The paradox of helpfulness [LWN.net]

The paradox of helpfulness

Posted Mar 27, 2006 12:12 UTC (Mon) by ctg (subscriber, #3459)
Parent article: A day in the life of the CentOS team

"It all ends happily though".

Not really. This guy's problem solving strategy is to find someone, and
shout at them until his problem is solved. So all that has happened is
that he has been reinforced in his belief that this strategy works. He
has shouted. The problem has been solved.

The second thing is that this demonstrates the paradox of being helpful.
If you go out of your way to help someone, as is this case here, are you
thanked?

No. It simply confirms to the person that because you are able to solve
the problem, then it must have been your fault in the first place - so
why must you be thanked? This happens whenever there is a situation where
the problem is beyond the comprehension of the persion experiencing the
impact of the problem. In other words, all the time in IT.

So I don't find this story funny. Just depressingly sad, and certainly
without a happy ending.

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The paradox of helpfulness

Posted Mar 27, 2006 13:22 UTC (Mon) by ordonnateur (guest, #6652) [Link]

"It simply confirms to the person that because you are able to solve
the problem, then it must have been your fault in the first place - so
why must you be thanked? This happens whenever there is a situation where
the problem is beyond the comprehension of the persion experiencing the
impact of the problem. In other words, all the time in IT"

You forgot to add, if you solve the problem so easily it confirms that what you do must be really trivial and therefore not worthy of learning by busy [self]important people.