Assumption is Never Die, They Just Become Opinion

There is this writing that when I remember it, it always makes me giggle. I read this writing like 18 years ago when I was a Field Engineer in a well known Bank in Jakarta. The writing posts in someone cubicle and when I see it, it just like "Wow, yes it's true!" and laugh. And I always keep remembering those lines til now.

So it's a story about irony in a job, the story is like this:

"This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have."

Did you get the meaning? For you that already got the meaning I bet you think like "Yes, that is what I feel also". This is what I said to my friend Bayu as an SSDD case, Same S**t Different Day :)

You can say the story is about accountability, or mismanagement, or chaos in the work process, but for me, it's all about assumption. How an assumption can lead to a series of process failure. It can be dangerous if the assumption used in a critical process, where we should do things based on data but we make something base on assumption. It's like using psychic force to know if the system request is a success or not. Well, Merlin and Gandalf can be the best software engineer then.

I don't say that assumption is the wrong thing to do. No. Assumptions still can be used, but as one of the factor when we decide something, not as the prime factor. There is an area where we don't know exactly the condition and we don't have any data at all, we can use assumption there but have to prepare with any condition that might happen. Even if we have much data we can still have unexpected conditions, so with assumptions, there will be a lot of conditions that need to be handled. 

We can use assumption but have to prepare with any condition that might happen

You know, like in horror movie, where the stars always go into the wrong place because of not so important thing and assume everything is ok, and they come out dead. And that is why we yell in the movie "Why, oh why you go there!! Are you out of your mind??!!"

Just take good care of your assumptions, don't mix assumption with facts, it can blur everything. If it's an assumption then tell it's an assumption, don't tell it's a fact. We can make a checklist based on all factors, including the assumptions and review it one by one.

So if you don't agree with this article, just assume that I'm right....