Ask HN: Dealing with a Toxic Co-Worker

Question what this person is saying. Stand up for your coworkers if you think they've done good work and the comments are unreasonable. If your coworker is wrong then he won't able to defend his position, and he'll look ridiculous. If he's right that the work is poor then he'll look stupid for complaining when the developer in question isn't there.

Just make sure there are plenty of other people around, particularly your boss.

That doesn't always mean that I leave -- only that by the time I'm asking the questions you're asking, it's always been too late. It was time to go a while back and I just didn't want to admit it.

Good luck! I doubt there's some magic sauce or fairy sprinkle dust that will turn a jackass into a flower, but perhaps your experience will be different from mine.

That being said, obviously your manager doesn't share this ethos. In the future, this is something you might want to filter for.

If I were you, I would make preparations for the worst and escalate. You don't want to leave, but you need to be willing to and prepared to do so. If you do escalate though, go to your manager. He's clearly aware of it, and ultimately its politically a mistake to go to either HR or your manager's manager, since it'll hurt your relations with your direct manager.

Doing nothing isn't an option in the long term if nothing changes. There's no real point in considering it.

This gets repeated way too often - bordering on the obsessive.

What are OP's skills? Where does he live? Unless I'm missing something obvious, we have no clue about it.

I a vast majority of planet earth, it is not a seller market for developers. It isn't for basically any kind of skill, simply because there are no jobs. Even if we assume OP is from the USA (which is kind of arbitrary), on in a handful of places you can leave your job without a thought and be almost sure you'll land another good one quick enough .

Now, to be honest, you said your advice was to be taken with a grain of salt, but I still think it's worth pointing out the huge assumption - which is basically that OP is living in Northern California, Seattle or New York.

If you call hiss bullshit he'll probably go into denial (sooner or later). He can also become depressive, or even more aggressive. Those are defense mechanisms. They are triggered in confrontational situations, the "fight or flight" instinct. Men usually fight, women usually flight. Best option is for him to actually feel good about himself, as people "at the top" do not belittle the little people, as it would mean they feel threatened (and, as such, are afraid, meaning they're not as strong as the other).

Best way imho is to be friendly to him, and when he belittles someone, instead of confronting him, you approach tangentially, making him feel he would be even "more superior" if he helped. This way he will be validated by his experience and by his understanding.

For example, "man, you don't need to go that far. I mean, you've [been doing this for a long time]/[studied a lot]/[put a lot of effort], you must have made some mistakes too. And you're [one of the best]/[probably the best]/[an awesome] developer. If you could give us some tips sometimes, II bet we'd become an even greater team. :D"

And obviously, whenever you can, praise stuff his done well and ask for opinions. Can be on conceptual stuff or whatever, just help him feel "validated" for his good points and he will naturally shift to a less confrontative behavior, plus he will focus on the stuff that got people to like him.

He should do therapy btw, but suggesting this will probably make things worse. If nobody can make this work, all the good devs will end up leaving, and the company will be left with people that have no other options... Not a good place to work at, unfortunately.