Saturday, April 8, 2017

The Churn - No point discussing/fighting it

From what I have seen, companies just seem to want/require/need Change from time to time.

They end up restructuring their team(s). 'Reorg' is an often heard term.
Or they want their technology stack to change.
Or they want to bring in new Processes.
Or they bring in new people, fire some old ones, etc. etc. etc.

Depending on luck, individuals like me can get caught up in the politics of it or not.

Questions like "Are these changes required? Are they fair/correct?" come to mind and discussions inevitably take place between colleagues and we all feel miserable for a long period of time.

I have not been able to describe this phenomenon previously, but after hearing about 'The Churn' in an episode in The Expanse, I finally got convinced that this is it.

Excerpt from blog https://medium.com/anomalous-engineering/welcome-to-the-churn-5c201b3e9759 explaining what 'The Churn' is:

"When the jungle tears itself down and builds itself into something new."
...
"Some things are so fundamental that you can only survive them, or not"
...
"Until the Churn settles into whatever the fuck the New Normal becomes, we could be the looters, or the volunteers stopping them, or victims, or just bystanders"

And to maximize our chances of survival, the below blog suggests we should make ourselves 'deserving' of survival.

The Churn is inevitable, so there is no point in wasting time & energy in discussing it. It's better to use that time & energy to become more 'deserving' of survival.

As programmers, team-members, how can we become more 'deserving' of survival?

2 things come to mind:
1) by continuously putting in effort to improve our skills
2) by continuously putting in effort to be nice/fair to our colleagues

Next time, I am tempted to discuss 'stuff' about The Churn, I will try to remind myself - "It's The Churn man... There is no point in discussing/fighting it"

(The Churn - https://medium.com/anomalous-engineering/welcome-to-the-churn-5c201b3e9759)

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