Through the years of working in the model mentioned in my prior post, I've seen the same mistakes being made by various teams over and over again, even with training or "preaching", as one former team member has said, about the possible potholes in the projects.

Well, there is a reason for the reoccurrences of the same mistakes.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

As I was listening to a great mix by DJ Z-Trip called "The Anti-War Mix" (link to the mp3 on Z-Trip's site, the above phrase kept repeating in the mix.

That triggered the idea of this post. Since I have a few more new members to my team, perhaps this can help them in their first few months to start wondering, to start figuring out why things are done in a certain manner? How decisions or actions were made in seemingly overly-paranoid fashion?

Before i continue on, i like to say that i really appreciate my parents' methods, which somehow I'm using with my team of members as well. They would, in the past, say the main point of their message once. They will not punish me if i do not follow it; i guess they expect me to figure it out on my own once i got bitten by the same mistakes.

Throughout my stint in the company, I call this behavior of "let's not listen to experience"/"we can do it differently"/"the project has a fresh new team of members and this won't happen" as a newbie tax. Newbie taxes that just have to occur whenever we get new members/managers into the service.

The thing that the newbies do not realize is that the tax is not only paid by them. The same tax and the repercussions resolutions have to be paid (again) by the oldies. Same mistake, paid multiple times, and one wonder why they do not want the same mistakes to happen again?

Hmm....