COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Wed Mar 18 15:40:02 UTC 2020

On Wednesday, 18 March, 2020 05:24, Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:

>On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 03:43:37AM -0600, Keith Medcalf wrote:

>> So you failed because you did not require the person making the
>> decision to take responsibility for their decision.  That is, your 
>> organization has a severely flawed process wherein the "R" for 
>> making the decision is not the same person as has the "R" for 
>> the repercussions.

>The use of "you/your" here and throughout is misplaced and
inappropriate.

It is the "Royal You".  However, you can replace that with generics if
y'all wish.  

The point is that the root of the problem is the failure of the
organizational decision maker to take responsibility for their decision.

As a business person (now retired) once told me about the things he
sells in his shop, "I will not sell that here because in my opinion it
is crap.  If you want that, you can go to the shop next door.  They will
be quite willing to sell that crap to you, but don't come complaining to
me when your failure to take my advice comes back to bite you in the
ass."

>Also: this not an isolated or unique experience.  It's this way pretty
>much everywhere in the US now.  And I can disapprove of it, you can
>disapprove of it, we can all disapprove of it, but like I said, until
>money is completely removed from the calculation, this is how it will
be.
>Critiques of process and role and organization and everything else are
>interesting, maybe even correct --  but will change nothing.

Yes, it is generally an USian problem.  While I cannot speak to its
prevelance in the US I can attest to the fact that USians try to bring
this philosophy with them were ever they go and that such thinking has
to be repelled with large bats.

I have had to deal with such things several times and my response is
quite simple:  My name will not be associated in any way with that
stupidity other than complete opposition to it.  If you want me to sign
off on it, then I will not.  And if you decide to do it anyway then do
not ask me to have anything to do with the mess that ensues because the
only action you will get from me is "told you so -- you made your bed
now go sleep in it".

Generally the encroachment of ill-conceived plans is staved off until
the resistant retire leaving the inmates in charge of the asylum.

-- 
The fact that there's a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven
says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.