i think the reason this works is an implication that the article doesn't explicitly cover:
if you tell somebody you're going to to do something, you're not asking them to take responsibility. you're telling them that you're taking responsibility for whatever you're going to do. If you ask somebody's permission, you're asking them to take some portion of responsibility for what you're doing.
which is the same risk that the sibling comment is warning about - if you're trying to do this for things that you aren't ultimately responsible for, you're goign to piss people off. only take responsibility for things that are actually within your area of responsibility.
This is a point that tends to kill introverted/insecure people I think. They assume that asking for permission is making things easier for people, but there's a limit where you're not allowing others to delegate responsibility onto you. Your job is for others to not have to think about the things you take care of.
You can only take responsibility if you also have ownership. Large organizations very quickly become like communist state, nobody own anything and any individual action is suspicious.
My rubric is irrelevant--I promised I wouldn't try to argue against whatever countries got named. I'm just curious what people consider a successful communist country.
I think you can look at different lenses of success. Vietnam successfully defeated a much, much more powerful imperial force. They have fewer freedoms, and are still recovering from the generational damage dealt to them, and they are hardly without plenty of valid criticisms. But they've had successes.
China is a major global power. I think you'd have to accept that China is successful, even if that success doesn't reach every person. And I think it's fair to point at China and ask just how communist it really is. (Then again, I think it's fair to point at the US and ask how idealistically capitalist they are.)
Cuba has some of the highest literacy rates in the world, they have a developed medical care system with lower infant mortality, high vaccination rates, and they have developed their own effective vaccines for things like covid. They've eliminated measles. They enjoy a longer life expectancy than US citizens. And they've achieved those successes with an embargo that has made it difficult for Cuba to trade globally.
This is why I was probing for rubrics, because I think one can definitely find success in communist governments, and you'll also find corruption. And you'll find crime and war. And there's no clear story of "across all axes they are successful".
Would I rather live in any of these? It's complicated! I think there are very few countries right now that are primarily focused on the welfare of their people.
Vietnam is legit a good place to live tbh. My wife is Vietnamese and we visit at least twice a year.
Without making any value judgment on the government itself. I think it’s healthy for the planet to have people grow up in as many kinds of environments as possible. You know, as long as it’s not a full on totalitarian regime like North Korea or a place where women are treated like objects like anywhere ran under sharia law.
I think it's useful to distinguish between political system and economic system. The traditional communist system was to have both a one-party state and state ownership of the means of production.
Vietnam and China still have one-party states but have transitioned to market economies. The fact that there are Chinese billionaires implies that they are no longer communist.
Cuba is still a traditional communist country--mostly because of sanctions. But they would love to become a market economy.
North Korea is the other one with both a one-party state and autarkic control over the economy.
Would I want to live in any of these countries? Absolutely not. I would rather be a median American than a median Chinese or Vietnamese.
I think it's plausible China and US invert in that calculus over the next 30 years. The median US person (anecdotally) feels to me like they are getting worse and worse stakes. $45k a year is not a lot these days. Chinese are investing heavily in infrastructure in a way that's appearing to build a healthy amount of economic potential. Whereas the US is... struggling. Global happiness index scores for China and Vietnam have risen dramatically, while the US is sliding down.
But I could be wrong. Maybe there will be a reversion.
America’s freeing its slave population is similarly redistribution of the means of production to the general population. Which seems strange to modern ears, but the communist manifesto 1848 predates the US civil war 1861–1865.
I'm not going to disagree with the idea of the state redistributing wealth via taxes/benefits or even nationalized resources (e.g., mineral rights or FCC spectrum). Both have been features of US capitalism almost since the founding.
But if you're saying the US is a successful communist country... well, I promised I wouldn't argue.
I agree. Moreover, socialism and capitalism are not antithetical--they are orthogonal. Norway and the US have socialism (e.g., Social Security) and capitalism (e.g., people invest their capital to fund industry).
Socialism without capitalism is communism--the state owns everything.
Capitalism without socialism is anarchy: if you don't socialize a legal system, law enforcement, and national defense, then you don't have a country.
Anarchism exists within socialism too-- the anti Francoist anarchists in Spain who were crushed by Soviets for doing the wrong kind of socialism, for example. Kropotkin's approach and anarcho syndacalism is anti-statist, and also anti-capitalist.
Anarchism is a complex area that can be capitalist, socialist, individualist, collectivist, primitivist, techno..logist? Basically, like communism, anarchism doesn't have just one flavor.
Fair, to be clear I wouldn’t actually call the US a communist country either. I would say it’s more communist than modern day China, granted that’s a low bar.
What’s IMO worth considering is just how much more communist it is today than in 1776. 22 million Americans work directly for the government (fed, state, local, post office etc), that rises significantly when you include research grants, government contractors, farm subsidies, etc. K-12 education, Qualified immunity (1967), banking laws, etc the government is both getting a stranglehold on the economy and continues extending its reach.
We are closer to nominally capitalist than I think anyone wants to admit and in ways both parties quietly agree with. That isn’t to say we need “smaller government” just understanding of what’s happening.
Basic government functions like the military aren’t communist.
Communism however is when the government does everything. Thus there’s a threshold where more government control is more Communist.
40% of US corn is turned into ethanol not because the free market thinks it’s a good idea but because the government does. That’s Communism in action inside the US, it’s inefficient central planning that fits right into the kind of stupid economic decisions you’d see in the USSR. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/widgets/10339
China claims to be building a successful communist state. The argument goes that you need to have wealth first before you can redistribute it, and China is currently in the wealth-building phase of achieving communism.
This is the end goal of one form of communism, but certainly not the end goal of communism. Many communists want a strong state and see a single party as desirable.
huh, that's an interesting perspective. I've never thought of it that way. This framing could explain some of the bullshit I went through with a politicking manager and a less experienced leader.
Personally, I tend to assume accountability for things I lead, but as a manager, of course, I am also responsible and accountable for my team; including both things I signed off on and things I didn't (because I entrusted that independence to them.) It's an interesting line to walk.
Another reason is that you're making a choice for them.
We think we like more choices, but it's generally proven that having less makes it easier to decide.
One path is: "fuck sake, I need to review all of this and make an informed decision". The other is: "If I have time I'll check it otherwise who cares".
There's another benefit in the change of tone: you're preserving their authority, while at the same time making things easier.
Do NOT do this with your manager. The key part of this article is:
> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to, it’s common to reach out and ask them for permission. Don’t. Don’t ask for a yes. Instead, offer a chance to say no, but with a deadline.
If something is not in scope for your responsibility, obviously you must ask for permission.
If something is in scope for your responsibility, then just do the thing.
If it's in some weird edge case where you "feel" it is "in scope for your position" but you "want a bit of reassurance", then pick a lane. Either do the thing or ask for permission. Probably default to asking for permission unless a knowledgeable colleague tells you it's your call.
But setting some kind of deadline for your manager to opt-out is extremely disrespectful. If I ever had a report try to pull a stunt like that, it would be the first thing we'd talk about in our next 1-1.
Because if you have a manager who usually responds promptly, then you can ask for permission and get a quick reply. "Asking for no" is not making it more convenient for your manager, it comes across as trying to usurp their authority. "Hey, I'm going to tell HR you gave approval for a raise unless I hear from you by noon." That's... just not how anything works.
And if you have a manager who often misses e-mails or takes forever to respond, then it comes across as trying to take advantage of that to do stuff they wouldn't approve, in a sneaky way.
This is a bad look in every possible situation. Do not do this.
Like, if you're a journalist telling a source you'll print the story unless you get a correction by a deadline, OK fine. If you're looping in a peer as a courtesy (NOT a manager), then OK. But with your manager? That's crazy.
I think missing from these conversations is the work environments involved. At a large company, a lot of what you said is true. At a startup, almost everything is in scope for everyone. I mean, someone has to do the thing. Part of the ask-telling is broadly communicating "I'm doing this unless someone else has already started on it or strongly wishes to do it themselves."
> And if you have a manager who often misses e-mails or takes forever to respond, then it comes across as trying to take advantage of that to do stuff they wouldn't approve, in a sneaky way.
I strongly disagree with that. Such a person is not a good manager. Their job is to be on top of things and keep their reports unblocked. If their reports are stuck waiting on them, or they claim ignorance of things they've been told about but neglected, they're not doing their job and have to be routed around.
This is a very strident response, presented with a lot of confidence, and I think that confidence is unwarranted.
I haven’t read the article, so maybe it’s been covered, but here’s a simple way I usually “ask for no.” I send a message on Slack:
“Hey (name), I’m planning to (do a thing) on Wednesday. Let me know if you have concerns.”
It doesn’t come across as usurping authority, or sneaky, or any of the other very italicized things you’re worried about. It comes across as polite and confident.
I’m a VP and this is how I expect my managers to interact with me on major decisions that are within their purview (I don’t need to hear about minor decisions) and it’s also the culture I’m trying to create at the team contributor level as well. Ownership and autonomy, within well-defined guardrails.
See also Turn the Ship Around and its “I intend to” structure.
The culture you are creating is actually the opposite: no ownership, and no autonomy
You are delegating decisions that are in your responsibility to another person (=no ownership), and you are not able to progress unless someone else [even if silently] green lights your approach (=no autonomy).
Another similar management anti-pattern is “please copy me on all your communications” [for a chance to override your decisions]. This one feels more obviously off for many people, but works exactly the same way.
This is a valid team collaboration approach, but a major smell if people run their decision making like this with higher-ups. People often mix up these two.
> If something is not in scope for your responsibility, obviously you must ask for permission.
Agree, but this can often be blurry.
> If it's in some weird edge case where you "feel" it is "in scope for your position" but you "want a bit of reassurance", then pick a lane.
I disagree here. I think there are often cases where this really functions as an "FYI" and is helpful. You are not shifting responsibility to the other party, but do...
* CYA if they say they weren't informed
* Get an opportunity for feedback without stalling progress in the case that they don't respond
This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.
There's a big difference between "I'm going to put this into prod on tuesday unless you tell me otherwise" vs "I'm going to put a prototype together for review on Tuesday unless you tell me this is a waste of time"
> This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.
Not really. The advice is prefixed with this context.
> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to
Basically it's saying if it's your job to make this decision, but it's something where the boss needs to know (or you need them to know because you need a small amount of reassurance), then asking for "yes" fails to communicate your understanding in that regard.
Asking for "yes" says it's the boss's job to make this decision - but we're talking about decisions where you believe it's your job make it.
An easy example: you need 5 minutes of planned downtime (which is entirely within SLAs) to execute a major upgrade, but the system is also used by Sales for demos to major new clients. "We're going to take 5 minutes of downtime on Wednesday evening for an upgrade. Contact me ASAP if this is a problem for you." If you don't hear from the team, then it's OK to go.
> Hey, @waisbrot. You didn't mention anything in your note whether you got a response from the Sales team. I got a call from the VP Sales. He's pissed. You know they're at [big sales conference] and busy. The system outage impacted two Top 10 customer account demos. Why didn't you call me if you thought it was important or ask for an affirmative confirmation from the sales team before rolling out changes? Sorry, but I can't trust you. Bring all similar changes to me for approval from now on.
Of course there are routine things or items in your competency that allow for your boss to prioritize supervision elsewhere.
The prospect of going rogue, lighting a fuse, and then potentially setting off fireworks is the nuance being argued here by me and @slowcache.
Taking it at face value makes it good advice and interpreting it as CYA hedging makes it bad advice. My bet is the author intended the good advice they actually said rather than the bad faith guess to what they meant that makes it bad advice.
And there are plenty of things that are your job, but you would like the boss in the loop on without actually making it their job.
You say if it's your job then do it, and that's roughly what the advice given here is. The only place you're in disagreement is that you don't see any room for nuance when something is your job but worth notifying the boss about in advance.
> The only place you're in disagreement is that you don't see any room for nuance when something is your job but worth notifying the boss about in advance.
You read a different article.
FTA:
> ”Hey, boss, I am going to install action X, which should solve the XYZ problems we’ve been having. Will take care of this on Monday unless I hear differently from you.”
The parent's point is that lighting a fuse and saying you'll do something when the fuse runs out regardless of the boss' approval in a situation where you want to run something by them...is career suicide.
FTA:
> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to, it’s common to reach out and ask them for permission. Don’t. Don’t ask for a yes. Instead, offer a chance to say no, but with a deadline.
The qualifiers of "needing reassurance" and "asking for permission" combined with a notification on a fuse is way different framing than "notifying the boss about it in advance."
> The parent's point is that lighting a fuse and saying you'll do something when the fuse runs out regardless of the boss' approval in a situation where you want to run something by them...is career suicide.
It's not, if that action is a part of your job, something you COULD do just on your own but "you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to".
It's not really a notification on a fuse, that's a framing you've put on it. It's giving sufficient advanced notice.
Huge disagree, as a manager. It depends on the thing, of course. If you're rushing into a giant re-architecture by Tuesday, that's dumb. If you have some change you want to make, go for it.
My default is to trust engineers based on my experience with and expectations for them. If they want input—anything from a deep review to a gut check—I'm happy to help. If you're looking for a gut check, this is a fine way to do it. It communicates your level of confidence, which is an important data point for me.
If someone is adding a GH action, do we need a prototype? Maybe! But also maybe not. Bias towards action. Not YOLOing, not hacked together crap, not vibe code merged without review. But I've found that great engineers are often more hamstrung by permission checks than the issues they're meant to prevent.
I have always used this method and my managers love me because they know I get important shit done without much supervision or needing dozens of planning meetings.
It doesn’t even feel like there is any leash at all.
Of course the company i work at isn’t extremely disfunctional and a growing startup, so once we move into enterprise territory it might change the culture and it’s more about saving your ass and less about doing actual work.
Some people have a much better instinct for when and how to ask for permission than others, including when "asking for no" is the right move. It's a dance with nuance and it's hard to capture it as advice in an article.
> This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.
If abused.
I've used this a few times for things that are in my remit, or very close to, that need doing or there will may well be more problems down the line for me or the local team more generally. If there isn't a particular problem with the intended action, I'm removing the need for someone else to make a proper positive decision. It is particularly useful when things are getting delayed by too many cooks trying to season the broth, or when it is going to require out-of-hours work and I want to push things towards a timeframe convenient for me.
Of course there are some large caveats:
* You need to be trusted, i.e. have a record of doing things both right and well, being appropriately careful with back-out plans and such, and if there have ever been mistakes on your part you need to have owned and rectified them quickly. It isn't going to fly if you are new or otherwise unknown, etc.
* You have to be complete but concise in the description of what you are doing, including what your “oh, fuck” roll-back plans are.
* You have to include everyone relevant in the announcement of your planned action, and send the notification at a time when they are likely to read it before you do the do. If there is someone key missing and others notice they will stop you, and if they don't notice and something goes wrong you have lost your trusted status for quite some time for being deceptive.
* Be prepared to be told no. Check just before the appointed time, and delay yourself a little and check again in case of a last minute “shit, no, don't do that” if someone spots a problem with the plan a little late.
* You need to trust the others around you to speak up if there is a problem, though getting negative decision can be a lot easier than getting a positive one so this isn't the most important part of this point. The most important part is you need to trust them to speak up and not enjoy watching you make a mess so they can hang you out later :)
Though having been taken over by a larger company this year, I don't think I'll ever do this again because the layers of bullshit are just too vast for it to be a safe tactic. Younger me might still have taken the chance, but I have a healthier level of not giving a shit these days - instead of “I'm doing X at time Y unless you say no” because “I really should do X at time Y otherwise problems A, B & C will arise” and if I don't get the go-ahead and problems do arise I'm the one enjoying schadenfreude⁰ and demanding overtime rates if they want me to work extra to deal with issues due to not doing the thing.
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[0] I know this is a slightly unhealthy attitude, and this is one of the reasons that I'm increasingly thinking that I need a significant career change¹.
[1] the main two reasons being not being happy working remote², it isn't good for my mental health, and not caring to engage with A-bleedin'-I, two massive things that increasingly mark me as not fitting in with the dev industry.
[2] I know I'm fairly unusual here and it seems to work better for many (most?) people, no need to take this as an insult to those of you gleefully working on remote teams or wanting to and jealous of those that can!
It works with teams, when you have the authority to do something, but do a non-blocking check as a courtesy:
"Heads-up: I plan to delete the old scratch volume at Tue 14:00 ET, unless anyone objects before then. (It only contains the old Debian APT cache, and 974 copies of the same YouTube video.)"
This is one of the articles where I'm immediately grateful to the author to have written it down. Very good and easy to pick up point, actionable advice. I would just slightly modify it, don't create a time bomb. "I would like to... until date XY" should achieve the same effect -- not inviting bikeshedding or delaying action, sending "I got this" -- without pressurising anyone else for taking a decision or too much responsibility.
> "hey, boss, can we install action X?"
> "Hey, boss, I am going to install action X."
They are literally the same thing to me.
The tone change don't really effect my decision path, both triggers "reviewing of the XYZ problem", a.k.a "why?". People who don't do that either trusts you a lot, or never worked professionally before and maybe about to learn a lesson from it.
It has to come with appropriate information, not just a date.
I usually ask for a twisted "STAR" if this is presented to me.
Give me context (who, what, where, when), the planned action in short (and other choices that were considered and why they were abandoned), and the result that the choice will have.
If i have all these, i can quickly context switch, and ask follow ups if needed, or just let it move forward.
This is conceptually what AWS asks for in a one pager.
> It has to come with appropriate information, not just a date.
That's a great point. You need to give the manager enough info they can determine if it makes sense to intervene. Sometimes they have enough context that a date for a decision is all they need, other times you need to provide more details.
I've heard this called "lazy consensus". Basically, rather than say, "Is it OK if I do X?" Say, "I'm going to do X on date Y unless someone objects." Particularly useful as the number of stakeholders grows.
This was in my staff documentation and it’s now in my AGENTS.md: tell don’t ask.
If there is a decision that you need to make don’t ask me for input, do the thing that you think makes sense and then write down what you did and why.
If it’s the wrong thing I’ll update the docs to make it clear for next time.
Without this I would always wake up in the morning to an inbox full of questions and no work done, rather than an inbox full of finished tasks and maybe a couple of corrections.
With LLMs if I ask for a code analysis and plan to fix something they tend to put a list of questions at the end about which they want confirmation.
Then I have to waste time saying yes or no or coming up with the solution. If I tell them to instead just make assumptions and record them all at the end then I only need to correct 1 or 2 assumptions if required.
This would work only in a high trust, structured environment. I know at my job if we said this it would be met with a likely scolding not to assume anything and to ask for a YES.
Learned this one dealing with bureaucracy at uni - and don’t leave someone’s office until you know where you’re going next. “I can’t do that” - no problem, who can, and where can I find them?
Some people are so terrified of saying yes, having it go wrong, and getting blamed for the consequences that they come across as pathologically incapable of saying yes. I have worked for such people. Briefly.
i think the reason this works is an implication that the article doesn't explicitly cover:
if you tell somebody you're going to to do something, you're not asking them to take responsibility. you're telling them that you're taking responsibility for whatever you're going to do. If you ask somebody's permission, you're asking them to take some portion of responsibility for what you're doing.
which is the same risk that the sibling comment is warning about - if you're trying to do this for things that you aren't ultimately responsible for, you're goign to piss people off. only take responsibility for things that are actually within your area of responsibility.
Absolutely!
This is a point that tends to kill introverted/insecure people I think. They assume that asking for permission is making things easier for people, but there's a limit where you're not allowing others to delegate responsibility onto you. Your job is for others to not have to think about the things you take care of.
You can only take responsibility if you also have ownership. Large organizations very quickly become like communist state, nobody own anything and any individual action is suspicious.
*failed communist state
In proper function, ownership is an essential identity of any government.
I would love to hear an example of a successful communist state. You can even restrict it to a limited period in time (USSR 1959-1968 or something).
I promise that I will not try to discredit your answer. I'm just curious what people think.
But if you come back with "the communism I have in mind hasn't been tried yet" then I will definitely make fun of your answer.
What is your rubric for successful? And does it shift if that state was the target of wars of aggression or embargoes?
My rubric is irrelevant--I promised I wouldn't try to argue against whatever countries got named. I'm just curious what people consider a successful communist country.
I think you can look at different lenses of success. Vietnam successfully defeated a much, much more powerful imperial force. They have fewer freedoms, and are still recovering from the generational damage dealt to them, and they are hardly without plenty of valid criticisms. But they've had successes.
China is a major global power. I think you'd have to accept that China is successful, even if that success doesn't reach every person. And I think it's fair to point at China and ask just how communist it really is. (Then again, I think it's fair to point at the US and ask how idealistically capitalist they are.)
Cuba has some of the highest literacy rates in the world, they have a developed medical care system with lower infant mortality, high vaccination rates, and they have developed their own effective vaccines for things like covid. They've eliminated measles. They enjoy a longer life expectancy than US citizens. And they've achieved those successes with an embargo that has made it difficult for Cuba to trade globally.
This is why I was probing for rubrics, because I think one can definitely find success in communist governments, and you'll also find corruption. And you'll find crime and war. And there's no clear story of "across all axes they are successful".
Would I rather live in any of these? It's complicated! I think there are very few countries right now that are primarily focused on the welfare of their people.
Vietnam is legit a good place to live tbh. My wife is Vietnamese and we visit at least twice a year.
Without making any value judgment on the government itself. I think it’s healthy for the planet to have people grow up in as many kinds of environments as possible. You know, as long as it’s not a full on totalitarian regime like North Korea or a place where women are treated like objects like anywhere ran under sharia law.
Currently, what are the countries that are most primarily focused on the welfare of their people? Those I would consider good countries.
I think it's useful to distinguish between political system and economic system. The traditional communist system was to have both a one-party state and state ownership of the means of production.
Vietnam and China still have one-party states but have transitioned to market economies. The fact that there are Chinese billionaires implies that they are no longer communist.
Cuba is still a traditional communist country--mostly because of sanctions. But they would love to become a market economy.
North Korea is the other one with both a one-party state and autarkic control over the economy.
Would I want to live in any of these countries? Absolutely not. I would rather be a median American than a median Chinese or Vietnamese.
I think it's plausible China and US invert in that calculus over the next 30 years. The median US person (anecdotally) feels to me like they are getting worse and worse stakes. $45k a year is not a lot these days. Chinese are investing heavily in infrastructure in a way that's appearing to build a healthy amount of economic potential. Whereas the US is... struggling. Global happiness index scores for China and Vietnam have risen dramatically, while the US is sliding down.
But I could be wrong. Maybe there will be a reversion.
If you’re open to a wider discussion.
Norway's and Alaska’s use of oil wealth to subsidize their population via state ownership of that wealth is very communist in nature.
Ancient Rome’s huge grain dole similarly was quite communist in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura_annonae
America’s freeing its slave population is similarly redistribution of the means of production to the general population. Which seems strange to modern ears, but the communist manifesto 1848 predates the US civil war 1861–1865.
I'm not going to disagree with the idea of the state redistributing wealth via taxes/benefits or even nationalized resources (e.g., mineral rights or FCC spectrum). Both have been features of US capitalism almost since the founding.
But if you're saying the US is a successful communist country... well, I promised I wouldn't argue.
I'll argue -- socialist is not the same as communist. Norway is not a communist country (despite arguably being a socialist one).
I agree. Moreover, socialism and capitalism are not antithetical--they are orthogonal. Norway and the US have socialism (e.g., Social Security) and capitalism (e.g., people invest their capital to fund industry).
Socialism without capitalism is communism--the state owns everything.
Capitalism without socialism is anarchy: if you don't socialize a legal system, law enforcement, and national defense, then you don't have a country.
East India company and its armies are something of a counter argument to your second point.
Anarchism exists within socialism too-- the anti Francoist anarchists in Spain who were crushed by Soviets for doing the wrong kind of socialism, for example. Kropotkin's approach and anarcho syndacalism is anti-statist, and also anti-capitalist.
Anarchism is a complex area that can be capitalist, socialist, individualist, collectivist, primitivist, techno..logist? Basically, like communism, anarchism doesn't have just one flavor.
> I promise I wouldn’t argue
Fair, to be clear I wouldn’t actually call the US a communist country either. I would say it’s more communist than modern day China, granted that’s a low bar.
What’s IMO worth considering is just how much more communist it is today than in 1776. 22 million Americans work directly for the government (fed, state, local, post office etc), that rises significantly when you include research grants, government contractors, farm subsidies, etc. K-12 education, Qualified immunity (1967), banking laws, etc the government is both getting a stranglehold on the economy and continues extending its reach.
We are closer to nominally capitalist than I think anyone wants to admit and in ways both parties quietly agree with. That isn’t to say we need “smaller government” just understanding of what’s happening.
Communism is not "when the government does stuff", and "the more the government does, the more communist it is".
Basic government functions like the military aren’t communist.
Communism however is when the government does everything. Thus there’s a threshold where more government control is more Communist.
40% of US corn is turned into ethanol not because the free market thinks it’s a good idea but because the government does. That’s Communism in action inside the US, it’s inefficient central planning that fits right into the kind of stupid economic decisions you’d see in the USSR. https://afdc.energy.gov/data/widgets/10339
China claims to be building a successful communist state. The argument goes that you need to have wealth first before you can redistribute it, and China is currently in the wealth-building phase of achieving communism.
If only things in life worked as well as things on paper
The end goal of communism is supposed to be the elimination of government - a stateless, classless and functionally anarchist society.
Unsurprisingly no state which ever implemented communism ever took that part seriously.
This is the end goal of one form of communism, but certainly not the end goal of communism. Many communists want a strong state and see a single party as desirable.
There's many different communist philosophies.
huh, that's an interesting perspective. I've never thought of it that way. This framing could explain some of the bullshit I went through with a politicking manager and a less experienced leader.
Personally, I tend to assume accountability for things I lead, but as a manager, of course, I am also responsible and accountable for my team; including both things I signed off on and things I didn't (because I entrusted that independence to them.) It's an interesting line to walk.
Another reason is that you're making a choice for them.
We think we like more choices, but it's generally proven that having less makes it easier to decide.
One path is: "fuck sake, I need to review all of this and make an informed decision". The other is: "If I have time I'll check it otherwise who cares".
There's another benefit in the change of tone: you're preserving their authority, while at the same time making things easier.
Do NOT do this with your manager. The key part of this article is:
> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to, it’s common to reach out and ask them for permission. Don’t. Don’t ask for a yes. Instead, offer a chance to say no, but with a deadline.
If something is not in scope for your responsibility, obviously you must ask for permission.
If something is in scope for your responsibility, then just do the thing.
If it's in some weird edge case where you "feel" it is "in scope for your position" but you "want a bit of reassurance", then pick a lane. Either do the thing or ask for permission. Probably default to asking for permission unless a knowledgeable colleague tells you it's your call.
But setting some kind of deadline for your manager to opt-out is extremely disrespectful. If I ever had a report try to pull a stunt like that, it would be the first thing we'd talk about in our next 1-1.
Because if you have a manager who usually responds promptly, then you can ask for permission and get a quick reply. "Asking for no" is not making it more convenient for your manager, it comes across as trying to usurp their authority. "Hey, I'm going to tell HR you gave approval for a raise unless I hear from you by noon." That's... just not how anything works.
And if you have a manager who often misses e-mails or takes forever to respond, then it comes across as trying to take advantage of that to do stuff they wouldn't approve, in a sneaky way.
This is a bad look in every possible situation. Do not do this.
Like, if you're a journalist telling a source you'll print the story unless you get a correction by a deadline, OK fine. If you're looping in a peer as a courtesy (NOT a manager), then OK. But with your manager? That's crazy.
I think missing from these conversations is the work environments involved. At a large company, a lot of what you said is true. At a startup, almost everything is in scope for everyone. I mean, someone has to do the thing. Part of the ask-telling is broadly communicating "I'm doing this unless someone else has already started on it or strongly wishes to do it themselves."
> And if you have a manager who often misses e-mails or takes forever to respond, then it comes across as trying to take advantage of that to do stuff they wouldn't approve, in a sneaky way.
I strongly disagree with that. Such a person is not a good manager. Their job is to be on top of things and keep their reports unblocked. If their reports are stuck waiting on them, or they claim ignorance of things they've been told about but neglected, they're not doing their job and have to be routed around.
This is a very strident response, presented with a lot of confidence, and I think that confidence is unwarranted.
I haven’t read the article, so maybe it’s been covered, but here’s a simple way I usually “ask for no.” I send a message on Slack:
“Hey (name), I’m planning to (do a thing) on Wednesday. Let me know if you have concerns.”
It doesn’t come across as usurping authority, or sneaky, or any of the other very italicized things you’re worried about. It comes across as polite and confident.
I’m a VP and this is how I expect my managers to interact with me on major decisions that are within their purview (I don’t need to hear about minor decisions) and it’s also the culture I’m trying to create at the team contributor level as well. Ownership and autonomy, within well-defined guardrails.
See also Turn the Ship Around and its “I intend to” structure.
The culture you are creating is actually the opposite: no ownership, and no autonomy
You are delegating decisions that are in your responsibility to another person (=no ownership), and you are not able to progress unless someone else [even if silently] green lights your approach (=no autonomy).
Another similar management anti-pattern is “please copy me on all your communications” [for a chance to override your decisions]. This one feels more obviously off for many people, but works exactly the same way.
This is a valid team collaboration approach, but a major smell if people run their decision making like this with higher-ups. People often mix up these two.
> If something is not in scope for your responsibility, obviously you must ask for permission.
Agree, but this can often be blurry.
> If it's in some weird edge case where you "feel" it is "in scope for your position" but you "want a bit of reassurance", then pick a lane.
I disagree here. I think there are often cases where this really functions as an "FYI" and is helpful. You are not shifting responsibility to the other party, but do...
* CYA if they say they weren't informed
* Get an opportunity for feedback without stalling progress in the case that they don't respond
> "Hey, I'm going to tell HR you gave approval for a raise unless I hear from you by noon." That's... just not how anything works.
I haven't seen a strawman this big since the county corn maize.
This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.
There's a big difference between "I'm going to put this into prod on tuesday unless you tell me otherwise" vs "I'm going to put a prototype together for review on Tuesday unless you tell me this is a waste of time"
> This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.
Not really. The advice is prefixed with this context.
> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to
Basically it's saying if it's your job to make this decision, but it's something where the boss needs to know (or you need them to know because you need a small amount of reassurance), then asking for "yes" fails to communicate your understanding in that regard.
Asking for "yes" says it's the boss's job to make this decision - but we're talking about decisions where you believe it's your job make it.
No. It's just CYA hedging.
If it's your job (per the "context"), then do it.
When you ask this question, it's either
A. escalating/DoA exception (not your authority)
B. Or giving yourself an out if something goes wrong for your existing DoA.
An easy example: you need 5 minutes of planned downtime (which is entirely within SLAs) to execute a major upgrade, but the system is also used by Sales for demos to major new clients. "We're going to take 5 minutes of downtime on Wednesday evening for an upgrade. Contact me ASAP if this is a problem for you." If you don't hear from the team, then it's OK to go.
You know the "no response" happens all the time.
OK. I'm your pointy haired boss Thursday morning.
> Hey, @waisbrot. You didn't mention anything in your note whether you got a response from the Sales team. I got a call from the VP Sales. He's pissed. You know they're at [big sales conference] and busy. The system outage impacted two Top 10 customer account demos. Why didn't you call me if you thought it was important or ask for an affirmative confirmation from the sales team before rolling out changes? Sorry, but I can't trust you. Bring all similar changes to me for approval from now on.
Of course there are routine things or items in your competency that allow for your boss to prioritize supervision elsewhere.
The prospect of going rogue, lighting a fuse, and then potentially setting off fireworks is the nuance being argued here by me and @slowcache.
Poor management will find a stick to beat you with whatever you do.
Taking it at face value makes it good advice and interpreting it as CYA hedging makes it bad advice. My bet is the author intended the good advice they actually said rather than the bad faith guess to what they meant that makes it bad advice.
And there are plenty of things that are your job, but you would like the boss in the loop on without actually making it their job.
You say if it's your job then do it, and that's roughly what the advice given here is. The only place you're in disagreement is that you don't see any room for nuance when something is your job but worth notifying the boss about in advance.
> The only place you're in disagreement is that you don't see any room for nuance when something is your job but worth notifying the boss about in advance.
You read a different article.
FTA:
> ”Hey, boss, I am going to install action X, which should solve the XYZ problems we’ve been having. Will take care of this on Monday unless I hear differently from you.”
The parent's point is that lighting a fuse and saying you'll do something when the fuse runs out regardless of the boss' approval in a situation where you want to run something by them...is career suicide.
FTA:
> When you have something you want to do and that you feel is in scope for your position, but you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to, it’s common to reach out and ask them for permission. Don’t. Don’t ask for a yes. Instead, offer a chance to say no, but with a deadline.
The qualifiers of "needing reassurance" and "asking for permission" combined with a notification on a fuse is way different framing than "notifying the boss about it in advance."
> The parent's point is that lighting a fuse and saying you'll do something when the fuse runs out regardless of the boss' approval in a situation where you want to run something by them...is career suicide.
It's not, if that action is a part of your job, something you COULD do just on your own but "you want a bit of reassurance or to let the boss know what you are up to".
It's not really a notification on a fuse, that's a framing you've put on it. It's giving sufficient advanced notice.
Huge disagree, as a manager. It depends on the thing, of course. If you're rushing into a giant re-architecture by Tuesday, that's dumb. If you have some change you want to make, go for it.
My default is to trust engineers based on my experience with and expectations for them. If they want input—anything from a deep review to a gut check—I'm happy to help. If you're looking for a gut check, this is a fine way to do it. It communicates your level of confidence, which is an important data point for me.
If someone is adding a GH action, do we need a prototype? Maybe! But also maybe not. Bias towards action. Not YOLOing, not hacked together crap, not vibe code merged without review. But I've found that great engineers are often more hamstrung by permission checks than the issues they're meant to prevent.
Well a prerequisite is knowing what you’re doing. If you don’t, then yeah, don’t use this approach.
Completely inverse to my lived experience.
I have always used this method and my managers love me because they know I get important shit done without much supervision or needing dozens of planning meetings. It doesn’t even feel like there is any leash at all.
Of course the company i work at isn’t extremely disfunctional and a growing startup, so once we move into enterprise territory it might change the culture and it’s more about saving your ass and less about doing actual work.
Some people have a much better instinct for when and how to ask for permission than others, including when "asking for no" is the right move. It's a dance with nuance and it's hard to capture it as advice in an article.
I've never seen anyone just "put something into prod" unless it was for a very small org.
Putting managers on babysitting duty is a workplace smell. A reckless dev is the least of your worries.
> I've never seen anyone just "put something into prod" unless it was for a very small org.
Missed the whole "move fast and break things" period?
No. Everyone else who survived was too busy building or fixing things.
> This is great advice to become a pain in the ass that managers know they need to keep on a short leash.
If abused.
I've used this a few times for things that are in my remit, or very close to, that need doing or there will may well be more problems down the line for me or the local team more generally. If there isn't a particular problem with the intended action, I'm removing the need for someone else to make a proper positive decision. It is particularly useful when things are getting delayed by too many cooks trying to season the broth, or when it is going to require out-of-hours work and I want to push things towards a timeframe convenient for me.
Of course there are some large caveats:
* You need to be trusted, i.e. have a record of doing things both right and well, being appropriately careful with back-out plans and such, and if there have ever been mistakes on your part you need to have owned and rectified them quickly. It isn't going to fly if you are new or otherwise unknown, etc.
* You have to be complete but concise in the description of what you are doing, including what your “oh, fuck” roll-back plans are.
* You have to include everyone relevant in the announcement of your planned action, and send the notification at a time when they are likely to read it before you do the do. If there is someone key missing and others notice they will stop you, and if they don't notice and something goes wrong you have lost your trusted status for quite some time for being deceptive.
* Be prepared to be told no. Check just before the appointed time, and delay yourself a little and check again in case of a last minute “shit, no, don't do that” if someone spots a problem with the plan a little late.
* You need to trust the others around you to speak up if there is a problem, though getting negative decision can be a lot easier than getting a positive one so this isn't the most important part of this point. The most important part is you need to trust them to speak up and not enjoy watching you make a mess so they can hang you out later :)
Though having been taken over by a larger company this year, I don't think I'll ever do this again because the layers of bullshit are just too vast for it to be a safe tactic. Younger me might still have taken the chance, but I have a healthier level of not giving a shit these days - instead of “I'm doing X at time Y unless you say no” because “I really should do X at time Y otherwise problems A, B & C will arise” and if I don't get the go-ahead and problems do arise I'm the one enjoying schadenfreude⁰ and demanding overtime rates if they want me to work extra to deal with issues due to not doing the thing.
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[0] I know this is a slightly unhealthy attitude, and this is one of the reasons that I'm increasingly thinking that I need a significant career change¹.
[1] the main two reasons being not being happy working remote², it isn't good for my mental health, and not caring to engage with A-bleedin'-I, two massive things that increasingly mark me as not fitting in with the dev industry.
[2] I know I'm fairly unusual here and it seems to work better for many (most?) people, no need to take this as an insult to those of you gleefully working on remote teams or wanting to and jealous of those that can!
I'm going to cause an expensive outage that will ruin the company, and our careers unless you say no to sugar in the coffee!!!!
It works with teams, when you have the authority to do something, but do a non-blocking check as a courtesy:
"Heads-up: I plan to delete the old scratch volume at Tue 14:00 ET, unless anyone objects before then. (It only contains the old Debian APT cache, and 974 copies of the same YouTube video.)"
This is one of the articles where I'm immediately grateful to the author to have written it down. Very good and easy to pick up point, actionable advice. I would just slightly modify it, don't create a time bomb. "I would like to... until date XY" should achieve the same effect -- not inviting bikeshedding or delaying action, sending "I got this" -- without pressurising anyone else for taking a decision or too much responsibility.
The tone change don't really effect my decision path, both triggers "reviewing of the XYZ problem", a.k.a "why?". People who don't do that either trusts you a lot, or never worked professionally before and maybe about to learn a lesson from it.
This is an AWS (and other FAANG) tenet.
It has to come with appropriate information, not just a date.
I usually ask for a twisted "STAR" if this is presented to me.
Give me context (who, what, where, when), the planned action in short (and other choices that were considered and why they were abandoned), and the result that the choice will have.
If i have all these, i can quickly context switch, and ask follow ups if needed, or just let it move forward. This is conceptually what AWS asks for in a one pager.
> It has to come with appropriate information, not just a date.
That's a great point. You need to give the manager enough info they can determine if it makes sense to intervene. Sometimes they have enough context that a date for a decision is all they need, other times you need to provide more details.
I've heard this called "lazy consensus". Basically, rather than say, "Is it OK if I do X?" Say, "I'm going to do X on date Y unless someone objects." Particularly useful as the number of stakeholders grows.
Hello $BOSS!
I have a code change that is so vital to the survival of our company that:
1. It requires your immediate review.
2. If you fail to respond by Monday, I will push it to production.
---
Can anyone suggest what is wrong here?
In general, the harder it is to undo and the broader the consequence, the more you need to check.
This is something that I've always believed. It's not new advice.
It's different from "Ask forgiveness; not permission," because it still loops in the manager.
The only problem, is that if you ask Legal, they say "no," pretty much by default.
> It's not new advice.
It will be new to someone.
https://xkcd.com/1053/
But even amongst those for whom it isn’t, sometimes a reminder of things you know is useful and may come at just the right time.
Good point. I didn't mean to be dismissive.
This was in my staff documentation and it’s now in my AGENTS.md: tell don’t ask.
If there is a decision that you need to make don’t ask me for input, do the thing that you think makes sense and then write down what you did and why.
If it’s the wrong thing I’ll update the docs to make it clear for next time.
Without this I would always wake up in the morning to an inbox full of questions and no work done, rather than an inbox full of finished tasks and maybe a couple of corrections.
With LLMs if I ask for a code analysis and plan to fix something they tend to put a list of questions at the end about which they want confirmation.
Then I have to waste time saying yes or no or coming up with the solution. If I tell them to instead just make assumptions and record them all at the end then I only need to correct 1 or 2 assumptions if required.
This is what advertising companies do to use your data unless you explicitly request to opt out. Hasn't worked out well
This would work only in a high trust, structured environment. I know at my job if we said this it would be met with a likely scolding not to assume anything and to ask for a YES.
Some previous discussion:
2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43144611
Another great Life Pro Tip is "Never accept 'no' from someone who can't say 'yes'."
Learned this one dealing with bureaucracy at uni - and don’t leave someone’s office until you know where you’re going next. “I can’t do that” - no problem, who can, and where can I find them?
Incapable of saying yes or not authorized to approve?
I don't think "incapable of saying yes" is a thing.
Some people are so terrified of saying yes, having it go wrong, and getting blamed for the consequences that they come across as pathologically incapable of saying yes. I have worked for such people. Briefly.
Covered in Chris Voss book Never Split the Difference. Works well in practice based on my own personal experiences.
Far canal, why is this news?
Does this also work when asking someone out? Or raising capital?
Answer: no, because you need the other person to actually do something.
These kinds of things work when you’re already in a relationship.
If it didn't work sometimes (in other cases), we wouldn't call them sociopaths.