really necessary.
Im afraid if I go down this road I end up at the base issue with national education. So I raise you my second issue.
I work a lot by instinct. Being a visual person makes the horrible mechanism inside you where you think in altered forms. The way I remember songs on the guitar are vectors and shapes, not chords. The way I structure a larger piece of code is building up the layout in my head and sugar it a little and pour a small juice on the top. It works just fine for me, but its not something I can explain. I never think ahead - like whats gonna be the next 12 git command I enter - its not working in this way. Its like a professional carpe diem. Code fast, code hard. When I do a live demo I do the same - except I talk at the same time - which makes this weird gap between my train of thought and the actions Im presenting. I actually prefer ad-hoc over planned when its not a critical process, like a production deployment. Ad-hoc feels good. But then what to do when you have an audience listening to you and watching your screen?
My other habit makes it even worth. Whenever Im in problem solving mode I have this leak-seeking algorithm to find the issue. Its barbarian - really. You have the problem, you map out the information structure that it sits in - and go though all the points that could alter the input and see what triggers it. Like when you know you have a problem on your server - you check the configs, the network, the users, the permissions - everything that can alter it. This is also not working when you try to help somebody with his/her problem. Its very confusing for most people.
But I still want to help. I love helping others. This is what life is about. So nothing else than improving and keeping on helping.
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Peter
