I was just thinking about the problem I had had when I set up the new router, wherein I couldn't connect to the network until I changed the name of the network from CeruleanNet to CeruleanNet-1 . When I asked the tech at Netgear who'd walked me through this why in the world the name had to change, he muttered something about security, which I took to mean 'Damned if I know, I'm just glad that it's working, now please go away before it breaks'. I know the feeling.
When I started working with IBM, I got a call from one of our customers saying that they could not get a specific application to work -- they'd made the RACF changes to allow the function, but it was as if they hadn't. They weren't irate - exactly. Well, I thought, how hard can this be? 90 minutes later, I was thinking 'What the HELL is going on?' Because I'd tried all the routine things -- refresh the classes, recreate the id, sign off and back on -- nothing. Finally, I thought of a comment I'd overheard a CICS systems programmer make about having to refresh his in-storage rules tables; though this wasn't CICS, I thought 'what the hell' -- and so called the IBM guy who'd told them to call me with this security problem. Do you have a refresh command with security? I asked. Why, yes -- yes, we do, he said, surprised, and issued the command. Hey, presto -- and I got out of there before something else broke.
Seeing this article, by a guy who was trying to figure out why security was being too effective, and wanted to fix it, brought that to mind. He never did get an answer -- the responses were either gibberish to him, or non-helpful comments like 'why are you do that, when you really ought to be doing this?' So far as I can tell, the guy eventually gave up. If he's like me, he went elsewhere, and either figured out a way around it, or is just living with the problem. If he did figure it out, dollars to donuts he can't say what it was that he did to fix it, because after a while you start trying lots of things, all at once, tossing the deck in the air and hoping it'll come down in a way that makes more sense than the mess you have now. He knows, if he went that route, that it can be fixed -- but not, really, how. Its like the guy who just kept driving in circles until he finally found the place he was looking for.
I think of it as a series of diminishing concentric circles, where the biggest circle is the knowledge base of the people who actually do know how to fix it, but almost certainly can't explain it to people of lesser knowledge; most likely would fix it by changing not only what needs to be changed but also things that they were offended by -why are you doing that? - along the way. At a more limited circle are the people who don't know as much, but they can usually fix it by trying four or five or ten things, which work most of the time. And then you get down to the lowest level, the guy who fixed it, once, and hopes that it never happens again,because he went through such grief getting it fixed. All of that knowledge in the upper circles might as well be on Mars, for all the use it is to him. He just wants to never hear of it again.
Go away, please. Quickly.
4 comments:
Been there. Done that! :-)
I can smile about all those times. Now.
Carolyn Ann
I tend to look back at things like that and wonder why it wasn't so obvious to me what the answer was, or at least where I ought to look. If it wasn't for the fact that I've solved most of them -- even if I DID do it through persistance rather than insight or information -- I'd have gotten discouraged a lot more often. I like diagnostic work, and I miss it. I have to remember that it's not nearly as charming when you're at the far end of the puzzle as it is when you've found the answer.
I read a chapter in Mr. Kawasaki's book about "software on demand", and he mentioned a phenomon he had encountered, and that was a general feeling of "we finally got it working, so we don't want to change/upgrade/fix it". He codified it a little tighter (by interviewing his customers) and discovered that the dreaded "user" had a job to do, and dealing with security or upgrades, or new apps had a long and very expensive learning curve. The result of that attitude was a resistance to anything a vendor had in mind.
They also didn't like the idea that some little glitch could shut their whole operation down until the "wizard" arrived to say the magic spell or whatever the heck he did to fix it.
As an aircraft technician, I only occasionally had to perform a miracle while somebody important was watching, once it was the Governor General, and once it was the Prime Minister. Both times were unadulterated hell...until I figured out what was wrong.
I think you are hardest on yourself when you are under the gun like that.
Huh -- I never heard of that idea, but it makes a lot of sense to me. For HELLS sake, its working, DON'T TOUCH IT!!! Yes, I can definitely see a customer saying that. And off to the side, a techie with twitching fingers saying I just want to LOOK at it....
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