I'm sometimes asked to produce meaningless 30-page documents that nobody ever reads. I mean literally nobody, since I can see the history of who has accessed it. Me and a proof-reader, and occasionally someone will open it up to check that it exists. But nobody reads them, let alone reads them closely. Not the distant funder who added it as a line-item requirement to their grant (their job is adding line items to grants, not reading documents), nor the actual people involved in the project, who don't have time to read a meaningless document, and don't need to. It's of use to no one, it's just something that must be done because we live in a stupid world.
I've started having AI write those documents. Each one used to take me a full week to produce, now it's maybe one day, including editing. I don't feel bad about it. I'm ecstatic about it, actually; this shouldn't be part of my job, so reducing its footprint in my life is a blessing. Someday, someone will realize that such documents do not need to exist in the first place, but that's not the world we live in right now, and I can't change it. I'm just glad AI exists for this kind of pointless yeoman's work.
This is the same argument as “why is software X so bloated when nobody uses more than 10% of the features?”
Because everyone uses a different 10%.
I write these documents too and I’ve watched people “read” them. They all do the same thing: flip to the conclusions and then if there is a need they will skim the section that’s relevant to their role.
The project manager cares only about the risks, costs, and time estimates.
The architect just wants to see the diagram and maybe check that the naming conventions have been followed.
Sysops just wants to know what they’re on the hook for after go-live.
None of them read the whole document, but the whole document ends up being read.
PS: I’ve found I have to take care of distributing documents myself. All organisations big and small are shockingly bad at disseminating information. Help them!
It's like burning fuel to till the soil so you can plant corn to make ethanol.
Almost an inverse Kafka universe; there are tools that can empower you to work the system in such a way that the effects of the externalities are very diffuse.
Still not good, but better than a typical Catch-22.
I've started having AI write those documents. Each one used to take me a full week to produce, now it's maybe one day, including editing. I don't feel bad about it. I'm ecstatic about it, actually; this shouldn't be part of my job, so reducing its footprint in my life is a blessing. Someday, someone will realize that such documents do not need to exist in the first place, but that's not the world we live in right now, and I can't change it. I'm just glad AI exists for this kind of pointless yeoman's work.