Startled

I had a most unsettling experience this afternoon.

I had gone over to our company's computer center this afternoon to tell them what address they should use the next time that they IPLd a specific system. There's a change record to tell the customer what we're planning to do, and the record is supposed to contain all of the information that will be needed if you want the system operators to do the change. Usually, you don't;this is just an approval mechanism, but sometimes, you do. IPLing is something that operators do all the time, so it made perfect sense to me that the address of the pack to use would be in the record. Oh no, I was told, you have to physically go over there and key it in yourself. I thought this very odd, but I went over, and the operator told me that I was mistaken; this information appeared in the 'operator instructions' part of the record. Oho, I said, and went back to the office, where I updated the change ticket to include the IPL address.

Later in the day, I happened to meet the person who'd told me that I would need to go over, and he said that he was about to go over, in case I wanted to go over with him. I informed him of what had occurred, and he seemed quite surprised. Oh no, he said, we don't do it that way. You have to key in the address yourself. Well, I said, I don't have a problem with that, but thats not what the operator told me. So he went looking for the other programmer, who got quite agitated and said that under no conditions were the operators supposed to touch that field on the console. Under NO conditions. He said they weren't paid to do that, and he was going to call the Operations manager to complain that his operators were taking liberties with the system.

Now, this amazed me. I have known for quite some time that I expect more from operators than most of the people I work with, and I know that I do because the company that I used to work for expected more from them than this company expects from them -- heck, even from most of its programmers. (They really don't expect much. If you're one of the top fifth or so, its different. But otherwise, you're just well-paid auditor fodder. Head down, mouth shut. And they don't want to hear your ideas about improvements, either, unless -- well, that's another story.) Over time, though, that other company expected less and less, and the level of operator ability gradually drifted down. So it was not out of the question that our operators would be, overall, unambitious. But I didn't think of them as dumb, and my feeling was (and is) that if they wanted to stretch their abilities, that was a good thing, and they should go for it. Okay, within limits, but still: good thing.

This was not, as they say, the prevailing view, which I discovered on my return to the operations area. The operations manager hustled out to be there when the operator who had told me that it wasn't necessary said, quite stiffly, that she had misspoke (actually, she said that there had been a 'miscommunication', one of those weasel words that I despise), and that under NO conditions did they touch that console without first clearing it with the programmers.... and only then if there was a crisis, at which point they would ask for instructions. They would not think, they would not improvise, they would not try things. They would ask for instructions, and they would do just exactly that.

We walked over to the console and I quietly asked her why it was that way -- why couldn't operators touch this operator console without the clear approval of a programmer? And then this lead operator said what startled me, and startles me still:

"These operators are stupid. You can't trust them. They'll screw it up."

Surely not, I said. They may not be trained, but they're not stupid.

She nodded. "Stupid."

How can people view themselves that way? How can they do that?
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