(no subject)
I have a hundred miscommunications a day with this app development team, but one in particular stuck out today. I was talking to the lead developer. I love talking to her because she is so smart, and so prone to saying something about some detail buried deep in the code that helps me figure out even more amazing things we might be able to do. Also, we are two women in our 40s in a team mostly made of men in their late 20s and 30s. It gives us a level of professional assuredness with the higher-ups that much of the team lacks.
This misunderstanding has nothing to do with professional assuredness or higher-ups.
I was asking her to make a change in the directions so that the computer would pick pieces that are shorter and have higher ratings. "Make the max duration one twenty," I said. "Maybe one twenty five. And set the rating at 5.5."
"But that won't get shorter pieces if the max duration is one twenty and you up the rating," she said. "You will still get long pieces."
"No I won't," I countered. "The max duration should be set at one twenty."
We went around like this several times ... until we realized that when I say "one twenty" I mean one minute and twenty seconds, and when she says "one twenty" she means a hundred and twenty minutes. This particular part of the machine can't even calculate in increments less than a minute, so it never even occurred to her that I was asking for minutes and seconds. It never occurred to me that you would have a system that would not consider seconds.
We laughed. because we are old enough to be amused by the vast differences between our two professions and yet delighted to be working on this project together.
This misunderstanding has nothing to do with professional assuredness or higher-ups.
I was asking her to make a change in the directions so that the computer would pick pieces that are shorter and have higher ratings. "Make the max duration one twenty," I said. "Maybe one twenty five. And set the rating at 5.5."
"But that won't get shorter pieces if the max duration is one twenty and you up the rating," she said. "You will still get long pieces."
"No I won't," I countered. "The max duration should be set at one twenty."
We went around like this several times ... until we realized that when I say "one twenty" I mean one minute and twenty seconds, and when she says "one twenty" she means a hundred and twenty minutes. This particular part of the machine can't even calculate in increments less than a minute, so it never even occurred to her that I was asking for minutes and seconds. It never occurred to me that you would have a system that would not consider seconds.
We laughed. because we are old enough to be amused by the vast differences between our two professions and yet delighted to be working on this project together.