[hinkley]

I think in some ways this strategy, which I also employ, is rejecting the grind, rather than embracing it.

Generally I have coworkers who embrace the grind - One group happily show up to do some mind numbingly manual and error prone process, even going beyond apologizing into protecting it. That's one form of job security, but it leeches talent from the company. The other group abhors it and will try to do literally anything else to avoid going through it, including making all new things that turn out to be almost as bad (and never quite managing to get rid of the original).

Going through the grind a couple times and making sure that nobody else has to go through it ever again is acknowledging the grind, and then doing something about it.

[dopidopHN]

Important distinction you’re making.

For me the litmus test is documentation.

Make a active effort to at least explain in plain English was the grind is and what it’s is purpose, then having a stab at documenting the steps.

It’s never a one time thing. Most likely you need to do it a few time manually. You won’t get all the steps right, and automating it will likely be a tall order; otherwise it would be done already.

But like you said I encounter groups of engineers that transform the grind into a cottage industry. They don’t publish their knowledge, they are the expert on it and one of the few group that can execute on those story. It’s depressing.

And you demasked me: by making it better and more documented I want to kill the grind. Or at least offload it to another group. ( BA, users, OPS running grind.sh )

[hinkley]

Some things are just very hard to explain for various reasons. One of them is that it's painful to look at how stupid some processes are.

But like the rubber duck technique, sometimes trying to 'document the bullshit' connects some dots in your brain and lets you either avoid the most frustrating part or at least chip away at it. And sometimes chipping away at a problem gets other people to contribute as well. Hope is a powerful thing.

It's kind of a Hail Mary Play but even the 'bad' outcome is far better than inaction.