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Being anal and detail-oriented, doing things the right way

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JonathanYoung said:
I will make another point... this is supposedly a geek website, so how many people here are actually great at parties? Isn't it ironic that a geek is pointing out to another geek that that geek must be great at parties?
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Checking in as one who's not good at parties. I don't care for crowds, and most of the people I've gotten to know beyond a terribly superficial level is because circumstance obligated me to work with them for some period of time. I kindly turn down invitations to large social gatherings when possible; it saves the invitors the "down" feelings of seeing me not being the life of the party, or something, and saves me the stress of dealing with a party crowd. 🙂

Detail-oriented: I guess it works for me, as I work as an engineer now. My supervisor, and occasionally the company owner, when he happens to be working with me on a problem, will sometimes say something like, "You're so goddamn nitpicky/obsessive somethings......keep it up."
Yes, I do on occasion fail to remember some rather significant things, like the fact that gravity will have something of an effect on objects in the real world, but I can focus on details well. (It helps too in things like programming, where the difference between = and == is quite significant.) It's also kind of fun and disparaging to be reading something like a textbook and keep count of how many typos or errors are present, including things like "Refer to Figure 26.29," when there are only 15 figures in the chapter, or when the text says, "The linear profile shown in Figure 1.5...", and Figure 1.5 is a graph of a sine wave.
A proofreader - that is a job where you want someone who's detail-oriented.
 
JonathanYoung said:
Wait a second, why did I automatically think reply #2 was sarcasm? Maybe it's not and he really was paying me a compliment!
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Exactly. You cannot read tone. You read it how your subconcious wanted you to read it.

Your frazzling leads me to believe that you have had a tramatic experience in the past at a party.

Please, we are all friends here. Tell us what happened.
 
TuxDave said:
Worst manager ever. I'd transfer in a heartbeat.
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this

actually happened in our department

person became the most hated, low morale from every team, complaints up the wazoo to directors/HR, eventually left the company because she was hated by everyone
 
JonathanYoung said:
I am, and if you worked under me, I'd tell you *exactly* how to do task A, and if you got even a tiny thing wrong, I'd make you start over. How's that for micromanaging?
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You sound like an asshole that I wouldn't work for.

The type of people that would stick around and put up with a manager like you are certainly not going to be top quality employees.
 
Numenorean said:
You sound like an asshole that I wouldn't work for.

The type of people that would stick around and put up with a manager like you are certainly not going to be top quality employees.
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this

nobody with a brain likes to be micromanaged.
 
Jeff7 said:
Checking in as one who's not good at parties. I don't care for crowds, and most of the people I've gotten to know beyond a terribly superficial level is because circumstance obligated me to work with them for some period of time. I kindly turn down invitations to large social gatherings when possible; it saves the invitors the "down" feelings of seeing me not being the life of the party, or something, and saves me the stress of dealing with a party crowd. 🙂

Detail-oriented: I guess it works for me, as I work as an engineer now. My supervisor, and occasionally the company owner, when he happens to be working with me on a problem, will sometimes say something like, "You're so goddamn nitpicky/obsessive somethings......keep it up."
Yes, I do on occasion fail to remember some rather significant things, like the fact that gravity will have something of an effect on objects in the real world, but I can focus on details well. (It helps too in things like programming, where the difference between = and == is quite significant.) It's also kind of fun and disparaging to be reading something like a textbook and keep count of how many typos or errors are present, including things like "Refer to Figure 26.29," when there are only 15 figures in the chapter, or when the text says, "The linear profile shown in Figure 1.5...", and Figure 1.5 is a graph of a sine wave.
A proofreader - that is a job where you want someone who's detail-oriented.
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Thanks for your comment. I am fortunate to have been on both sides of the management coin, and I understand how valuable it can be for an organization to have people like us to watch for the details. The fact is, nobody's perfect and we all need each other at the end of the day. (I have done that textbook thing before)

To further that point, it is also valuable for an organization to have managers that know how to use people like us. We are also not perfect and we can use all the help we can get when it comes to certain aspects.

Again, though, it's not all black and white in the real world. I try to do the best I can.
 
TuxDave said:
Worst manager ever. I'd transfer in a heartbeat.
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It may depend on the kind of management. When I worked at a warehouse, we were expected to do exactly what the manager wanted: Palletize the minimum number of items per hour, wrap the pallets 3x around the bottom, and around all items to ensure that they would not move, and place the pallets at the correct door. Failure to do this earned a writeup.

At something like where I work, there's a good bit more leeway - if my manager knew exactly what needed to be done, he'd hire some tempworker grunts to do it. I get a project, some very crude guidelines (which are what they are, as they themselves were crudely handed down to my manager from marketing and sales), and then I'm set off on my way to make it happen. Micromanaging would seriously hinder the job. I like having some freedom and discretion on my own, but I do also like having some guidelines. Invariably, even if there aren't guidelines given, they often do exist, and I tend to find a way to stray beyond them - thenI find out that I'm outside the lines, and the effort between where I am and where the line was crossed suddenly gets turned into wasted time. The flipside is having a manager who can recognize that the tangent I ventured into may itself have value later down the road. (Recently, I accidentally developed something that may lead to a new style of controllerboard for some of our products, which could reduce some associated costs and enhance its range of usability.)

Being given freedom on this sort of project also gives a sense of "ownership" of it. If the manager is micromanaging it every step of the way, it's not "mine." Then I'm just doing someone else's work, and it's not as interesting. If it's my own project to look after, I develop a vested interest in doing it well, and to a proper completion.



JonathanYoung said:
Thanks for your comment. I am fortunate to have been on both sides of the management coin, and I understand how valuable it can be for an organization to have people like us to watch for the details. The fact is, nobody's perfect and we all need each other at the end of the day. (I have done that textbook thing before)
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No doubt. I like to have someone else look at something I did, even if it's outside that person's area of expertise. They might see it and see something blindingly stupid that I completely didn't see, or which I did see at the start of the project, but forgot about halfway through. Or they may simply have a suggestion or a different way of going about it. I do know that often my idea of a "simple" solution is...um, well, the word "simple" can be somewhat subjective. 🙂



To further that point, it is also valuable for an organization to have managers that know how to use people like us. We are also not perfect and we can use all the help we can get when it comes to certain aspects.

Again, though, it's not all black and white in the real world. I try to do the best I can.
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Agreed. And yes, not black and white. Like I said, some jobs and workers need micromanaging, because the job may require rigidity of execution in order to get the right outcome, or the worker may simply be dumber than a slab of meatloaf, but he is still a person with something close to a functioning brain, and that's all that the (soon-to-be-automated) job needs.
 
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OCGuy said:
Exactly. You cannot read tone. You read it how your subconcious wanted you to read it.

Your frazzling leads me to believe that you have had a tramatic experience in the past at a party.

Please, we are all friends here. Tell us what happened.
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Had some trouble multi-quoting, but apparently not many other people here can read tone, either.

What is there to tell? I suck at parties. I'm decent looking and can hold a conversation, but I just don't like small talk and being superficial. It helps if I drink but then I turn into a tomato, which is embarrassing. Anyway, I feel that my time would be better used doing something that I actually like.
 
Numenorean said:
You sound like an asshole that I wouldn't work for.

The type of people that would stick around and put up with a manager like you are certainly not going to be top quality employees.
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Let me ask you this: would you call your child an asshole for stating that 1+1=3?

Many managers are put into their positions because they excelled at something technical. They have no idea how to manage people. If you're used to managing code where every little detail counts, and you've succeeded at it, and you have zero people management skills, then you might think that managing people requires the same strategy.
 
JonathanYoung said:
Let me ask you this: would you call your child an asshole for stating that 1+1=3?

Many managers are put into their positions because they excelled at something technical. They have no idea how to manage people. If you're used to managing code where every little detail counts, and you've succeeded at it, and you have zero people management skills, then you might think that managing people requires the same strategy.
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Then you would be a bad manager.

1+1=3 is a blatant mistake that nobody should make.

You make it sound as if when a report is submitted, and the margin is 1.95 inches and you said 2 inches then you blow your lid.
 
Numenorean said:
Then you would be a bad manager.

1+1=3 is a blatant mistake that nobody should make.

You make it sound as if when a report is submitted, and the margin is 1.95 inches and you said 2 inches then you blow your lid.
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No, you called me an asshole for being a micromanager. If I really were a micromanager because I didn't know what I was doing, would you still call me an asshole?

i.e. if a kid didn't know what he was doing with 1+1=3, would you call the kid an asshole?

i.e. micromanaging, to people who are versed in management skills, is a blatant mistake.
 
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JonathanYoung said:
No, you called me an asshole for being a micromanager. If I really were a micromanager because I didn't know what I was doing, would you still call me an asshole?

i.e. if a kid didn't know what he was doing with 1+1=3, would you call the kid an asshole?

i.e. micromanaging, to people who are versed in management skills, is a blatant mistake.
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Just because you don't know you're being an asshole doesn't make you not an asshole.

Comparing yourself to a child isn't really doing anything for you and isn't relevant at all.
 
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