Don't be "That Librarian"

What kind of “librarian"? Read on. 

I heard this story from several sources and reusing the same. One day a man is in a library and walks up to a librarian and requests him to issue a book. The librarian looks at the book for making an entry into his records. The title of the book is "How to commit suicide in 101 ways?" Then the librarian asks the man "Sir, can you please tell me who will return this book to the library?"

The librarian is measured by his boss on how good he is protecting the library books. How many books got issued and how many got returned? In the above case, of course from his perspective, the librarian is doing a great job, because he may be confident that the man will find at least one way to commit suicide. If there is even a little bit contextual understanding in the job, then the librarian would have asked the man with concern why he is borrowing such a book?! How he can be of help to him to face his challenge?

So even in our work, if we keep aside the “contextual” part of the job, even without realizing, we will end up being "librarians of the above nature". Some Examples from design and engineering: 

a. Do you implement the requirement as stated in word? Does not matter whether it makes sense or not in the big picture?

b. Do you follow a check list for doing code reviews? Don't know whether the time was spent on actually studying the code in its overall context?

c. Do you test a requirement writing many test cases even though the requirement in the first place does not make sense?

Let us not become "such Librarians".

Caveat: The intention of this note is not to shed low light on Librarians. I have great respect for them. They are great because they protect the books, hence knowledge and ensure that more people get to read books and gain knowledge. I have used this only for symbolism.