<OT> Did I do the right thing?

[Alma J Wetzker]

Jerry McBride wrote:
> I just finished answering a plea for help from a newly installed unix admin. 
> He needed help finishing off the install of a an applicaiton that the "old" 
> previous admin hadn't completed. My take of the situation was that the "old 
> guy" was chopped off at the knees, juist as the project he was working on got 
> started...
> 
> Anyways, I politely pointed out where and how to gather the needed 
> documentation to complete the project. It's funny, I would have assumed the 
> documentation should have been there already. The response I got back was 
> kinda snotty, so typical of todays youth and it ended in yet another plea for 
> help...
> 
> After finishing my brandy and pondering what to do about this last bleet for 
> help... I responded with a paraphrased quote I learned so long ago... 
> Something like...
> 
> "If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day... if you teach a man how to 
> fish, he will eat for the rest of his life"... I then told the young MSCE to 
> "GO FISH".
> 
> I'm not conflicted about what I told the guy... I'm just a tad bit concerned 
> that he won't groc it... :') Did I do the right thing?
> 
> Cheers...
> 
> P.S. Happy birthday to me... 48 and none the wiser. :') Uhhh... BudWiser...
> 
The answer is a definitive, "that depends".  If he had time to "fish" through 
the documentation in order to get the app up, you did the right thing.  If 
there was some claustrophobia of circumstance that meant he had no time to 
acquire (unix) document understanding, you could have been more helpful.  A 
lot also depends on his attitude.  If he is asking "teach me" (as opposed to 
"do it for me") you probably would have been more forthcoming.

I always liked skill transfers at work.  If you build a system that only you 
can maintain, you will never work on another system.  I like working on new 
stuff so training others on what I did was very important to my job 
satisfaction.  (Plus it often generated a few favors I could collect...)

     -- Alma