I only had to rad the first three words "One Friday afternoon". I learned early that I was doing everyone a favour if no updates went out on Friday afternoon.
Be Kind
331–340 of 458 posts
Re: Be Kind
#332Every child should be so lucky to have this experience as well. Empathy goes a long way.
Re: Be Kind
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mistakes happen. I can deal with that. People lying about their progress however, that is hard to deal with.
Having been in this situation and been supervisor to people in this situation, it's possible to not be lying but also to not have complete understood the task or have it mis-spec'd. Having someone rip into for lying when the spec was terrible to begin with is massively discouraging and the OP lesson applies just the same there.
Oh no, absolutely. There is no doubt this happens in the majority of cases, so when two things don't pair up when you look at them you don't accuse people of lying. Of course this does land you in an incredibly tricky situation when you do find out there is a habit of systematic lying.
Thankfully that situation is resolved now, though it lasted for too long, and miraculously didn't fall off the cliff it teetered on.
Re: Be Kind
#334This was literally the biggest issue for when I started at my first job. We had a team member who was terribly condescending and talked down to everyone but especially me. You could tell that he hated the fact that he was on a team with a junior developer and took every chance he had to made sure I knew I wasn't as good as him. It makes a terrifying environment to ask questions because who knows what kind of response…
Oh his behalf, I apologize. I literally started laughing at a junior's code once but in my defense, he had spent 3 years at Amazon.
Wheaton's Law violator here. Don't be a dick.
Re: Be Kind
#335interesting
Re: Be Kind
#336When he returned to the air field, Bob Hoover walked over to the man who had nearly caused his death and, according to the California Fullerton News-Tribune, said: “There isn’t a man alive who hasn’t made a mistake. But I’m positive you’ll never make this mistake again. That’s why I want to make sure that you’re the only one to refuel my plane tomorrow. I won’t let anyone else on the field touch it.”
There are two schools of thought, especially in stock trading. 1) Reversion to the mean. This is what the above person believes and that this likely won't happen again. 2) Indication of a trend. The pilot is actually incompetent, and this will happen more frequently with this pilot than an average pilot.
I disagree with your interpretation. I think this is a case of understanding that the pilot is now motivated to save face, and will be extra careful.
This is psychological insight, not statistical insight.
Re: Be Kind
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and that makes "being kind" a lot harder. Many people reading the article think of a nice person that humbly tries their best but makes a bad mistake. But what if they're a hugely over-confident asshole? I mean, not everyone likes everyone, so when someone you don't like to begin with is arrogant, you might easily label them as an asshole. I think the deeper lesson of the article is not to consider other people…
>But what if they're a hugely over-confident asshole? Then they have absolutely no business working on a team effort. They never should have been hired in the first place.
And yet here they are.
With respect, this doesn't tell us what to do if we run into a hugely over-confident asshole.
Re: Be Kind
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and that makes "being kind" a lot harder. Many people reading the article think of a nice person that humbly tries their best but makes a bad mistake. But what if they're a hugely over-confident asshole? I mean, not everyone likes everyone, so when someone you don't like to begin with is arrogant, you might easily label them as an asshole. I think the deeper lesson of the article is not to consider other people…
>But what if they're a hugely over-confident asshole? Then they have absolutely no business working on a team effort. They never should have been hired in the first place.
I don't agree. I've seen some very junior people change their attitudes rapidly (for the better) when working on a team; if we wrote them off immediately we'd lose out on a lot of promising people.
I was also one of those developers and have since changed my ways :)
Re: Be Kind
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're quite possibly judging the guy too much based on a simple internet comment. His statement could mean anything from cruelly laughing in the face of the junior dev during a face to face code review to having a quick heh under his breath from the privacy of his office at the developer's use of "if (foo === true)". Or anything in between.
If it was a completely private laugh, seems weird that they would apologize for the previously mentioned jerk.
Due to open office layouts there is no such thing as a private laugh.
Re: Be Kind
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, while someone might be extra careful not to repeat a mistake that has burned them in the past, making a serious mistake is often a sign that someone is careless, and more likely to make other, different mistakes in the future.
One mistake, even one very serious mistake, means nothing. People are human, even the best of them are going to make mistakes occasionally. Be as careful as you want, it doesn't matter, literally nobody is perfect. A pattern of making mistakes can tell you somebody is careless, or sloppy, or in over their head. But a single mistake? That's just inevitable.
> A pattern of making mistakes can tell you somebody is careless, or sloppy, or in over their head.
Or that you need to fix the process.