Re: Write Idiot Guides if you want to hire idiots
Regulations say you have to write the instructions, but whether people follow them is up to them and the company. If the penalties for mistakes resulting from not following the instructions are not that high, the company may not care if the highly educated employees do it how they like, so long as they accept the potential risk of being fired if they make a mistake following the instructions to the letter would have avoided and a scapegoat is necessary.
Probably everyone reading this has deliberately not followed the instructions in some cases. Maybe they specify to use the GUI, and you know the CLI and can get things done much faster that way (either because the GUI is slow as molasses or because you can complete multiple tasks in parallel using various CLI tricks) Or maybe the instructions are written for the lowest common denominator, and you know what shortcuts are applicable in a certain situation. Or in many cases, you know or assume the instructions are not very good and you'd end up like the protagonist in today's Who Me if you slavishly followed them.
Even if it results in a mistake once in a blue moon, most managers will think the greater productivity of smart people working how they want is worth it. Obviously that's not a thing in life critical stuff, or where a single mistake could cost millions of dollars, but most work is neither - even in places were some work is.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
