Comment by nomel
3 days ago
Yes, my strict adherence to “trust but verify” was born from literal tears. It’s not worth trusting others if it takes a small fraction of the projects time to verify. It has saved me incredible amounts of time in my professional life, and I’ve seen months wasted, and projects delayed, by others who hadn’t cried enough yet.
I would love to hear some of your examples, if only to reinforce your lesson to myself.
“Is the box plugged in? Did you cycle the power?”
I’ll trust that you understand each of those words individually but later verify that the box is actually plugged in.
That's why tech support has moved on to "unplug the thing, wait a minute, then plug it back in".
It gives the capacitors to discharge; but more importantly, it gives an excuse to actually force the person to plug the thing in.
1 reply →
Earlier in my career the clients system was not powered at all, I did:
"Is it plugged in and switched on?" A: Yes, to a powerboard.
"Is the powerboard plugged in and switched on?" A: Yes.
I did the onsite visit and found the powerboard plugged into itself.
Normally I would facepalm and curse the idiocy but... it was a care respite facility and they had more pressing issues to deal with that I wouldn't want to deal with - their role is heroic I feel.
And an easy win already makes my day so I sorted it, told them it was fixed with a smile, and continued on.