On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, Ian Stokes-Rees wrote:
> On 7/22/10 3:16 PM, Ian Stokes-Rees wrote: >> On 7/22/10 3:00 PM, Ben Eisenbraun wrote: >>> Try to isolate parts of the problem: >> <snip/> >> >> All great suggestions. > > As a brief aside: Many years ago I hired someone to work as a general > tool smith and software development support person. They came with > "Perl" on the label, and were subsequently given various small scripting > tasks to complete. It was humorous, then, to find this person posting > to the local Perl users group (of which I was a regular contributor) > with questions about how to complete the tasks she had been given. In > fact, it taught me how important it is to have an open environment for > people to share their problems and hurdles, and how I needed to > establish a better working relationship with the person so as to > discover they were struggling and to offer help, or to pair her with > someone else. > > What's the connection? Ben (and I hope he doesn't mind me blowing his > cover), who made the suggestions above and (sort of between the lines) > suggested "get a professional sys admin to help" works about 50' down > the hall from me. I think that its more important for someone to have a base knowledge of systems and languages and the ability to adapt, make do, and get help than it is to try to find someone who is a wizard at a particular task but not flexible. The ability to get help on forums is important. Also, there's a give-take. So, if you see an employee 'wasting company time' on a newsgroup answering questions, it's not a waste as the person can then have good 'karma' so others will answer their questions when the time comes. _______________________________________________ bblisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.bblisa.org/mailman/listinfo/bblisa
