---
title: "Hold your own Poison Ivy"
url: https://stanko.io/hold-your-own-poison-ivy-MIpqar9OcB5v
author: Stanko Krtalic Rusendic
published: 2023-08-28
updated: 2026-02-15
tags: [people]
---

# Hold your own Poison Ivy

After two years, this week I finally caved and changed my current employment
title on LinkedIn from Software Engineer to Software Architect.

This isn’t a position where I'm am supposed to do much programming - the thing I
love most, and the thing I'm good at - but rather make high-level technical
decision and manage people to achieve them. My problem with that, and any
position like that, is best captured in the Croatian proverb *"It's easy to hold
poison Ivy in somebody else's hands"* (that's the SFW Americanized version,
[here's the NSFW
original](https://translate.google.com/?sl=hr&tl=en&text=lako%20je%20tu%C4%91im%20kurcem%20po%20koprivama%20mlatiti&op=translate)).

That proverb describes a decision made by someone who isn't involved in the
execution of the decision, and doesn't suffer its consequences.

I don't want to be the kind of person who just lobs some solution over the wall
and lets other people deal with the fallout.

I’ve had "managers" like that in the past, and it was hell working with them.
Being told to do something that you know will cause problems, then bringing that
up for discussion, explaining all the implications and new problems we will
face, only to be shutdown with some hand-wavy explanation, and then having to
deal with the consequences of that decision months or even years later is soul
crushing. And if they can’t admit to their mistakes it can become burnout
inducing.

And I know that engineering isn't really about *solving problems* as much as
it’s about *displacing them*. We are constantly trading one problem for one or
more other problems. But we try to do so conscientiously, weight the pros and
the cons, and pick a solution that produces problems that we can live with.

The problem with Software Architects, or any purely managerial position, is that
you aren't eating your own dog food, and therefore you don't live with the
consequences of your decisions. So you produce *misfit solutions*.

> The problem of displacement is compounded by the existence of
> designers—special people whose job it is to solve problems, in advance, for
> other people. Designers, like landlords, seldom if ever experience the
> consequences of their actions. In consequence, designers continually produce
> misfits. A misfit is a solution that produces a mismatch with the human beings
> who have to live with the solution. Some mismatches are downright dangerous.
>
> — **Donald C. Gause**, **Gerald M. Weinberg** in [Are Your Lights On?: How to
> Figure Out What the Problem Really
> Is](https://www.amazon.com/Are-Your-Lights-Figure-Problem/dp/0932633161)

After two years, I’m confident that I’ve managed to avoid becoming that kind of
“manager” by holding my own poison Ivy, and by helping others make decisions for
themselves.

When I'm presented with a problem, I try to implement a proof of concept
solution my self. Not a demo, held up with glue and duct tape; but a proper
minimal implementation. Then I present the solution to my coworkers and gather
feedback. That way I can feel the consequences of my solutions.

When someone comes to me with a problem, we go over all the possible solutions
that we can come up with, then we discuss the pros and cons, and that's it. I
let person decide for themselves which solution they will go with. All I ask of
them is to tell me which one they chose. The point is to shine some light on
problems that the person maybe couldn't see on their own, and point out some
bigger-picture things that they might not know about. That way they can make an
informed decision and choose the solution with which they can live with - so
there aren't any misfit solutions.

This isn't a silver bullet by any means. Bad decisions still get made, I fuck
up, my coworkers fuck up. But we learn, fix stuff, build trust, and improve.