January 8, 2025 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding the Right Value
January 8, 2025 at 8:13 am
This resonates with me. The way my parents brought me up was to think
In a work situation that attitude makes you popular with colleagues but was definitely harmful for my career. Especially the last point which is rarely true in a work situation. A more selfish attitude would have got me further up the career ladder and probably far more interesting technical work.
On my leaving card from my last place someone wrote "There were times when you were in your rights to have told us to bugger off. You were always there for us and it was deeply appreciated". Someone else said "I know exactly how much you did because, when you left, it fell to me to do it".
On the plus side, the best part of 2024 for me has been unexpected social events with ex-colleagues across the past 2 decades of my career that I never expected to see again.
January 8, 2025 at 3:17 pm
WOW, Steve, you've hit it out of the park with this ed op! Especially the line, "...because many of us have an "I need to succeed" mentality, we sometimes stop coding to pick up other tasks, essentially volunteering to be the pseudo-project manager or team manager. That's fine, but if you fill your days with non-coding tasks, you are not moving toward senior engineer status". Three years ago my then supervisor assigned me the task of being one of our GitHub Administrators. He flattered me by saying that I pick up on new things quicker than others on our team. I thought it would take up just a small proportion of my time, but that didn't turn out to be true. At least not at that point. I'm finally getting back into coding again, where my heart's desire really is. However, one of my character weaknesses is I cannot identify what others might be trying to get me to do, even if they aren't fully aware of it. That statement of yours makes me realize that I've allowed me to get sidetracked from what I really want to do. Dang, that hurts, but thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
January 8, 2025 at 4:01 pm
I have found that in some organizations, if seniors are doing "glue" work, they are still marked/looked down for it. So I would say in general it is risky unless your particular boss understands the importance and can successfully communicate that up the chain. From my personal perspective, I'd rather be the glue person, even if that means I take hits for it. I much prefer to be on that successful team than on a dysfunctional one. Speaking of glue people, outside of technology, there have been recent articles on how Baker Mayfield and Sasquon Barkley are glue people, though the article authors don't call them that. However, by describing what they do and how they interact with the team around them, that's exactly what they are.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
January 8, 2025 at 6:32 pm
I think it's always a balance. I'm happy to do glue work, but I also want others to pitch in as well.
And if you are growing your career, you have to be sure you're doing other work that is valued.
January 9, 2025 at 10:42 am
This post does a good job on shining a light on a common problem. I'm not sure people who end up with glue tasks, have voluntarily taken them on - that line 'I do that in addition to any technical work' implies your workload remains technical, and most of us don't get to chose our workload but have it given to us by people higher up. Two examples from experience....
An organisation with a large no of developers yet only 3 female developers. Glue/admin tasks get doled out to the 3 women, never the men. They gradually get less and less technical work assigned to them, or sometimes (if they're lucky) get to take over 'old support work' to free up a technical developer.
Manager informed me that he planned to create another post identical to mine - but that would be the technical post and would free me up to hold meetings/organise/document things etc. And the extra insult to injury - I think he expected me to be grateful!!!
When you have managers ready to decrease a person's technical workload, it quickly snowballs. Your peers see that you don't get technical tasks and assume it's a fault with your skill, and then start to think of your capabilities as being only those glue/admin/soft skills and tasks.
January 9, 2025 at 2:06 pm
Glue work makes you more visible to people outside your team, it also makes you more of a lynchpin (useful when an organization starts downsizing), and makes your resume look better. So, if glue work accounts for only 25% or less of your time, then go for it. Heck, volunteer for it and smile while you're doing it.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
January 10, 2025 at 9:22 pm
I dislike glue work (nice phrase, hadn't heard it before) but have done a fair bit of it over the years, usually willingly - I think a bit of glue work can be good as helping get stuff done isn't just helpful for whatever project you're on but is looked at fondly by people who notice. But you need to have boundaries, don't cross them and also remember to call out the work to prevent it snowballing - "This isn't normally DBA work but I'm willing to use my unusually good <insert tech> skills to get this over the line because I am a renaissance man and team player" etc
https://sqlrider.net - My technical blog
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