Stop pushing random buttons when someone offers help

Them: "Hey, I can’t deploy. The build fails with error X."

Me: "Let’s start by clearing the cache and rerunning the pipeline."

Them: "I tweaked an unrelated setting instead, and now I have error Y."

Me: "Okay, can we go back to the cache step?"

Them: "I restarted something else, and it seems fine now. Never mind."

Sound familiar? I call it "button-pushing mode", where a dev keeps making random changes at the same time someone is trying to help them work through the problem.

I understand where it comes from. At the point you've asked for help, you're probably already a bit frustrated. So you just want to get this thing fixed.

It may feel productive to keep trying to solve the problem by trying random solutions from web searches or an LLM, but once you've engaged with someone for help, it just slows everyone down.

Troubleshooting is a process, and if you approach it haphazardly, even if you do fix the initial problem, you may have missed out on a learning opportunity. So if this problem (or something like it) happens again, you'll be less equipped to fix it in the future.

Feel free to do all your "button pushing" before you ask for help, but once someone is in the process of helping you, relax and let them guide you through the troubleshooting steps.

And sometimes you don't actually want the other person to actively help you. You're using them more in "rubber duck" mode, where you just need to talk through the problem to find the solution yourself.

But in either case, be clear about your intentions and approach the conversation with that one goal in mind.

Here to help,

Joel

P.S. This seems like a prime opportunity to remind you that I offer pairing sessions to help you when you're stuck.