On 26/07/2013 14:43, John Gilmore wrote:
Nothing in my previous post was intended to suggest that courses like
those that Bernd and Charles conduct are not an appropriate
introduction to dump reading/debugging.
They are certainly very helpful, but I was concerned to emphasize the
role of colleagues and mentors. I now routinely see situations in
which a mainframe shop loses some single person who has critical
skills, because he or she retires or goes elsewhere, and then
discovers that it is at risk: no one else has the skills needed to do
what he or she was doing.
I think the same thing can happen any where. I am not scheduled to
retire for 12 months but its already obvious to my managers that it will
leave a big hole in our capabilities.
Even if they were allowed to replace the post they would only get the
technical skills not the accumulated knowledge of our systems and how
they fit together...
This, which I think of as understaffing---It is good, cost-conscious
management in the view of others---makes mentoring impossible; and
the orderly transfer of skills from one professional generation to the
next stops.
Another issue is that certainly in the UK in the current environment
many don't want to learn. They have enough work to keep them busy 100%
of the time. There are no monetary rewards for learning extra skills....
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
Dave
Altrincham, Cheshire, England
--
Dave Wade G4UGM
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
