This is why I’m such a strong critic of the vehicular operating habits of others (read: backseat driver). I don’t care about the lines, the lines are the least of our worries. STOP TAILGATING THAT TRUCK, DAVE.
Current Google-ish company person here, and this can be just as dangerous as it is beneficial. I was on this team, more than once, where I’m complacent and no one is asking for more from me... so I started helping. I thought I was moving towards leadership because I was identifying and solving the right problems for others. I felt successful.
None of this work contributed to my career path, although it was development work. I felt like a hero, but the people who respected my new work didn’t complete the feedback loop and/or my current leadership didn’t care.
It actually stole time from work that would have gotten me promoted/provided more challenges.
I felt like I lost my role as SME and instead became a jack-of-all-trades.
It was good experience and luckily did not get me fired. When I look back I realize that the problem was the team/leadership’s lack of growth-focus and support. If I had transferred teams or left the company I may have been better off. I say may have, because other than feeling like I wasted a few years learning this, I’ve ended up in roughly the same place I would have been.
2 problems that can cause that, the first of which is by far more common:
1. You haven't developed the skillset to both track and evangelize your impact.
2. The company's review process doesn't properly value out-of-band contributions
I find that when I really look into it, #2 is actually rarely a problem if you are good at #1. As I've worked on getting better at #1 I've found I'm far more comfortable at work, it helps my career, and I still get to just do what my instincts tell me and what is best rather than shift that to what will look best.
A bit of a single data point but I had issues not getting notifications all of the time from Hipchat. How they are doing push notifications must be different :(.
