Troubleshooting
4 min read
When working in software development and support, troubleshooting is part of your daily workload. The people who are the best troubleshooters often, when encountering a problem, approach it from the perspective of "what did I do to cause this problem?" Because their first step in addressing the issue involves a close look at how they interacted with the technology, they slow things down, look at their interactions, and gain a clearer understanding of how the software works as a result. Like it or not, computers are consistently, maddeningly logical - they are remarkably good at doing exactly what we tell them.
People who skip over the first part - the part where they examine their behavior in an effort to rule out human error - can still be competent troubleshooters, but for obvious reasons they are prone to committing a PEBKAC.
I was reminded of this over the last few days when, on Twitter, a woman showed up to do her job moderating a twitter chat on LGBTQ issues, and was immediately set on by people who dislike her organization. The conversation degenerated into another session where educational progressives were equal parts tone deaf, insulting, and unaware around issues of race, gender, and privilege (We could also talk about whether it makes sense to attack an organization by using a person as a proxy, but that is a outside what I feel competent to discuss in this piece).
I'm not going to recount details of the issue here, and people are more than welcome to dispute my summary of events. But if your reaction to reading this piece, or to conversations around race/gender/sexual orientation are on the spectrum of "people just need to get a thicker skin" please stop reading my piece and jump to any one of these pieces listed below, or get any of the books on Ashe Dryden's 101-Level Reader.
- Notes from an Educon Session on privileged voices in education.
- AboutFeminism.me
- When Your (Brown) Body is a (White) Wonderland
- So You Call Yourself an Ally or Mia McKenzie's book.
- Anil Dash on only retweeting women, and some of the (ugh) responses.
- John Scalzi on "Easy Mode";
- This Is Not A Test
- Model View Culture
- Geek Feminism Resources for Allies
To re-emphasize: this list is not comprehensive. Reading the items on this list is no substitute for listening to people as they tell their story.
Over the years, I've accepted the uncomfortable reality that the main thing between me and my next mistake is time. It's liberating, in an awkward way. There's an incredible amount of freedom that comes from striving to be competent first, without the burden of always being right. As a straight, white, middle class male working in technology and education, I embody and benefit from enormous swaths of privilege. Try as I might, I have blind spots. There are a range of things that - as a straight, white, middle class male - are outside my lived experience. Fortunately, other people have the expertise and experience I lack, and I can listen to and learn from them - never to the point where my knowledge would supplant their lived experience, but enough so that, hopefully, I will understand more.
When I do make that inevitable next mistake - on an issue of race, on an issue of gender, on a technical issue, or on anything else - I hope that I'll have the grace to listen. I might get that wrong too. So it goes. But when it happens, my single aim is that, at some point in the process, I'll have the grace to listen.
And if/when I mess that up, I hope and trust that my friends will set me straight.
