How is this anything other than a failure of management?
Why blame the employee? This is a standard performance management issue - either remediate the behaviour or move them out.
The issue is a deeper one - is management willing to compromise (standards and perhaps other things) for results? Is management too proud to admit they made a wrong hiring choice?
Yes you can argue cost versus benefit or sunk costs (concorde fallacy), but it doesn't change the fact that it is a people management and integrity issue.
My two cents after dealing with Sun for around 10 years - they'd come up with great ideas and try and implement _all_ of them. This IMHO caused a couple of key problems:
Complexity - just look at their (>4) VM options in Solaris - how do you economically support and manage these consistently?
Completion - how long did it take to get LDOM mobility happening? New features often felt incomplete.
Integration - ZFS was/is a brilliant idea, but how long did it take to integrate "fully" with Live Upgrade?
Migration - ZFS uptake could have been significantly improved by online migration from VxFS or others.
My final impression - they didn't learn a fundamental lesson of achievement - saying "NO!" to all the other shiny/interesting (distracting) things out there and staying on target.
To paraphrase Warrent Buffet - it becomes apparent who isn't wearing their swim suits when the tide goes out...
For me this incident is an absolute tragedy for everyone in that video.
I think the pilots and gunners would have been devastated to find out what really happened.
I saw the long, unedited video first, and given the resolution, it did look like the reporters were carrying weapons. To add to the problem, there were other people with weapons in the crowd. When you are "primed" to look for weapons, you tend to see more false positives. If I was in the position of "guarding" the guys on the ground, I'd have to say I would have requested and taken the shot as well. I also think it was okay for them to take pride in their work - from their point of view they eliminated the threat and protected their fellow soldiers.
If you see the short, "edited" video, you are primed to see the cameras and it takes a completely different tone. Same goes for the children, except it is zoomed in - makes it look even worse.
The bit I have a problem with is when they shot at the van. From "the armchair" I couldn't see any justification for this. Whilst in the long video I didn't make out the children, it didn't make sense that they would fire on a van that was attempting to take away wounded (effectively an ambulance).
That being said, one of the things we were taught as part of being a fire warden was that when under stress we see what we are primed to see (even more than normal) - a van was coming to get the "hostiles", so it must also be hostile.
I don't think the soldiers or pilots involved should be punished in this matter - in my view they were doing their best. Its just that when you are at war, even small mistakes can be deadly.
Why the wounded children were redirected to a lower care facility is a significant concern - but there is not enough information to judge.
-I.
P.S. I make no comment on the Military report, or the invasion of Iraq.
Most are either too affluent (or is it effluent?), or too desperate, to care about these things.
The narcissistic direction that western culture has taken - "I'm alright Jack, sucks to be you" - magnifies this issue. Without concern for the common (greater) good, I think we will ultimately consume ourselves.
* Silently encrypt disk (without key, your data is a random hash)
* Ensure persistent key is not able to be backed up. * Silently return encrypted data to backup programs (more of a challenge, but if you know your environment...) * After date X, make key volatile and reboot on suspend or loss of network connectivity.
> If you're really good at what you do and like your job, it's time to say no.
Ah, here's the rub - are you prepared to go from the top of the heap in skills and confidence, to the bottom of the heap when you go to a management / "leadership" role?
Don't get me wrong, it can be a fantastic experience if you have the inclination and a good person you are reporting to (or a good mentor), but living hell if you don't.
Things that can be a real shock to the system from my experience were:
- You (mostly) don't "do" directly any more.
- Feedback and satisfaction is now the result of others execution, not yours. (much longer time between effort and result)
- Learning to inspire desired results instead of doing is the ultimate challenge (IMHO)
- Your primary interaction changes from (relatively) constant and reliable equipment, to people who can be irrational and unpredictable.
- Learning to enjoy the thrills and excitement of HR and budget excitement.
- Learning to walk the ropes of organisational politics
The biggest benefits imho of being in a leadership role are
- You can encourage and direct growth of the people who work for you.
- You can achieve much more with the team than you can as an individual.
Coming back to the parent though, if you don't enjoy people stay away. I think its the "Peter Principle" where people rise to their level of incompetence and I believe this happens when people stray too far from their passions (competences can almost always be built if you are prepared to do the hard yards).
Slashdot Mirror
How is this anything other than a failure of management?
Why blame the employee? This is a standard performance management issue - either remediate the behaviour or move them out.
The issue is a deeper one - is management willing to compromise (standards and perhaps other things) for results? Is management too proud to admit they made a wrong hiring choice?
Yes you can argue cost versus benefit or sunk costs (concorde fallacy), but it doesn't change the fact that it is a people management and integrity issue.
-I.
Is it just me, or does it look like the US starting to follow the footsteps of the "Third Reich"?
I am confident that it wont happen given the checks and ballances, but its just plain disturbing.
Fascinating - we have a meme distribution mechanism (agenda based media outlets) that is reminiscent of cancer or disease.
Where is the meme immune system (education/engagement)?
Or will these memes ultimately kill the patient (society)?
Cheers,
-I.
P.S: By education I mean critical thinking, philosophy, psychology, politics and history. Not the propaganda tool it can be used as.
My final impression - they didn't learn a fundamental lesson of achievement - saying "NO!" to all the other shiny/interesting (distracting) things out there and staying on target.
To paraphrase Warrent Buffet - it becomes apparent who isn't wearing their swim suits when the tide goes out...
Cheers,
-I.
For me this incident is an absolute tragedy for everyone in that video.
I think the pilots and gunners would have been devastated to find out what really happened.
I saw the long, unedited video first, and given the resolution, it did look like the reporters were carrying weapons. To add to the problem, there were other people with weapons in the crowd. When you are "primed" to look for weapons, you tend to see more false positives. If I was in the position of "guarding" the guys on the ground, I'd have to say I would have requested and taken the shot as well. I also think it was okay for them to take pride in their work - from their point of view they eliminated the threat and protected their fellow soldiers.
If you see the short, "edited" video, you are primed to see the cameras and it takes a completely different tone. Same goes for the children, except it is zoomed in - makes it look even worse.
The bit I have a problem with is when they shot at the van. From "the armchair" I couldn't see any justification for this. Whilst in the long video I didn't make out the children, it didn't make sense that they would fire on a van that was attempting to take away wounded (effectively an ambulance).
That being said, one of the things we were taught as part of being a fire warden was that when under stress we see what we are primed to see (even more than normal) - a van was coming to get the "hostiles", so it must also be hostile.
I don't think the soldiers or pilots involved should be punished in this matter - in my view they were doing their best. Its just that when you are at war, even small mistakes can be deadly.
Why the wounded children were redirected to a lower care facility is a significant concern - but there is not enough information to judge.
-I.
P.S. I make no comment on the Military report, or the invasion of Iraq.
Most are either too affluent (or is it effluent?), or too desperate, to care about these things.
The narcissistic direction that western culture has taken - "I'm alright Jack, sucks to be you" - magnifies this issue. Without concern for the common (greater) good, I think we will ultimately consume ourselves.
-I.
Nah, if one was truly evil it would go like this:
* Silently encrypt disk (without key, your data is a random hash)
* Ensure persistent key is not able to be backed up.
* Silently return encrypted data to backup programs (more of a challenge, but if you know your environment...)
* After date X, make key volatile and reboot on suspend or loss of network connectivity.
I wonder, would you get a free lair with that?
Cheers,
-I.
> If you're really good at what you do and like your job, it's time to say no.
Ah, here's the rub - are you prepared to go from the top of the heap in skills and confidence, to the bottom of the heap when you go to a management / "leadership" role?
Don't get me wrong, it can be a fantastic experience if you have the inclination and a good person you are reporting to (or a good mentor), but living hell if you don't.
Things that can be a real shock to the system from my experience were:
- You (mostly) don't "do" directly any more.
- Feedback and satisfaction is now the result of others execution, not yours. (much longer time between effort and result)
- Learning to inspire desired results instead of doing is the ultimate challenge (IMHO)
- Your primary interaction changes from (relatively) constant and reliable equipment, to people who can be irrational and unpredictable.
- Learning to enjoy the thrills and excitement of HR and budget excitement.
- Learning to walk the ropes of organisational politics
The biggest benefits imho of being in a leadership role are
- You can encourage and direct growth of the people who work for you.
- You can achieve much more with the team than you can as an individual.
Coming back to the parent though, if you don't enjoy people stay away. I think its the "Peter Principle" where people rise to their level of incompetence and I believe this happens when people stray too far from their passions (competences can almost always be built if you are prepared to do the hard yards).
Cheers,
-I.