Being an Idiot

Don't you feel sorrounded by idiots?

By the famous message on the "I see dumb people" t-shirt, I suppose most IT geeks feel the same way, and some even want to let others know.

Apparently in the Unix culture people are called idiots if they ask questions that are responded in the manual or FAQ. This is consistent with the RTFM expression so common in Usenet.

But being an idiot is good if you are learning, because you are asking the right questions (somebody wrote the question in a FAQ, so it must be common enough), besides how are you going to find out there is FAQ if you can't ask?

But there is something not right about redirecting people to read the manual. In Windows it is assumed people do not read manuals, while in Unix there is a manual even for man, the manual reader.

In the Windows culture, if the program does not work as expected it is the program's fault, not the user's fault. There are no manuals and the manuals that exist are mostly useless anyway. Most people prefer Windows because it is simpler and it doesn't treat you like you are an idiot. Also, the user interface is consistent accross several programs because programers know users do not read manuals. Besides Microsoft encourages software developers to write programs that are consistent with the Windows UI look and feel.

Assuming you don't know

Most jobs prefer people who don't know, because they can pay less. And people will learn anyway, right?

But then the same people are asked for not to ask any stupid questions. And since most questions are stupid anyway, I mean even if you ask what is the objective of a team, the objective of a compnay, its mission, its vision, etc. Everything is considered stupid because mostly people doesn't know.

Even when they do know, they feel they can't disclose that privileged information, which almost always means you are repleaceable and your function will be eliminated in the follwoing months.

So, by all means, ask. Even if the question sounds stupid. Even if the reply that you should know the answer, or that it is not of your business. Simply ask. And if they reply that you should know, tell them that you do, but you want to know with which kind of professionals you are working: people who hide vital information or people you can trust.

If they tell you that it is not of your business, tell them that you don't accept to be limited by people who can't answer simple questions.

Write the answers down

Probably the answers they gove weere prerecorded answers for situations like this. People work like this, they memorice lines and repeat like parrots. Thinking requires time ans space, so they go the easy way.

But write the asnwers down. They could be very important down the road.

One of the things I learned the hard way was that doing post mortem for every project is probably one of the most important parts of every project. Doing a post mortem is very easy, you simply ask what went right and what went wrong and you document it, proposing different solutions for the problems found.

It really gives you insight on what you did wrongly.