The Supervisor Effect

There probably is an actual name for this phenomena, but I'm unaware of it.

Have you ever had something not work no matter what you do? You spent time troubleshooting it and you are confident that the thing will not work so you bring in extra help only for it to suddenly work? I call it the supervisor effect.

There are so many times where someone will grab me at work because something isn't functioning and suddenly the error can't be replicated.

The other day we allegedly had printer issues that was going to shut down production and my assistance was needed immediately. I arrived to the printer, pressed the print button, and suddenly everything was hunky dory.

Don't get me wrong, I love it when problems solve themselves but I've experienced this phenomena frequently with all sorts of situations.

Am I the only one?

This has happened to me with losing track of things. As soon as I've asked about it, they suddenly appear.

It never fails. My car's making a funny noise and I isolate it to that...um...thing, so I take it to the mechanic and it's just purring like a kitten.

I'm a software developer by trade, but in my current position, about a third of my time is doing helpdesk. 45% of the problems people bring to me have evaporated by the time I'm helping. (Another 45% are fixed by a reboot.)

And finally, if by some miracle, you're dealing with Zebra label printers, yeah, that's par for the course. :-)

a related phenomena - where is the...?

What you need is a rubber duck, or equivalent.

Instead of calling in a supervisor, call in a rubber duck (OK, I admit it, I'd use a plushy dragon...) and explain the problem to them until they fully understand it. By which time they will telepathically transmit the solution to you. Or maybe, just maybe, shifting mental gears into explaining mode rather than solving-it mode will allow the answer to form in your own mind.

Either way, it's a recognised technique, and cheaper than a supervisor!

A little like the opposite of "White Coat Syndrome".

I've had similar things happen before, the most recent occurrence was attempting to set up filters on a Google Sheet of Form responses: I was having trouble getting it to do what I wanted, so I sent off an email to a co-worker asking if they could help or knew someone who could. After sending the email I kept googling and trying things, and finally got it responding how I wanted. I hadn't gotten a reply from him yet, so I got to send another email saying "never mind, I got it figured out!" I'm sure I'd have figured it out eventually even if I hadn't emailed, but it felt like asking for help (even without receiving any) was a necessary step in getting it to work!

Andrew, I think that is exactly it.

When certain people are around, we have lower stress and things become easier. When other people are around, things all seem to fall apart.

It's stressful to be examined by another, but heartening to be supported by one...

Printers can smell stress.

If it's anything even remotely involving moving electrons, I just blame it on my weird magnetic resonance.

If I had $100 dollars for every time someone said, "How on earth did you get it to do THAT?" I'd be rich.

I do believe this is a relatively commonplace instance of a deeper, perhaps quantum level (blame it on uncertainty!) to the way things are ordered. The more sensitive it is, the more can change in more or less unpredictable ways. And the stronger the signal emitted by a person, thing, etc., the weirder, more unlikely things get: the reality itself bends into shapes that are ordered, but too apparently random to be recognized by science. So printers can smell stress, and so can the weather. It seems unlikely, until you stop blocking it out long enough to see it. It is too circumstantial to be reproduced in a lab, but happens all the time in the real world.

You're definitely not the only one.

Long ago, a german friend of mine said they call this "the show effect.*" As in, when you go to show someone how it's not working, it works.

*I don't know the german term for it.

I worked at a hydro dam and we had a printer. Not a good one though. One day it gave me fits. I never said anything just picked up the printer and went out the door. Somewhere along the Kennebec River there is a printer being pushed along by the current. I’ll call it fish habitat.

The phenomenon is not limited to Supervisors.


Anytime you inconvuence someone else for something not working or cannot be found the answer presents itself.

M Ljin wrote:This has happened to me with losing track of things. As soon as I've asked about it, they suddenly appear.

In our family, that's called the "has anybody seen my oh there it is" effect - because of me. It seems like whenever I get frustrated enough in hunting for something, that I actually ask if anyone has seen it, before I even finish the question - there it is.

Carla Burke wrote:before I even finish the question

That exactly! It's hilarious. I might have said those exact words.

I have not noticed the malfunctioning machines effect (maybe my presence is enough to permanently mess things up) but maybe if I got my friend who grows grains to come over and examine my garden the rodents would scurry off and hide and not chop down the stalks at flowering stage.

I notice another permutation of this effect where as soon as you ask someone for advice you realize you already had the answer and you were hiding from your own inner sage.

Reminds me of this advice about editing we got in film school:

When we got our projects (short films or whatever) to the "final cut" where we liked it and we couldn't think of any more changes to make, call in a classmate to view the cut. You sit at the editing station and they sit behind you, watching the playback window.

Inevitably, you will discover a whole slew of mistakes and ways you could tighten up your project, even if the classmate sits there and says nothing. You write them down and then when the classmate leaves, you implement those changes (in addition to any suggestions the classmate gave that you agree with).

The same advice works for music.

My mom has had issues with machines all of my life. I was about 9 when she realized if she gave things to me, it fixed itself, then she'd take it back. When we moved in together she got a shredder that just flat made her crazy. Every couple of weeks it would stop, nothing would make it work again, she'd yell at me, by the time I came in the room it worked. We decided the shredder was absolutely afraid of me. "Oh no! She'll open me up and mess with things! SEE? I'm FINE! Begone scary lady!!"

I intimidate machinery. :D