January 8, 2025 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding the Right Value
January 8, 2025 at 8:13 am
This resonates with me. The way my parents brought me up was to think
In a work situation that attitude makes you popular with colleagues but was definitely harmful for my career. Especially the last point which is rarely true in a work situation. A more selfish attitude would have got me further up the career ladder and probably far more interesting technical work.
On my leaving card from my last place someone wrote "There were times when you were in your rights to have told us to bugger off. You were always there for us and it was deeply appreciated". Someone else said "I know exactly how much you did because, when you left, it fell to me to do it".
On the plus side, the best part of 2024 for me has been unexpected social events with ex-colleagues across the past 2 decades of my career that I never expected to see again.
January 8, 2025 at 3:17 pm
WOW, Steve, you've hit it out of the park with this ed op! Especially the line, "...because many of us have an "I need to succeed" mentality, we sometimes stop coding to pick up other tasks, essentially volunteering to be the pseudo-project manager or team manager. That's fine, but if you fill your days with non-coding tasks, you are not moving toward senior engineer status". Three years ago my then supervisor assigned me the task of being one of our GitHub Administrators. He flattered me by saying that I pick up on new things quicker than others on our team. I thought it would take up just a small proportion of my time, but that didn't turn out to be true. At least not at that point. I'm finally getting back into coding again, where my heart's desire really is. However, one of my character weaknesses is I cannot identify what others might be trying to get me to do, even if they aren't fully aware of it. That statement of yours makes me realize that I've allowed me to get sidetracked from what I really want to do. Dang, that hurts, but thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
January 8, 2025 at 4:01 pm
I have found that in some organizations, if seniors are doing "glue" work, they are still marked/looked down for it. So I would say in general it is risky unless your particular boss understands the importance and can successfully communicate that up the chain. From my personal perspective, I'd rather be the glue person, even if that means I take hits for it. I much prefer to be on that successful team than on a dysfunctional one. Speaking of glue people, outside of technology, there have been recent articles on how Baker Mayfield and Sasquon Barkley are glue people, though the article authors don't call them that. However, by describing what they do and how they interact with the team around them, that's exactly what they are.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
January 8, 2025 at 6:32 pm
I think it's always a balance. I'm happy to do glue work, but I also want others to pitch in as well.
And if you are growing your career, you have to be sure you're doing other work that is valued.
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