Two observations today. One inspired by work, one by personal life.
First, from my personal life, because that still has me steaming 4 days later.
I’ve been attempting to organize the email list for people who want to learn A1/A2, that is, advanced level square dancing. I decided to do it as an opt-out list this time, since I thought that I had it on good authority that the 8 people I listed were interested.
What ends up happening? One of the eight posts their schedule publicly on Sunday. On Monday, 2 days before the first class, I notice the schedule makes no mention of A1/A2 on Wednesday, and note the fact. The response I get indicates that the person has known schedule conflicts, and besides, they don’t want to learn A1/A2 anyway. Argh!
My first email on the topic, from about 3 weeks ago, edited for brevity:
1) I've been told you're interested in learning A1/A2. 2) Wednesdays from 8:00 to 10:00 has been suggested as a good time. Unless anyone explicitly disagrees, we'll go with that.
I guess my mistake was not mentioning the “explicitly disagrees” part in point 1.
My second email on the topic, from about 2 weeks ago, edited for brevity:
1) No one has said no. This is our square.
So, right now, I’m feeling like I suck at organizing things. I’m also kinda curious as to whether people have mentally killfiled me when it comes to email. I don’t quite get the mental model where you don’t respond to something that seems to have opted you in with good reason. After last fall’s Vegas trip, I told myself that I wouldn’t herd cats for a while. What do I do? I end up organizing a trip to London, and another trip to Vegas. This time I mean it. I’m weaning myself off my fucking attempted organization habit.
Second, at work, we’re caught in a vicious circle of too many bugs in one release eating into the development time of the next release, which leads to too many bugs. I thought that breaking a vicious circle was hard. It’s even harder when you try to do it with a group of people.
My new boss is proposing a way to attempt to break the vicious circle to a number of us at one of the weekly meetings. It is interesting to watch the meeting attendees’ reaction to her proposals. Everyone seems to have their pet place in the circle at which they think the problem should be attacked. Many of them rationalize their pet place as the correct one because, from their point of view, that is the start of the vicious circle. Attempting to attack the problem at a different point will be ineffectual since that is not, in fact, the start of the vicious circle.
I’m of the view that once you’re in the vicious circle, there is no longer a starting point. At the very least, the starting point is moot.