It was the day of a big release. A major release. A release that had been announced weeks, if not months, in advance. Everyone who was anyone knew that today was the day. So why not publicly drop the news of a major issue with the project in the middle of that release?
It was the middle of the development meeting. Everyone was talking about issues with a part of the project. They were deep into the hell that is debugging and backtracking and arguing if things should be fixed or simply noted. So why not ask for help about an issue one user was having?
This is not about WordPress. Well. It is and it isn’t. It’s about understanding who you are, where you are, and what’s going on around you. It’s about awareness and acceptance. It’s about being a part of something greater than yourself.
This is about common sense.
In Festivus, there’s a time and a place for the airing of grievances. In Judaism, we have a time and place for atoning for sins and forgiving others. While you certainly can do these things at any point in time, the purpose of having set and established periods for them is to prevent people from being derailed, to stop breaking the flow.
The time to report a security issue (which should never be ‘in public first,’ IMO) is not the middle of the release meeting. The time to report petty theft is not while your Manager is giving an announcement. The time to tell everyone that Beyoncé’s video was better is not while Taylor Swift is on stage giving her acceptance speech.
Those moments are rude, inconsiderate, and disrespectful.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right or not because yes, Single Ladies was a magnificent video and Beyoncé was robbed, it matters if the right people will be able to address the issue without causing harm to everyone else.
No one is more or less important than anyone else. Saying ‘everyone’s special’ is just another way of saying no one is. As painful as that can be to hear, it’s true. Instead of arguing that ‘us’ are more special than ‘them,’ which is purely subjective anyway, we should look at the magnitude of the work we do. Who will be harmed by the choice to publicly state something now?
The good of the many often is more important than the good of the few, or the one. That doesn’t mean you should not confront people in public. It means you should not do so recklessly. It means that you should not speak up without consideration of who you are, where you are, and when you are. It means you must be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.
If you decide the best place to speak up against a politician is at his rally, you must accept that you may be throw out. You must accept that protests may end with your arrest. You must accept that being vocally against a decision or an action may result in you being publicly talked back to and possibly shunned.
At the same time, you cannot be afraid to do these things. You should speak up against wrongs. You should speak up against bad decisions. You should tell your manager that they’re making a bad choice. But you cannot do those things blindly or ignorantly.
It’s human nature to want to be a part of a group. We’re herd animals. We like the safety it affords us. We like the security. We crave it. So when we achieve acceptance into an ‘inner circle’ we want to protect our standing and not be cast out, and that can cause a bit of a Status Quo mentality.
Some members of the group will always be the ones to shake things up. They will be the ones to speak against the majority, to stand up and say “This is wrong and here is why.” They’re the ones who are brave enough and strong enough to accept the consequences of their actions. They don’t walk into a room, interrupting everything and everyone, to announce something.
They don’t get a free pass, however. They accept the consequences. And the effective ones make sure that when they choose to speak up, they do it in the right place, at the right time, with the full respect given to their group and community. And if they don’t, well again, they know what they’re getting into.
I can’t tell you to speak unafraid. That would be incredibly unrealistic. But I can say to speak boldly and to think about the consequences of your actions. And I can tell you to ask. “Will there be a post-mortem of this deployment where we can talk about improvements to the process?” Ask. “I know this is a meeting, and I apologize for interrupting, but I have a security issue. Where would be the right place for this?” Ask.
