[web-team] modified/unlocked RCS files (was: Helpfulness)

[Heather Stern]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2007 at 02:03:27AM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Heather Stern (star at starshine.org):
> 
> > It wasn't "inadvertent" - it was trusting.
> 
> I greatly doubt you messed up RCS's state deliberately.  But intent is
> entirely beside the point.
> 

I am *suggesting* and had been trying to be somewhat more general about it,
but you seem to require bluntness...

...that if you made *this specific task* a pleasant one, it would rise to
the top of Things To Do much more quickly, and I might even get to do
the second half of my tasks before you decided it was a great time to
rant off about them.  (In this case the universe did not permit that to me.
When I came back to mail, it's full of your whiny goodness about what a dork
I am.  Grand, what a great friendship and team we've got.  No wonder VPs are
stomping off in droves.  In addition, I got double shit on my shoulders, one
from the universe, and one from you.  Thanks pal.  You're a heap of "help".)

Yes, it was an easy task.  (Watch the saintly trumpets blow.)

That you had to do it suddenly made it so hard on you that you feel
justified spending hours telling people how stupid and inadequate they
must be for failing it?

No bub, you do *not* get it both ways.  If it was easy, then be proud
you helped get it right, and shut up;  let's get some real work done.

Volunteering around here gets paid in good cheer.  Am I seeing any from
you?  Am I offering any to you?  Actually, yes - I'm offering *hope*
that next year can be better - if you want to help doing some work
around here stop being bitchy suckage, stop being bitchy even when it's
suckage, even when it's my fault, or the fault of the clock I was stuck
following.  I *want* you to be a *helpful* and *friendly* teammate.

Some years I don't get what I want.

Ergo my suggestion was to offer enouragement instead of bitch-and-moan
sessions.

And if you want to bitch and moan about that too, well, it's your yuletide.
You can change things - if you care.

You've claimed that you do.  I'm awaiting *positive* signs of it.
I see them when I see you in person and among a crowd.  I see them
when people are together in a group and work is happening.  I do not
see them in email.  Maybe no work is happening when you're sitting
at email;  maybe you could use a stronger cup of coffee to brighten
your day before reading it.  I don't know.  I only see the symptoms.
Consider it a bug report.

If your reply is WONTFIX or BUYGLASSES then expect me, and probably a
lot of other people, to put your rants in the same category as Theo
De Raadt.  Now before you get to thinking how incredibly cool it is
to share that kind of limelight, or to nod-nod that his concerns for
security matters and good code are sincere (they really are.  I've met
him and his crew.  Filed a bug report that they lacked small t-shirts.
Fixed, next revision).  Every once in a while he's got a correct point,
but most people just find the avenging angel shtick is not worth any
tears in the beer, and overall it's a disadvantage to his cause, because
it makes people not want to look at or deal with him and thereby to stop
dealing with even the valid things he wants to get across.

Now, we could all do much the same with you and plonk your mail or
point and laugh at the avenging angel shtick that you pull, pretty much
the same.  However - there's this *work* stuff to be done, and we need
to be able to do that too.  

If you don't like being painted as a bitchy and barely helpful teammate, 
I have confidence that you can fix the symptoms that lead to it.

    I expect better of you than you've been, because I know that you are
    capable of it.  

This is the exact same message you've been trying to give me.  Right?
Or did I miss some other detail?

(/me runs off to lunch with parents.  Family comes first.)

  . | .    Heather Stern          |     (408) 374-7623 land
--->*<---  star at starshine.org   - * -   (408) 761-4912 cell
  ' | `    KG6ZYC                 |