Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

[fourfathom]

Firing in Europe is *hard*

Call me evil, but I'm glad it's easy to fire people here.  I've worked too many places where people I would charitably call "deadwood" seem to accumulate year after year, dragging the whole department down.  And I have worked at places where the written policy was to lay off 10% of the staff every year -- with pretty generous severance packages.  The managers had to decide which 10%  That sounds brutal, and certainly wasn't perfect, but it did result in a sharp and motivated group.  Done poorly, it no doubt results in firing more senior people who get the higher salaries, and it somehow didn't seem to apply to upper management, but I still appreciated the results.

[EEVblog]

Firing in Europe is *hard*

Call me evil, but I'm glad it's easy to fire people here.  I've worked too many places where people I would charitably call "deadwood" seem to accumulate year after year, dragging the whole department down.  And I have worked at places where the written policy was to lay off 10% of the staff every year -- with pretty generous severance packages.  The managers had to decide which 10%  That sounds brutal, and certainly wasn't perfect, but it did result in a sharp and motivated group.  Done poorly, it no doubt results in firing more senior people who get the higher salaries, and it somehow didn't seem to apply to upper management, but I still appreciated the results.

Here it's next to imposisble for government departments to just fire people, the process takes a very long time and the employee can drag it on for a very long time.
Regular companies have checklist:
https://www.fairwork.gov.au/tools-and-resources/fact-sheets/minimum-workplace-entitlements/ending-employment#:~:text=Generally%2C%20an%20employer%20must%20not,pay%20in%20lieu%20of%20notice).

The workaround is to always declare it as a redundancy, and then different laws apply.

[KaneTW]

And I have worked at places where the written policy was to lay off 10% of the staff every year

That sounds insane to me. The training/onboarding overhead must be enormous. I have a hard time hiring as-is.

Then again, big companies can be much less careful in who they hire.

I do think it's definitely too hard to fire people over here, but it's also a different work culture.

[EEVblog]

Is there an active forum thread where old-timers and newbies can share stories and advice?  That would be fun, and we're dragging this one into major thread-drift.

I don't think so?
Feel free to start one, it's technically off-topic but I think it's interesting.

[EEVblog]

, promoting an employee to a management position for no clear apparent reason (including, they didn't ask for it) can be a red flag indeed. It's a common way for a company to push someone out gently when it has no solid ground for sacking them.

I do not know who would do it this, it seems to be a really weird way to get rid of someone.

They do it because they don't want any potential hassle of an unfair dismissal lawsuit or claim. Some disgruntled employees can tie up a lot of your time and/or lawyer money if you just fire them.
If the employee quits because they don't like the job any more then it's way way harder to hassle you about that.

[fourfathom]

And I have worked at places where the written policy was to lay off 10% of the staff every year

That sounds insane to me. The training/onboarding overhead must be enormous. I have a hard time hiring as-is.

Then again, big companies can be much less careful in who they hire.

I do think it's definitely too hard to fire people over here, but it's also a different work culture.

Admittedly it was a *big* company, one of the biggest in Silicon Valley.  Remember when we were discussing the Pareto Principle on another thread?  Where 20% of the people do 80% of the work?  In a big outfit it's not too hard to find people to trim, in times of growth often hiring more people than you fire.  Even in my small startup with 20, or later 200 employees, we ended up firing a few.  It wasn't 10%, and not a policy, but we did hire some who ended up being disruptive or just not happy working in our little pressure-cooker.  Nobody I know likes firing people, and it's often bad for the morale (but I recall that there was widespread cheering when we got rid of one particular bad actor.)

If you don't fire the deadwood, then good people start to leave.  That's why I quit at least two companies.  In the long run, a little churn is good for everyone.

[bdunham7]

If you don't fire the deadwood, then good people start to leave.  That's why I quit at least two companies.  In the long run, a little churn is good for everyone.

A few decades back I acquired a small, existing company with 7 employees, 5 full time and 2 part time (partially retired old-timers).  I needed the real estate and the company was a natural complement to my own so I figured I could merge them and cross-train people.  It turned out that 4 of the full time employees were problematic--two complete slackers, one well-meaning idiot and a manager that just wasn't so great.  All 4 were fired, the two slackers first and then the other two in what was a fairly contentious morning with shouting and yelling and threats of lawsuits (they'd been there a while and had bled the previous owner dry).  Ugly but necessary and my biggest fear was how the other three would take it, especially the part-timers who could easily quite anytime they liked.  It turned out they were thrilled and I was able to get more done with 3 than with 7.  Both part-timers would come in early and have more done before lunch than either of the slackers would do in a week.

[SiliconWizard]

, promoting an employee to a management position for no clear apparent reason (including, they didn't ask for it) can be a red flag indeed. It's a common way for a company to push someone out gently when it has no solid ground for sacking them.

I do not know who would do it this, it seems to be a really weird way to get rid of someone.

They do it because they don't want any potential hassle of an unfair dismissal lawsuit or claim. Some disgruntled employees can tie up a lot of your time and/or lawyer money if you just fire them.
If the employee quits because they don't like the job any more then it's way way harder to hassle you about that.

Yep! And, it's also usually easier to either "push" someone to fault (given that there are more responsabilities), or at least push them to their level of incompetence, at a management position.

[Brumby]

I once worked at a company (last millennium) who hired a person to work in the Mail Room.  The Mail Room was run by a lady who really knew what she was doing and had an effective and harmonious group of staff.

However, this new hire flatly refused to follow any instruction from a female.  Within an hour of starting, it was clear he was unrepentant and had to go, but his dismissal still had to follow the process at the time.  This involved 3 separate, documented meetings where the behaviour was addressed.  These were conducted after a period of time where the person had opportunity to demonstrate acceptable performance.

Starting at 9am, he was out the door around 2pm.

[Nominal Animal]

However, this new hire flatly refused to follow any instruction from a female.

I have seen this kind of behaviour, but never in any workplace I worked myself (and I've worked in quite different kinds of jobs).

One thing that worries me regarding D-E-I and intersectionalism, is that it actually encourages that kind of behaviour.  If you are a member of some kind of protected minority group, you seem to have the right to demand interacting with only those of similarly protected minority groups.

Then there is multiculturalism and the cultural groups that ban females from interacting with males, or younger people from instructing/commanding their elders (as well as younger people not living above their elders in apartment buildings, and so on).  Multiculturalism says that these cultural norms must be respected .. but is it really any different than saying it is okay for someone to refuse to follow any instruction from a female?

I see this as horribly damaging to the slow progress we've made in treating every individual as equals, with their social, racial, and cultural backgrounds just being their own personal flavour/spice, and irrelevant regarding rules of interaction; only meaningful (and positive!) when diversity is applicable.

[pcprogrammer]

But is that not what has always happened throughout history. People form groups and frown on everyone different from their point of view.

Take integration of labor migrants, it somehow never happens the way we hope or want. They form their own communities within the bigger community and then start complaining about discrimination. Not saying there is no discrimination, but a lot of them don't make an effort to really integrate.

I was born in the lesser neighborhoods of The Hague and at that time there certainly was discrimination of all sorts, but it was folksy. Went back after 30 years or so to show the wife where I was born, but did not feel welcomed at all. The houses from then where gone and new builds were erected. The people living there were mainly from Turkey, and they look upon you like "you don't belong here, get away from us".

And equality in its whole is basically irrational to demand it. In live and work environment there is hierarchy and there are lots of different people and jobs. So yes you should be treated equal when it comes to the hiring for a single job, but not equal to someone in an unrelated job. And showing disrespect just because someone higher up the corporate ladder is a female and you are not means you are out of order. Disrespect is often wrong, but that is another matter.

[Nominal Animal]

But is that not what has always happened throughout history. People form groups and frown on everyone different from their point of view.

Do you let that tribalism rule?  Do you make your laws to codify that sort of behaviour?  Does your company allow workers to frown on everyone different from their point of view?

It is not at all clear cut what is ethically and morally right and acceptable with respect to tribalism, particularly when one considers the long-term effects.

We probably should accept some tribalism as natural, for example letting people decide from themselves where they want to live, assuming they can afford it and support themselves and their families there.  I do not accept it when it goes as far as rejecting interaction with someone "out-group", nor when it becomes rejection of someone "in-group" because they're not a member of some protected group.
In between those two limits, there is the gray area where I make up my mind on a case-by-case basis.

And equality in its whole is basically irrational to demand it.

Absolutely not.  Equality is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome or equity, which is what you described.

It is not okay at all to confuse the two.

[tszaboo]

And equality in its whole is basically irrational to demand it.

Absolutely not.  Equality is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome or equity, which is what you described.

It is not okay at all to confuse the two.

Equality: everyone gets the same opportunity. This is provided by law in most countries in the real world.
Equity: also known as equality of outcome. People who feel oppressed will handicap you because they think it was easier because everyone is something-ist.
People who feel oppressed to ism's, because they cannot fathom the possibility (due to narcissisms often time, another ism) that they lack something. "I didn't get into the university, because I scored lower? Must be because of my whatever status, let's lower the bar for people like me. Or let's lower it for me only, that's also fine." And equity is just plain and simple reverse ism.
Where I studied, there was so many different type of aid and scholarship for students that came from poor families. But they had to pass the bar, and get the grades, just the same. Sounds fair, isn't it?

[Nominal Animal]

It is also notable that in extremely strict hierarchies like the military, it is not the person that is above or more important than some other person, it is the job, or even the insignia.  When I did my stint in the Finnish Defence Forces in mid-1990s, I was explicitly told that I do not salute a/any person, I salute the insignia.

Which sounds quite egalitarian in my opinion.  The hierarchy is necessary for the overall task to be achieved, as reactions must be fast and operations controlled to the extreme.  Some units have to be sacrificed to save a lot more; if that unit can and will refuse, all might be lost.  There just isn't time for democracy and discussion.
Thus, such hierarchies are not about the person, it is about the job.

[paulca]

First I think the main reason they want to push "good" people into management, is they are really short on good technically minded managers.

But mostly it comes down to the roles they provide on the ladder.  From "principle engineer" which I achieved only a year ago after an age as Senior.  That in itself was a fiasco.  To get promoted I had to set objectives towards key skills and demonstrate at the principle level.  However I was contracted full time to a customer as a senior and there was zero room to demonstrate any higher position.  I tried to reach out to the team as a facilitator to see how that went and got it thrown back to me that, "Your not senior to us, why would we listen to you, in fact we resent it.", they typically added, "and lets not bullshit, we don't work for Company X, we work for "Customer Y", so your authority if you did have any is moot.

My senior at the time, holding the promotion from me said, "Paul, titles don't matter, it's how you work people that promotes you.", when I mentioned this to HR (yes it got that bad), their response was "Tell him to say that when he orders people around without his Senior Delivery Manager title and see how many people tell him to get lost."

Role is a triangle.  You need the title and the authority to go along with the responsibility.

The career ladder, while it is supposed to have tech/non tech split, introduces many "key skills and values" at the next level up, which is Solutions Architect.  There you are required to become a stakeholder in the management meetings, to be aware of delivery contracts, commercials etc.  In my last 1to1 with management discussing career I pointed out, that from the 4 or 5 items listed as additional responsibilities and skills for architect, only one of them is technical (ownership of larger multi-team / multicomponent solutions), the rest are pseudo management tasks.  His response was that the letter of the role is flexible.  Going up, will not mean you end up in a desk job.  I don't believe him.

At the moment I am in a kinda "custom" position, because I stated I do not want to do people management.  I can't be technically honest while being people line manager and I don't have good people management skills either.   So while normally a "tech lead" on a project would also be the "team leader" and possible "line manager" for people, I am not given the people management role. 

I don't think they are trying to get rid of me, when they are allowing me to basically, currently, choose my own role.  Also, I haven't asked for a pay rise, ever.  However I get one every year.  I didn't get one this year, but that's because they promoted me and... gave me a £8k rise for that.  When I started paid, proper career in 2007 I figured a nice target would be a 2K rise per year.  I've averaged more than that.  Besides a fair salary, not stellar, but if the company do well and I do well, there is maximum 10% salary bonus.  I have received that bonus every year with the company, all 10%.

To give you a slightly indication of the culture at the company which actually employee me.  The first video call after they had bought the company, the CEO opened the video presentation by introducing the head of people and talent (a fairly fat woman) and saying, "we'd hear from her at the end of the call, she might even sing so we know it's over.".  It took me a while, as that joke was not expected at all in a CEO company wide meeting, but, yes, he did make the "its over when the fat lady sings" joke.  It's an Irish/UK company.  I think I'm safe for a while yet.

[pcprogrammer]

Do you let that tribalism rule?  Do you make your laws to codify that sort of behaviour?  Does your company allow workers to frown on everyone different from their point of view?

It is not a point to justify it, it is to indicate that this has happened and will unfortunately keep on happening. On small scale and large scale. You pointed out yourself that even the movement to try to improve it all does more or less the same. They frown upon the ones that don't see eye to eye with them.

It is not at all clear cut what is ethically and morally right and acceptable with respect to tribalism, particularly when one considers the long-term effects.

We probably should accept some tribalism as natural, for example letting people decide from themselves where they want to live, assuming they can afford it and support themselves and their families there.  I do not accept it when it goes as far as rejecting interaction with someone "out-group", nor when it becomes rejection of someone "in-group" because they're not a member of some protected group.
In between those two limits, there is the gray area where I make up my mind on a case-by-case basis.

To me it is clear cut, and I agree that in a better world this should not happen, but the problem is that there are a lot of people that don't see it. And even worse, people that can be put in front of the cart and perform acts of terrorism without a proper thought about it.

And equality in its whole is basically irrational to demand it.

Absolutely not.  Equality is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome or equity, which is what you described.

It is not okay at all to confuse the two.

There you stumble on a language thing. Demanding equal opportunity that is fair, as long as you are willing to put in the effort. We can't give every body what they want just because they demand to be treated or seen as equal.

What I meant is we are not equal. Everybody is an individual and shares some similarities with others but also a lot of differences.

Further more I think it is impossible to have full equality of opportunity in the society as it is now. You would need to get rid of the huge diversions between poverty and rich first to level the playing field. But being born in either of the milieus is no guaranty someone will succeed in life, no matter how many opportunities they are given. Just because we are all different.

I have wrote this before, you are better with words than I am

[Nominal Animal]

There you stumble on a language thing. Demanding equal opportunity that is fair, as long as you are willing to put in the effort. We can't give every body what they want just because they demand to be treated or seen as equal.

What I meant is we are not equal. Everybody is an individual and shares some similarities with others but also a lot of differences.

Ah, okay: I like to describe that as "we are not interchangeable; we are individuals".

Further more I think it is impossible to have full equality of opportunity in the society as it is now.

True, and there are even genetic factors, completely outside our control.

And it looks like general intelligence, the g-factor, is one of these.  It can be reduced by poor nutrition and stress and brain damage, but there are no known methods to reliably increase it.  Even teaching how intelligence tests work and how to "game" them only helps by at most one standard deviation (15 points), and really only can be done by those who are already near or above the median (100 points).

I have wrote this before, you are better with words than I am

No, me fail English often.  It may look like that, because I re-read everything I write as if I was someone else, and compare what I wrote to what I intended, and end up editing a lot.  Better consider it as verbosity combined with a lot of effort spent to try and convey specific ideas.  (I am not suggesting everyone should do so, nor do I consider it a good thing per se.  I only do this because I feel I need to.)

[pcprogrammer]

First I think the main reason they want to push "good" people into management, is they are really short on good technically minded managers.

But when they do that with people that are not good at managing it makes no sense. I'm certainly for managers that know at least some basic technical stuff when they have to manage a group of technicians although not always needed, but a technician with no manager skills is a recipe for disaster.

But mostly it comes down to the roles they provide on the ladder.  From "principle engineer" which I achieved only a year ago after an age as Senior.  That in itself was a fiasco.  To get promoted I had to set objectives towards key skills and demonstrate at the principle level.  However I was contracted full time to a customer as a senior and there was zero room to demonstrate any higher position.  I tried to reach out to the team as a facilitator to see how that went and got it thrown back to me that, "Your not senior to us, why would we listen to you, in fact we resent it.", they typically added, "and lets not bullshit, we don't work for Company X, we work for "Customer Y", so your authority if you did have any is moot.

My senior at the time, holding the promotion from me said, "Paul, titles don't matter, it's how you work people that promotes you.", when I mentioned this to HR (yes it got that bad), their response was "Tell him to say that when he orders people around without his Senior Delivery Manager title and see how many people tell him to get lost."

Role is a triangle.  You need the title and the authority to go along with the responsibility.

I do agree somewhat with your senior at the time. There are people who have such charisma that they don't need a title to move people in doing a good job. But there are also a lot of people that won't move unless you have a title.

The career ladder, while it is supposed to have tech/non tech split, introduces many "key skills and values" at the next level up, which is Solutions Architect.  There you are required to become a stakeholder in the management meetings, to be aware of delivery contracts, commercials etc.  In my last 1to1 with management discussing career I pointed out, that from the 4 or 5 items listed as additional responsibilities and skills for architect, only one of them is technical (ownership of larger multi-team / multicomponent solutions), the rest are pseudo management tasks.  His response was that the letter of the role is flexible.  Going up, will not mean you end up in a desk job.  I don't believe him.

At the moment I am in a kinda "custom" position, because I stated I do not want to do people management.  I can't be technically honest while being people line manager and I don't have good people management skills either.   So while normally a "tech lead" on a project would also be the "team leader" and possible "line manager" for people, I am not given the people management role. 

I don't think they are trying to get rid of me, when they are allowing me to basically, currently, choose my own role.  Also, I haven't asked for a pay rise, ever.  However I get one every year.  I didn't get one this year, but that's because they promoted me and... gave me a £8k rise for that.  When I started paid, proper career in 2007 I figured a nice target would be a 2K rise per year.  I've averaged more than that.  Besides a fair salary, not stellar, but if the company do well and I do well, there is maximum 10% salary bonus.  I have received that bonus every year with the company, all 10%.

Based on this information I think you are right in that they don't want to get rid of you.

To give you a slightly indication of the culture at the company which actually employee me.  The first video call after they had bought the company, the CEO opened the video presentation by introducing the head of people and talent (a fairly fat woman) and saying, "we'd hear from her at the end of the call, she might even sing so we know it's over.".  It took me a while, as that joke was not expected at all in a CEO company wide meeting, but, yes, he did make the "its over when the fat lady sings" joke.  It's an Irish/UK company.  I think I'm safe for a while yet.

Well there is a lawsuit waiting to happen

[paulca]

On fringe issues at the extremes, after sending myself to some very dark places and genuinely questioning myself and asking if I AM a right wing bigot, I have decided an approach.

I will only discuss things which use the common, established, definitions of words and I will NOT discuss ideology, theology or sex in work.  That makes it very difficult for me to even encroach on the trigger areas and if it's raised against me, I can hold them at the definitions point indefinitely.

Once they start talking about different definitions for words, I will pull the meeting back to the re-establishing "definitions and terms of reference", a standard business meeting practice to avoid miss communications.  I simply cannot discuss something with anyone if we are not using the same definitions for words and it is NOT my employers place to push ideology upon me in the work place, nor requirement to redefine common English to do so.

Transphobia.  Fear of movement.

[sokoloff]

Absolutely not.  Equality is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome or equity, which is what you described.

It is not okay at all to confuse the two.

There you stumble on a language thing. Demanding equal opportunity that is fair, as long as you are willing to put in the effort. We can't give every body what they want just because they demand to be treated or seen as equal.

What I meant is we are not equal. Everybody is an individual and shares some similarities with others but also a lot of differences.

Further more I think it is impossible to have full equality of opportunity in the society as it is now. You would need to get rid of the huge diversions between poverty and rich first to level the playing field. But being born in either of the milieus is no guaranty someone will succeed in life, no matter how many opportunities they are given. Just because we are all different.

I am openly, actively, and proudly trying to improve the opportunity my kids have. Just as my parents did for me and their parents did for them. It's how my parents became the first generation in either side of our family to attend any college at all. It's how my parents scrimped and saved to buy me a computer when that's what I wanted most, leading directly to my enjoyable and successful career. It's why they lived below their means to be able to give each of us siblings $10K to help buy our first house and to retire without burdening the next generation financially.

All of those represent improvements in the opportunities they afforded to their family and I do my best to afford analogous improvements for my family.

I don't see any reasonable way to both encourage families to avail themselves of these means to improve their opportunities and demand perfect equality of opportunity across the population.

[pcprogrammer]

And it looks like general intelligence, the g-factor, is one of these.  It can be reduced by poor nutrition and stress and brain damage, but there are no known methods to reliably increase it.  Even teaching how intelligence tests work and how to "game" them only helps by at most one standard deviation (15 points), and really only can be done by those who are already near or above the median (100 points).

I believe it is also age bound. Above a certain age it won't go up any more. This is now and then a topic of discussion with friends of ours. What is intelligence? I have been somewhat obsessed with it due to having two smarter brothers

I have wrote this before, you are better with words than I am

No, me fail English often.  It may look like that, because I re-read everything I write as if I was someone else, and compare what I wrote to what I intended, and end up editing a lot.  Better consider it as verbosity combined with a lot of effort spent to try and convey specific ideas.  (I am not suggesting everyone should do so, nor do I consider it a good thing per se.  I only do this because I feel I need to.)

It is a complement

And the meaning was towards how you express yourself and not the English that you write. To be honest I re-read what I write too most of the time. Some times I'm to hasty and then the errors slip in.

[fourfathom]

Transphobia.  Fear of movement.

Well, right there you are already in trouble.  It's kind of like using the word "niggardly" and expecting others to accept that it etymologically unrelated to the "N-word".

And there is something to the "charisma" thing.  Management and leadership are different.  I was actually a decent leader but a pretty crappy manager.  A good manager should be both.  Most of us have worked for poor managers at one time or another and the difference can be dramatic.

[pcprogrammer]

I am openly, actively, and proudly trying to improve the opportunity my kids have. Just as my parents did for me and their parents did for them. It's how my parents became the first generation in either side of our family to attend any college at all. It's how my parents scrimped and saved to buy me a computer when that's what I wanted most, leading directly to my enjoyable and successful career. It's why they lived below their means to be able to give each of us siblings $10K to help buy our first house and to retire without burdening the next generation financially.

All of those represent improvements in the opportunities they afforded to their family and I do my best to afford analogous improvements for my family.

I don't see any reasonable way to both encourage families to avail themselves of these means to improve their opportunities and demand perfect equality of opportunity across the population.

And that is what good parents do, and your kids most likely won't be up the fence demanding equality of opportunity, because you are trying to just give them that. How many don't even care or are capable of doing so?

My parents did that too, they bend over backwards to give us the opportunities we needed. And even though they had concerns about me when I was young, it shifted to concerns about my oldest brother because he did some unwise things. And here we are, I retired when I was 48 (I'm 58 now), have a mortgage free house, can live a care free life and he is still working to pay for his mortgage.

[paulca]

Transphobia.  Fear of movement.

Well, right there you are already in trouble.  It's kind of like using the word "niggardly" and expecting others to accept that it etymologically unrelated to the "N-word".

And there is something to the "charisma" thing.  Management and leadership are different.  I was actually a decent leader but a pretty crappy manager.  A good manager should be both.  Most of us have worked for poor managers at one time or another and the difference can be dramatic.

Yea.  I know.  Not work, but I once said the local political parties policies were retarded.   Because they are.  Their policies are stuck in the 18th century and their values in the 16th.  When someone tried to say that was an insult against someone, I pleaded absolutely ignorance and scowled at them like I was shooting the messenger.   In that instance it worked.  I got lucky.  "Why would you call people that? ", I had asked angrily.

However, you have seen the social media eruptions that take place over the country names Nigeria and Nicaragua?  I personally have been to Niger in Morocco.  Locally I've also been to Muff (which has a diving school, I am not joking) and Fanny.  There are a few even better crackers in Ireland.

On leadership.  I agree.  Where I seem to do better is in mentoring and giving developers support and the odd shove in the right direction.  The better they are and the more senior they are, the less time I spend with them.  My approach is to sacrifice my productivity to increase that of many.  There is no point me pumping out tickets/jiras if 4 members of the team are blocked, stumbling around for solutions.  If I pause my work and spent time with each of them, maybe 2-3 hours total, that unblocks 4 people while costing 1's output.  Besides I can usually catch up.  If things go well and expectations and assumptions play out, the code works, I can scrape by with a mostly full work load with about 4 juniors.  First time I did this I had 12 of them.  All graduates, only 4 of the IT graduates.  For that they removed my work stream and assignment me as dev lead for the remainder of the project, just because I spent all my time keeping them moving.  EDIT:  The number 2 thing behind "How do I do that?" is "Which way?", decisions.  Junior and even senior developers will come to a grinding halt if they find themselves in a situation where they have to make a decision that will effect the whole project.   I have the authority to make that decision for them and usually quickly, which ... keeps them moving. Otherwise I've known devs who will sit there for days worrying about it.

I can't do that however, unless I'm working "with" them on the same stuff, down in the weeds.  On projects where I am only getting a look in here or there, I'm next to useless as I have no context and no time to spend getting up to speed.  For those I just trust the more senior engineers on that sub team will be fine and will reach out when they need help and not stew.

[james_s]

Well, right there you are already in trouble.  It's kind of like using the word "niggardly" and expecting others to accept that it etymologically unrelated to the "N-word".

But it is unrelated, there is no connection whatsoever aside from having some vaguely similar sounds in it. When a person somehow connects the two words I think it says a lot more about them than about the person using the word.