I have taken down the original text of this post at the request of my colleague who had the courage and audacity to let me post his detailed comment about how he works “under the radar” to change things in his company.
I had posted his comment originally with his permission, of course. But, apparently, in his country, “it’s illegal to harm [one’s] employer’s business” and it can reasonably be considered doing harm to express a low opinion of your own company’s behavior, even if you are dedicated to improving that behavior. Dirty laundry in public is arguably bad for business, if your business involves telling people that you’re a trustworthy expert, and your laundry says otherwise.
Of course this is understandable. Working under the radar generally means not being public about what you are doing. Therefore, as much as I prefer the clean feeling of working ON the radar, I wish him good luck with his mode of influencing a big, commercial, ceremonial system.
I work under the same legislation as the original text author and have worked on similar companies without needing to consider that my different opinion would be harmful. It could also be considered that the state of the practice is harmful, and that some (enlightened) customers consider these examples to show the versatility the large companies are able to do for their customers.
The term “under the radar” implies there is something not positive going on, and focuses on contrasting what is being done on something assumed that needs to be done. Having worked in very similar contexts, I would claim that one’s own attitude on approaching this has a lot to do with how positively / negatively it is taken. If you assume your method, e.g. TMap denies you all applying your common sense and working smartly under time constraints considering the opportunity cost, you probably are reading too much into the method.
There’s plenty of smart testers who do smart work within stupid frameworks and don’t make a fuss of it – they just deal with it. Many of them are appreciated and not threatened with the illegalities of harming employer’s business.
This was a great post to make me realize that the metaphors we use for communication (like “under the radar”) do make a difference. Thank you!
Hi Maaret,
You haven’t spoken with me about this, you haven’t seen my presentations about this and ultimately you have no understanding about my work “under the radar”. So please don’t make any wild assumptions about it. It is not as devious as it sounds. It’s just working on something and trying to achieve something before talking about it. Simple adjustments here and there to help people to work more effectively. Nothing more.
I will not talk about it anymore via textual medium. Not even Skype chat. It creates too much misunderstandings and drama. And there are only few things I hate more in our industry.
The Original Author