Replying to Avatar Nick Slaney

In hardware, my first engineering jobs were basically to be the full time fixer. Find issues in the field, diagnose, make necessary changes and ship it. I was the guy who didn’t like fixing other people’s mistakes, but with what I know now, those experiences were foundational.

Fixers see what can go wrong so they are more informed on how to do it right.

Fixers understand the Pareto principle, what we need to do now to fix what’s in front of us vs what’s better left for when we have three luxury to put a bow on it.

Effective fixers work professionally under pressure, communicate well, cut through the BS.
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pam 2y ago

its a very nice way of framing this idea. My first hw engineering job gave the opportunity to learn but my second one i was the only fixer with no support (low budget company) - covering 5 countries - tech support, application engineer, system integrator, trainer, lecturer and consultant - crazy crazy times but learnt a lot. This helped when I ventured on my own, having no idea what i am doing (probably still don't lol)

I noticed however that people at large, when looking at a problem - have a tough time separating between finding root causes to solve the problem, and blaming someone for it. Often times, they think they are that someone and become very defensive. Hence there is a need to establish that trust factor.

This was a nice book that i read recently on setting that environment for growth. Its def something I want to be better at.

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