Shut Your Mouth!
Those of you who know me, know that I have a tendency to talk a bit. I've been counseled by many (wife, friends, co-workers, etc) to keep my thoughts to myself but I still have a "problem" with it.
I've been known to send out
emails late in the night to my
CIO...only to do the same exact
thing a couple of weeks later at the start of a holiday.
Just a little advice here, if you do decide to do something like this. Don't do it on Friday night where you have all weekend to think about whether or not you should have sent it.
Especially don't do it on a Friday night if you have Monday off too.
Starting a blog helped, a little. I could scream out into the nothingness that is the 'tubes. There wasn't as much back and forth as I would like though. It's gotten better over time as more and more people read this blog, but nothing can replace that instant gratification of a healthy discussion.
And healthy are the ones I am talking about. I don't (necessarily) mean that I just talk to talk. I have opinions on just about everything software related. Architecture. Design. Style. Best Practices. Performance. I'm even worse when it comes to databases. I think I have a pretty good grasp of how to model data. I've been creating diagrams since before I became an IT guy. I understand when it is good to normalize and when it is good to denormalize.
I am
very passionate about what I do. I love what I do. Every other week I get a paycheck and I'm stunned that someone pays me to do this.
You know what, if they're gonna pay me all this money, I'm not so sure they
want me to keep my mouth shut.
The usual caveat: When a decision is made, with or without my input, I
will keep my mouth shut about it. Either I accept the decision or I start looking for other work...that's my decision to make. But I won't be that guy who keeps arguing the point long after. At least I try not to be, I ain't perfect.
It also goes without saying that not all people are equal in a discussion. Some have strengths that others do not.
I think a good discussion can lead to better products. There is plenty to be learned through good discussion. A multitude of view points can force you to reconsider your own position; possibly strengthening it for future debate or forcing you to abandon that idea.
How could that ever be bad?
Not everyone feels the same way of course. Not everyone likes these types of discussions. Either they feel that it's not my place to disagree (i.e. I'm not qualified) or they just don't like being challenged. If my boss says stop, I stop. If a peer says stop I'll ask why.
So, do you know how to keep your mouth shut? Any good stories of how it went bad? or good? Please share...there's much to learn from the discussion.
Labels: humility, rant, work
