[120581] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Revisiting the Aviation Safety vs. Networking discussion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dobbins, Roland)
Thu Dec 24 21:55:21 2009
From: "Dobbins, Roland" <rdobbins@arbor.net>
To: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 02:51:11 +0000
In-Reply-To: <5A6D953473350C4B9995546AFE9939EE081F7118@RWC-EX1.corp.seven.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Dec 25, 2009, at 9:27 AM, George Bonser wrote:
> Capt. Sullenberger did not need to fill out an incident
> report, bring up a conference bridge, and give a detailed description of
> what was happening with his plane, the status of all subsystems, and his
> proposed plan of action (subject to consensus of those on the conference
> bridge) and get approval for deviation from his initial flight plan
> before he took the required actions to land the plane as best as he
> could under the circumstances.
Conversely, the ever-increasing outright hostility and contempt evinced tow=
ards their customers by airlines worldwide - especially US-based airlines =
- over the last decade or so, all in the name of 'regulations', offers a us=
eful counterexample.
When it comes to larger organizations, this latter scenario is more the nor=
m than what you describe, in my experience. Critical problems are left unr=
esolved for days/weeks/months; if one attempts to report an issue which is =
causing problems for many of an organizations customers worldwide, but one =
isn't oneself a direct customer of said organization, one is often as not i=
gnored and shunted aside.
This isn't specific to the SP realm; it's simply a function of increased si=
ze, which leads to increased bureaucritization, which leads to dehumanizati=
on and the subordination of the organization's ostensible goals to internal=
politics, one-upsmanship, and blame-laying, no matter the industry in ques=
tion. The folks with a can-do attitude who're willing to buck the system i=
n order to do the right thing for the customer stand out in stark contrast =
to their peers, and in many cases end up paying a price in terms of career =
advancement because of their willingness to Do The Right Thing.
'Process' is all too often merely a ruse designed to avoid responsibility, =
shift blame/liability, justify hiring lower-cost/unqualified employees whil=
st shedding expensive/competent employees, and indulge in empire-building. =
We've seen this throughout corporate America with the 'permanent Y2K' of S=
oX and HIPAA, and the increasing involvement of government in terms of tele=
communications-related rule-making which ends up directly affecting SPs.
I'm a big advocate of standards and change-control, and not an advocate of =
seat-of-the-pants, midnight engineering - except when the latter is necessa=
ry, as in the examples you give. =20
Unfortunately, many folks who work in larger organizations are actively pro=
hibited from indulging in fluid, situationally-approrpriate problem resolut=
ion; and because of the aforementioned siloing of ops and engineering, thei=
r valuable first-hand experiences and the lessons learned thereby aren't ta=
ken into account during the design and rulemaking processes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Roland Dobbins <rdobbins@arbor.net> // <http://www.arbornetworks.com>
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
-- H.L. Mencken
