A staff engineer scolded me on my first day. For saying "It's always DNS." Five minutes later they DM'd me: "You shouldn't make that joke. The systems team is sensitive about it." I didn't know anyone. First day on the job. Suddenly felt like I'd crossed some invisible line. This is what happens when staff engineers forget how heavy their words land. The best ones use that influence carefully. They amplify others. They create safety. The worst mistake seniority for expertise in everything and use it like a blunt instrument. Intent doesn't matter. Impact does. If you're a staff engineer, you're shaping culture whether you mean to or not. First impressions set the tone for the whole team.
David Hay
2mo
So it was still DNS then. Lol
Joseph W.
2mo
Sounds like the systems team need to work on not being easily offended. What a bunch of pansies.
Christina M
2mo
But...it is always DNS.
Jan Harasym
2mo
I have absolutely no patience for thin skinned people in business. Not only is this a well known inside joke, when it comes to technological solutions, your ego should not be involved at all. There can be a lot of business reasons why a service is not performing up to expectations. It doesn’t necessarily mean that people are incompetent at their job: the circumstances in which they exist can be difficult. But that doesn’t mean we *can’t talk about it* when you have a responsibility of service yourself and depend on things that are unreliable… being able to voice this fact is an absolute requisite to be able to work around it for your own customers. I had a similar experience at Ubisoft, I was reprimanded by HR for offending a team. The issue was that tens of thousands of our players were being negatively impacted by this team and the team was not being accountable, despite months of me trying to resolve it amicably; it only came to a head when I said that we would not use their services for the next iteration of our games. Then a lot of egos were bruised, but our players don’t care about your fucking ego.
Louie Corbo
2mo
Sounds like the staff engineer was trying to keep you from starting off on the wrong foot with a team you hadn't met yet. Like you said, you didn't know anyone. You were making a job, but as you said, intent doesn't matter. Impact does.
Dan Taylor
2mo
I’m not sure where the scolding was here if that’s the actual phrasing used. You were provided information you didn’t know succinctly and privately. Would you prefer no one had said anything to you and you ended up on the systems teams bad side? While, granted, the systems team may need to chill as others pointed out, sometimes teams are made scapegoats in a company and innocent jokes reopen old raw festering wounds especially if the scapegoating still goes on.
Ira Cooper
2mo
The staff engineer is doing what he should be: Telling it like it is. Companies aren't perfect. People aren't perfect. He's telling you how to navigate the firm successfully. In their shoes I wouldn't be angry at you. I'd more be warning you "Maybe you don't want to do that. It pisses them off, for no good reason."
I miss the old days, where banter was normal in the server room/DC/email threads… I still remember one colleague complaining why there is a huge pagefile “maxing and relaxing” on the wrong drive, on the exchange server lol