RTFM First. Then Ask.
November 3, 2025
🤦♂️ RTFM First. Then Come to Me.
There’s a sacred ritual in technology teams — ancient, powerful, and ignored daily:
RTFM.
Polite version: Read The Friendly Manual.
Real version: you already know.
It isn’t rude.
It’s self-defense.
🧠 The Corporate Reality
Every tech org has two types of people:
Group A:
Reads docs, checks logs, Googles, tests things, sometimes cries quietly but figures it out.
Group B:
Sends messages like:
“Service broken. Fix?”
No context. No log. No attempt.
Just pure, unfiltered hope-based engineering.
🙃 The Cycle We All Know
- Ping “Hey quick question”
- You ask: “Did you check the docs?”
- They respond: “Yeah… it didn’t have the answer.”
- Translation: I saw the link. I closed it.
🔍 Senior Engineer Secret
People think seniors know everything.
We don’t.
We just do this faster: Read error Google error Click docs Try thing Break it worse Panic Fix it Pretend that was the plan
We’re not wizards — we’re persistent.
🔁 Why RTFM Matters
RTFM isn’t gatekeeping.
RTFM is uptime.
RTFM is mental health.
RTFM is please don’t make me explain page 1 of the README again.
If I answer every basic question, the code won’t ship, CI will revolt, and I will relocate myself to S3 Glacier.
🙏 The Pact
Before asking an engineer for help:
✅ Try the docs
✅ Read the error message
✅ Google once or twice
✅ Think for 30 seconds
✅ Do literally anything but instantly open Slack
Then ask.
If you did all that — we will help.
Gladly. With coffee.
If you didn’t?
RTFM.
Please.
For all our sanity.
TL;DR
You: “Help?”
Me: “Did you try… anything?”
RTFM isn’t an insult.
It’s the first step in professional adulthood in tech.
And yes — we still love you.
Just… read the manual first.