You can buy attendance, You can buy hours, But the feeling that "this system is mine" is Not for Sale!
The night an entire cloud region went down under us, I watched something that no on call policy can produce. Engineers joining the incident bridge who were not on call, had not been paged, and had every right to be asleep. Nobody summoned them. The recovery ran for thirty hours, and the people who owned those systems treated the outage the way you treat a fire in your own house. Not because a…
The night a cloud region collapsed, team members who were off-duty joined the emergency response. These engineers, unsummoned, worked tirelessly for thirty hours, treating the incident as they would a fire in their home. The explanation for their dedication is often cited as exceptional work ethic, but this overlooks the fact that ownership of the systems played a crucial role.
The engineers felt a sense of ownership, treating the systems as their own, which led to their responsible behavior. This ownership was not handed to them, but earned through daily, mundane practices. These practices included protecting their leave time, ensuring they were never called upon while on vacation, and cross-training each other to ensure continuous coverage.
The team also settled their leave calendars and credited each other publicly for their work. This culture was built on respect and ownership, with engineers feeling a strong sense of responsibility towards their systems. The feeling that the system was theirs was not something that could be purchased or bought, but something that needed to be earned through consistent, respectful behavior.
This ownership translated into accountability, with engineers feeling responsible for their systems and not needing to be asked every time something went wrong. This was not charity, but a chain of respect and ownership. However, there is a potential pitfall in this philosophy. If a manager interprets the engineers' willingness to work late as a resource to be budgeted or allocated, it can lead to exploitation.
The engineers' willingness to work late is a gift, and if it is treated as a budget line, it can lead to a loss of trust and respect. This reciprocity needs to be maintained, with engineers being available at 2 AM and receiving compensation for their efforts. The same philosophy also comes with obligations, such as being the first to respond at 2 AM and receiving compensation for those hours. This mutual respect and ownership is crucial in maintaining a healthy and productive team.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
