Is a (popular?) saying that essentially means “There’s more than one way to do something”.
And the fact that there are many ways to do things makes for a lot of fun, after all variety is the spice of life! But it also brings a burden of having to sort through the options and pick the one most appropriate.
This should all be horribly familiar to most of us but I’m going to concentrate on engineers for the rest of this blog. See, engineers do some peculiar things when confronted with this reality:
- They invent all sorts of complex classification schemes in an attempt to determine the best solution.
- They often ignore available real-world data or worse the fact that there is no data.
- They declare one solution the solution for now and all time ignoring the fact that things change.
- They attempt to force their choice of solution on everyone else - “my way is the only way and all should follow because that’s what I’ve decided is best for you”.
- Once they’ve decided on the solution, no question or opposing view is acceptable.
If you have any of these tendencies take note:
- You are not infallible, your solution may not be the best.
- If someone else picked a better solution, it could cost you big time.
- If you keep pushing your solution without listening to others, you risk making yourself an outcast.
Then take a break, go get a chill pill and mend your ways. Be a little less prescriptive and thrive on that variety.
Technorati Tags: philosophy, engineering
Entries (RSS)