My job involves a fair bit of inventive brainwork and I have always had the opinion that work pays me for what I do with what I know, not what I know.

Just recently there have been a few changes and a manager has been asking me awkward questions such as ‘how did you do that’ or ‘can you show me how you…’ etc basically asking me how I do what I do, rather than being satisfied with the results.

I might be just paranoid but I feel this is an intrusion. What do you think and how would you go about deflecting these questions?
Cheers

micro managers are a pain in the arse, but that’s how some are.

Surely you do what you do on your companies behalf, therefore they have an obligation and a right to know the processes involved?

Maybe i am misunderstanding the Q though.

You need to learn to explain what you do to him in a way that is both succinct, and baffling.

Is he trying to figure out how reliable the data is, or wants to learn do it himself?

Surely you do what you do on your companies behalf, therefore they have an obligation and a right to know the processes involved?

That is what the manager believes but I believe there’s a point where it simply becomes being nosey with a view to undermining my position.
Could be just paranoia of course

You need to learn to explain what you do to him in a way that is both succinct, and baffling

This is what I’m doing at the moment, but he’s persistent

Is he trying to figure out how reliable the data is, or wants to learn do it himself?

imo he’s simply cherry-picking the ‘glory’ parts of the job. He wants to know how to do what I do with the minimum amount of effort.

*bloody empire builders…..*

I know, why dont you build something absolutely unfathomably complex that becomes business critical and then get promoted/leave/etc and leave it with some poor bugger to sort out

you dont build excel workbook based reports for a living do you?

regards
bitter and twisted IT consultant

with a view to undermining my position.

As your boss this is his duty, remember it’s not the knowledge that’s the power, it’s how that knowledge is used.
Very simply as it’s your boss, you don’t have control and are potentially knackered.
I imagine the company do have rights to the knowledge and you have a duty to impart this info.

Bear with it, it’d be a little negligent of them if they didn’t want to find out what you’re doing. They’ll hopefully begin to trust you then leave you alone.

why dont you build something absolutely unfathomably complex that becomes business critical

Have done this several times and been rewarded handsomely. Do you think I’m being unreasonable in not wanting to divulge this knowledge?

you dont build excel workbook based reports for a living do you?

titusrider – I do 🙂 They’re bloody good models too… very efficient and give me plenty of free time.

There is, I suppose, a line of thinking that if your work is ostensibly guesswork, you might eventually guess wrong. Maybe he’s just seeking some sort of reassurance at that level. Might even be worth levering it as a training opportunity.

For what it’s worth, my role is very similar. A very large part of my work day to day is “well, I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can work it out.” I’d rate my problem solving, troubleshooting and general lateral thinking skills as both stronger and more valuable than my raw technical knowledge.

I spend a lot of time getting dropped into the middle of directionless shitstorms where I have little or no experience of the technologies involved. I’ll analyse the problem, define it, and get wheels turning to resolve it. How I do that I couldn’t even begin to tell you, but I appear to be exceptionally good at it. If a manager asked me to explain it, I wouldn’t have a clue.

I imagine the company do have rights to the knowledge and you have a duty to impart this info

Would like to know if this true

You need to learn to explain what you do to him in a way that is both succinct, and baffling.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o[/video]

well, I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can work it out

This, exactly.

How would you feel if someone asked you how you’d worked it out?

Do you think I’m being unreasonable in not wanting to divulge this knowledge?

Yes.

Would like to know if this true

It’ll be in the contract.

generally i would say it is in your interest to document it and allow others to support it. You can then stop just supporting what you have built and move on to solving the next business issue.

If you just become ‘the weekly reporting guy’ then thats all you will ever be

(from my experiance and my industry so take with a pinch of salt)

I’m the Database guy that gets handed the excel of the guy who just left and asked to productionise it or asked by the empire builders manager to productionise their stuff with or without their help

It is a bit like maths exams at school really isn’t it… show your workings.

If they can understand them, great. If they can’t, even better.

How would you feel if someone asked you how you’d worked it out?

I answered this partially in an edit to my earlier post. But more fully; I don’t think I’d mind being asked, however I’d struggle like buggery to explain it.

Part of it is, I think my brain just works that way. Sometime something’s just so obvious to me that it doesn’t require much of a conscious thought process, it kinda just happens. So for someone to then come along and ask “how did you do that?”, well, fuctifino, frankly.

Thanks for the feedback fellas some food for thought there 8)

titusrider – so you’re the database guy that won’t let me have access straight to the precious data… bloody empire builder.

Do you think I’m being unreasonable in not wanting to divulge this knowledge?

Is it that you don’t want to divulge it, or that trying to explain it to the person in question would take more than a lifetime?

so you’re the database guy that won’t let me have access straight to the precious data…

Sounds like a security risk to me. (-:

Perhaps the OP has realised he is replaceable?

I see nothing wrong with a company asking “how” you did something – after all, they are paying you for the time it takes.

Most of the time, they probably don’t give a monkeys how it’s done (my employers don’t care how I troubleshoot IT stuff… provided I get it fixed asap!)

I don’t want write access though Cougar… I just want an SQL link.

My old boss just didn’t believe in intuitive leaps- we did a lot of problem solving generally from poor information, and I’d hit better results from the same information than the others in the team could. She always took it as me withholding information. All very awkward tbh.

Is it that you don’t want to divulge it, or that trying to explain it to the person in question would take more than a lifetime?

Explaining it is easy the hard part is finding out and learning how to do it

don’t you put the grommet on the bottom axle with a left hand thread cotter pin and then insert it into the street elbow, using plenty of hemp and putty, and then put the whole gudgeon pin assembly into the second opening from the bottom of the flange with a spring washer to keep the mating surfaces apart? or is this the wrong thread?

I ‘might’ give you SQL access but would much prefer to give you cube access.

If you are going to have SQL you need to prove to me that you can use a where clause properly (i am a DW builder and querying 500million rows on the live system accedentally is not ideal)

Doesn’t even need to be the live system… happy to be working a day behind if it helps.

Good people can do things others can’t understand, but the really impressive ones can do things you never could then explain it susinctly in a way that everyone can understand.

Failing to explain how you do things or why you came to certain conclusions tends to cover either paranoia or a lack of true understanding.

Your boss will currently be trying to work out which you suffer from.

PS power implies a flow (joules per second for example). I’d suggest transfer of knowledge is power – they will come back the next time they want some knowledge.

the really impressive ones can do things you never could then explain it susinctly in a way that everyone can understand

I think that if you know your subject, you can explain it to anyone and see it from their point of view

Like a lot of people I wear more than one hat but I wear my IT hat a lot. I inherited our infrastructure when the preceeding IT Manager was ignominiously moved sideways (and then left) after building up our system from scratch.

Because I know a bit about computers I was given the task of taking care of it and yes I resent how it was left to me to pick up the pieces that this knowledgeable bloke had worked hard to put into place.

Since then I ensure that it works unobtrusively for all concerned. It’s documented well enough to recover from a disaster and as I see it, that’s the only obligation I have. I dont see why I should have to explain how something like PS Z:\> Get-childitem -rec | ?{ findstr.exe /mprc:. $_.FullName } | select-string “[456][0-9]{15}”,”[456][0-9]{3}[-| ][0-9]{4}[-| ][0-9]{4}[-| ][0-9]{4}” actually works.

I dont see why I should have to explain how something like PS Z:\> Get-childitem -rec | ?{ findstr.exe /mprc:. $_.FullName } | select-string “[456][0-9]{15}”,”[456][0-9]{3}[-| ][0-9]{4}[-| ][0-9]{4}[-| ][0-9]{4}” actually works.

Will your boss understand if you do tell him?

IT hat

Please tell me you have an actual IT hat.

I dont see why I should have to explain how something like PS Z:\> Get-childitem -rec | ?{ findstr.exe /mprc:. $_.FullName } | select-string “[456][0-9]{15}”,”[456][0-9]{3}[-| ][0-9]{4}[-| ][0-9]{4}[-| ][0-9]{4}” actually works.

Just tell him to buy this and move on.

http://www.regexbuddy.com/

Please tell me you have an actual IT hat

Sadly no but I do have an IT chair 🙂

Yeah you shouldnt be explaining code to someone unless they are having a detailed system handover to take over running it.

Just make sure you can hold the business confidence in the system, ie business explanations of system logic, and leave it at that.

I think where this is going is, there’s a difference between a high level overview and a low level intricate explanation.

You don’t need to understand the inner workings of a regexp to go “well, this bit gets the data we want.”

Yup high level overviews I have no problem with but this fella is basically asking me what checkboxes to select