Hello HN,<p>I just got off a two hour call where 30 engineers provided feedback on terminology being used to write a spec. This is important, and I get its important. I just sat there getting increasingly resentful on why this wasn't an emailed link on which people could comment?<p>Yesterday, I sat through an hour long presentation in which we got three slides through. It was on a protocol for data transfer but as soon as the speaker got past the intro and into the overview slides there were a million questions and suggestions on why he should have done things differently. I left wondering why didn't they at least let him finish? Most of the answers were on the subsequent slides.<p>On Friday, I was outlining a plan for a connection setup protocol in host software to a colleague who kept on objecting to various issues, and for every issue I'd address he'd bring up yet another issue. After about 35 mins I realized he wanted to do it in firmware; as soon as I did I called him on it, and presented my alternate design for firmware -- he then spent 60 mins objecting to every detail only to end up with the same protocol except the field names in the data structures were 2-8b wider.<p>I get it. I'm an engineer too. Engineers love this sort of thing. It's also intrinsically part of the process that makes things better and brings new ideas to the table. But on a personal level, I can't handle the tedium anymore. It's not them, it's me.<p>Where do I go from here?
It's actually not you, it's them. That's bad culture. Overstuffed meetings intended to solicit feedback are a waste of time. That meeting should indeed have been an email. Your colleague meanwhile is a time-wasting, intellectually dishonest asshole, and ideally their career should be crippled until they learn to communicate like a human being.<p>Good engineers know that software development is a give and take, and will fixate on crucial things and leave other things that they can live with in the name of getting along. Good engineers also respect the time and expertise of their peers.<p>I'm leaving my current job over this. I've been in a harmonious team where design sessions were easy and painless and there was mutual respect for peers, and now, having not being in such an environment for some years has been extremely painful.