Trying Very Hard to be Supportive to Teammates
I want to be supportive of my teammates, I really do. But today it's been exceptionally hard. I guess it started off yesterday with a multi-hour meeting where the manager wanted to ditch the old apps the group had built - even though one was just finished - and make one, better, unified tool. I think it's a good idea. But that's predicated on the fact that if the same people make the new tool that just tried to finish the one we're throwing away, it's likely not to be any better, and will need to be thrown away as soon as it's finished as well.
I like the people in my group - I do. They are decent people. But some of them have no business doing this job. No more so than I'd have being a doctor. I don't have the skills, and no amount of support and encouragement from managers and team members would make it so. They don't have the skills.
Case in point - this multi-hour meeting. Our manager suggested that we start fresh with a very simple web app - Rails, in his suggestion was fine. I wouldn't have chosen Rails only because I'm not that familiar with it's weaknesses, and I prefer to have a more separable data store and codebase, but that's me. I have no doubt this can be done in Rails, and done well.
But not my the guys we have.
They argued that if we're going to be using Rails, then we should stick with the old app that the manager wants to throw away. He's too nice to say exactly why he wants it thrown away - and only part of them are because it's over-designed, and a horrible mess. It's also because to get anything done in it takes a week, and the speed of improvements make a glacier look like an Olympic sprinter. It's a joke.
But it's the devil they know, and rather than admit that, they want to move to Node.js, as that's something they know better. In truth, I don't know that Node.js is bad, or good - or how it interacts with databases, etc. But that's not the point I'm trying to make - it's the acceptance of the lack of skill, and the effort required to gain that skill. They don't see it as a problem.
So I tried to help guide a few of their decisions today, and it was soon clear that they really had no business being involved at this level, and they were totally unaware of this fact. So I had to just shut up. That's the kindest I can be to these guys. Let them make their own mistakes, and maybe they will learn. If not, then the manager will learn, and if not him, then his manager - until someone has the good sense to start moving people around and clearing out the dead weight.
I miss that from Finance.