[suls]

Great inisght. I've recently been wondering how I can rebase my values to achieve the same behaviour. You seem like you had a different mindset before -- how were you able to rewire yourself?

Also, just curious:

> [..] but that's not for me to decide [..] When things go wrong, you either move on or start fixing things [..]

Start fixing things is your own decision or do you wait until someone asks you?

[ThomaszKrueger]

I do my best to have someone tell me to fix them. Not because I lack initiative, but because I saw too many times well- intentioned developers get in a lot of trouble by "taking the initiative" to make things better, to fix things. To the point where one place I worked the word "refactor" was spoken with a high degree of suspicion.

[watwut]

Part of the problem is that well-intentioned developers don't always get it right. The assumption in these discussions seems to be that every time developer starts refactoring, the system is bound to end up better then before. The reality is, that the refactoring attempt may end up as bad or even worst then before - it may end up over-engineered, under-engineered or simply buggy, slower or loosing features people actually liked. Unfinished refactoring basically forces everyone to deal with two different architectures at once which causes quite a lot of problems.

I think that these kinds of experience are behind the word "refactor" being suspicious at some places.

The other issue is that "I am taking initiative" is sometimes euphemism for "I am going to do things my way and don't care to argue with other team members/departments who I expect to obey me anyway by default" power grab which leads to people rejecting changes even as they are right.