Don't Be A ::Duck::
Ducks are awesome. They have some remarkable properties – their feet don't get cold, they eat rocks, have three eyelids with 340 degree vision and can fly up to 21,000 feet into the air (and hit a Jet flying over Nevada in 1962, that's how we know).
This talk is about not being a duck. Don't be a duck.
Now we will go over why not to be a duck and what are the benefits thereof.
TLDR: Ducks don't quack enough
The takeaway from this should be: quack more. Ducks, acclaimed to be the quackiest of birds, still don't quack as much as they should. You should quack much more. Way more.
1. A duck does not look before quaking
It is good practice to do a robust looking at resources at hand before poking other birds. This can be looking up the keywords on your-favourite-search-engine or your-favourite-hosted-llm. Also, it can be looking into your internal sources, Slack history, Confluence pages, etc. Chances are you are not facing a completely novel issue.
2. A duck does not quack for help
But when you have spent a reasonable amount of time looking, quack for help. No fear, quack loud. Repeatedly and Openly. Ask until the issue is solved and you understand it. If possible, ask in an open Slack channel, or your aviary analogue of it. And when you solve it, will all your friends' help, answer your thread too. That is important because...
3. A duck's quack is short lived
What you say is easily forgotten. Write it down. To accomodate [1] means you do your part, you document your journey through the bug. When someone else follows [1] then they will be grateful for your quack that has been now entombed in the collective knowledge of The Flock. Maybe it is you following [1] and coming across the solution yet again – you bird brained piece of bird, you.
4. A duck's quack is harsh
No one wants to be around always loudly quaking birds. Be gentle about it. Remember there are birds with wings and beaks behind the screen as you type your message. Go ahead and pepper some please and thank you, sprinkle some emojis. Be courteous, be polite. Because when you are stuck in a pickle, birds of your flock will come to your rescue.
5. A duck leaves a trail of chaos
Remember that it is highly unlikely you are going to be the Biggest Single Bird discovering Engine Powered Flight. Your work is going to be a community effort, for all intents and purposes. Make it easy for the community. Take a couple more seconds to put in some verbose commit messages, add those code comments, make the variables slightly more explanatory. Remember [1]? You could also search your-favourite-version-controlled-code for the keywords. Help yourself.
And keeping it all nice and tidy means another bird easily pick up where you left off, or take over when you are not available. This is good! You don't want all the responsibility on your wings, it is very easy share the load and fly farther.
0. A duck doesn't quack enough
A corollary to [3], you should be speaking and interacting more with birds. Drop a message to your manager when things aren't looking good for the deadine, so they can figure out some more time for you. Give them that chance. Keep your multiple stakeholders informed of your progress, so they can keep their multiple stakeholders informed (... its birds all the way...). Some birds caw, some squeek – give them the benefit of doubt when they don't speak your way of speaking.
Actually that is the most important thing to learn, how to communicate. In text, while talking, while working. A good bird company is one that is talking and discussing about everything. If you take a moment, you'll notice all the above bits are about communication in some way.
For more such bird facts please read the Microsoft Research Technical Report – Appendix to: What Makes a Great
Software EngineerBird