The predecessor or old self did dumb stuff because of being pressured to deliver something quickly and had to cut corners. I don't see how he'd be offended that now it's time to go back and do it properly.
He didn't realize the other guy hadn't committed code in two years? He simply didn't care enough to do a good job.
My guess is that this fellow felt like his having set aside his leadership position in a role should simultaneously have given him instant authority and at the same time allowed him to shrug and ignore problems he saw but wash"the directly responsible for.
I'm happy to hear he is finally realizing the error of his previous decision, but this should not be an epiphany. So many of us that followed the project told him exactly that when he decided to throw out the MMX and start over. I still worry that he hasn't learned the lesson that "perfection is the enemy of good" and will use yet another change of direction/method to avoid actually finishing something.
In addition, the problems he now chooses to work on may not prove to be so important, as the very same motivation he lost at Amazon will remain missing until near the end of his runway.
Thus I can foresee an abstract quality to problem-selection, rather than a "damn this needs to be fixed as it's bringing me down on a daily basis" drive to build great things.
I disagree. If he has said this in the beginning it would have probably been the end of the process immediately.
Yes, he wasted his own time, but also got XP out of it. And now the company invested already resources on him and may probably think it’s the worth the risk.
That fact that he wasn't too concerned about having accidentally reset all the computers in the building suggests that he may not have had an appropriate temperament/attitude for a sysadmin managing critical systems.
It’s the genuine exasperation and haste that sells it. He hasn’t forgotten what he originally started. But he’s earnestly doing his best while seemingly everything fails needing urgent attention.
And he missed the obvious (with hindsight) options of, calling a taxi, catching a bus, etc.
What a pointlessly snarky comment. I didn't see anything in the post that implied that the task was easy or that he was underestimating the work. He seemed to know the product, and to have even been involved with it directly at some point in time.
And destroying other software that increased productivity using pretty shady methods.
But it's interesting to see that his "old image" already almost vanished. His strategy to "do things that look good" seems to work. Humans have very short memories after all.
This must be the Associate Director himself, otherwise this is a very weird take, but I guess not surprising given the state of things these days.
Sure, plugging things into the wrong port is an honest mistake. We all make mistakes. But he was shown how to do it, failed to consider the risks of relying last minute on something he’s clearly not comfortable with when faced with a critical task, and must have not had the wherewithal to ask about the two ports, try basic troubleshooting himself, practice ahead of time, or call in for help. Instead he tried to turn his failure into someone else’s. Personal accountability is critical even if sometimes it’s hard to swallow. Desperately trying to roll your own shit downhill is-at a minimum-a sign of an extremely low character. At least the Assistant Director in this story had enough decency to just take the L at the end and drop it.
I don’t think he’s ‘dumb’. Just not an engineer. He unscrews computers and replaces parts and puts them back together. I’m disappointed he doesn’t concentrate on the important topic of right to repair and finds things to criticise that seem like they’re chosen to play to the lowest common denominator.
Maybe he’s deliberately learning/teaching how to change things arbitrarily. He senses the organization would have a lot of trouble making a button red or changing a vendor, he demands it, just to shake all the rust off.
Later when he’s got control, he can supposedly add every feature back. Maybe he’s visualizing his boondoggle as still worth $44 billion any time he chooses to restore the way it was.
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