- Asking a question can be humiliating, especially if you are expected to know its answer. When a junior asks me something, I keep that in mind.
- Things that are obvious to me are not obvious for juniors. They might know X and Y but have no clue how to draw a line between them. They might not even know an alternative exists.
- If the junior does not come to me with a question, he might spend 20x actually needed time on the problem. Helping juniors is one of the best ways to meet deadlines.
- Regularly helping someone establishes trust and makes it easier to delegate to them later. More of my time saved.
- The main thing that I am teaching them is patience, I lead by example.
- I focus on explaining how to them more than what, even if I spend an hour, or have to do a pair programming session. If the lesson gets ingrained I just helped save a heck of a lot more time.
- If the same kind of questions get asked a lot, I create a doc or a recording and reply with a link.
- Different people need a different approach. It is quite likely that I am doing something wrong in how I provide help. If the person trusts me with questions but does not seem to adopt the advice, I sit down and have a "crucial conversation" with them to figure out if this is the case and adapt my behaviour.
- Some people are just stupid.. "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain". Knowing when things are out of my control helps me avoid stress. That said, this is the very last resort, and rarely true. I usually try everything else before I start brushing people off and saving time for others.
Thank you for writing this down. Over the years these are crucial lessons I had to learn. Patience is such an important lesson to teach to young programmers.
I want people to feel confident asking me questions, so I will never treat a question as nonsense or a waste of my time.
- Asking a question can be humiliating, especially if you are expected to know its answer. When a junior asks me something, I keep that in mind.
- Things that are obvious to me are not obvious for juniors. They might know X and Y but have no clue how to draw a line between them. They might not even know an alternative exists.
- If the junior does not come to me with a question, he might spend 20x actually needed time on the problem. Helping juniors is one of the best ways to meet deadlines.
- Regularly helping someone establishes trust and makes it easier to delegate to them later. More of my time saved.
- The main thing that I am teaching them is patience, I lead by example.
- I focus on explaining how to them more than what, even if I spend an hour, or have to do a pair programming session. If the lesson gets ingrained I just helped save a heck of a lot more time.
- If the same kind of questions get asked a lot, I create a doc or a recording and reply with a link.
- Different people need a different approach. It is quite likely that I am doing something wrong in how I provide help. If the person trusts me with questions but does not seem to adopt the advice, I sit down and have a "crucial conversation" with them to figure out if this is the case and adapt my behaviour.
- Some people are just stupid.. "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain". Knowing when things are out of my control helps me avoid stress. That said, this is the very last resort, and rarely true. I usually try everything else before I start brushing people off and saving time for others.