http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/r0/Day1.html

I blogged this a while ago, but it's something I come back to often. angch pointed this to me when I was struggling to find words to explain, why some developers seem to do the same things without reflecting on whether things could be improved or done differently in a better way. Why people with 3-5 years in the IT industry we were interviewing can have worse quality and less knowledge than an intern.

This can actually be mapped into other domains, not just IT since these days a lot more of us are working in a knowledge/information environment.

• Packer: Server is unstable. Let's reboot it each night.
• Mapper: Why is it unstable? Let's find and work on a solution so it doesn't.

With regards to total quality management,

"The packer corruption is to regard the job as ticking the boxes as quickly as excuses can be found to do so."

It's frustrating when you're in this kind of environment, where people just don't care about the bigger picture. We will just hit our figures somehow, quality and long term effects be damned. That's not what the target figures are there for. Unfortunately this kind of environment is usually the norm and not the exception.

Managed to catch a documentary that hits home a point I've discussed with some people around me thinking along the same lines.

"The Hubble telescope project was something, that was worth it to me to spend 10 years of my life working on."

I think "Years of a my life" is a damn good measure when evaluating your long term goals. It puts things into perspective, and makes you realize just how little time you have to achieve them.