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You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

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Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#141

Post by cannonedhamster »

philipov wrote: post #15
jchw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the point. The point is that the company is patting themselves on the back for firing someone who, by their own description, sounds like they could've provided a ton of value with better management (and even did, at first.) There's nobody who should be patting themselves on the back in this story. It's a story of a bunch of incompetent managers and a programmer that couldn't manage himself, and evid…

If you treat your stars like cows, they become dogs.

If you stop feeding your milk cows and expecting higher output, eventually they stop producing at all.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#142

Post by cannonedhamster »

sage76 wrote: post #133
le-mark wrote: post #7

There were a lot of failures in the Rick story "on all sides" as POTUS would say. This author seems to identify with Rick and frames this type of developer as gifted, but taken advantage of. At the end of the day, we all have to manage our own careers. And in this field that especially includes "managing your manager". Whatever process you find yourself in, you have to be able to push back and say: "I'm working on X,…

> Whatever process you find yourself in, you have to be able to push back and say: "I'm working on X, if you want me to work on Y, what do you want first? What's the priority?" I asked an ex-manager that once when I had 2 important issues to deal with. His response : "They're both important dude, get going on them." I don't know how to respond to that. Assholes will be assholes I suppose.

The way to respond to that is to say that time and resources are limited, he can choose which one he would like to prioritize. If he doesn't say you will pick one to work on and begin on the other afterward. If he doesn't like the one you worked on first, he should have chosen differently. You can physically only work on one thing at a time. They choose or you choose. You have the power.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#143

Post by cannonedhamster »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #140

Based on founders'/executives blog posts, can we have a list of toxic managers/companies that people can reference whenever they are considering a job offer? This would be based on public postings about how they treated their employees.

Generally, any company that has high turnover or is replacing senior level jobs on a regular basis should be reviewed with suspicion. High turnover is an indicator of the work not being commensurate with the pay or a toxic environment. Lots of senior-level openings in a company that isn't brand new signifies a company with leadership problems or funding problems.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#145

Post by valuearb »

Mz wrote: post #85
le-mark wrote: post #7

There were a lot of failures in the Rick story "on all sides" as POTUS would say. This author seems to identify with Rick and frames this type of developer as gifted, but taken advantage of. At the end of the day, we all have to manage our own careers. And in this field that especially includes "managing your manager". Whatever process you find yourself in, you have to be able to push back and say: "I'm working on X,…

And in this field that especially includes "managing your manager". Managers get paid to have people skills. Programmers get paid to code. If you really are some genius, you may be able to write good code and also be more talented than your manager at people stuff such that you can manage your own boss with some seriously tricksy Machiavellian maneuvering. But, saying that is necessary is suggesting that all managers…

When you see a problem at your company, speak up. When you have a problem with your manager, try to help them. Things go much better if you take an active approach to your work problems than a passive one.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#146

Post by cannonedhamster »

provost wrote: post #2

A very similar scenario is described in the fictional work, "The Phoenix Project", is it not? There is a smart character who handles every escalation, but nothing is documented, he was the bottleneck, and his stress level was high. Management had to figure out they needed to handle the escalations, prioritize, reduce the bottleneck, document the solutions, and teach others to fish. This article seems to be addressing…

The One-Minute Manager is a general book on how to appropriately manage people.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a fantastic book on people in general.

Influence is a great book for managing up, or understanding why your people react the way that they do.

The basics for any manager are the following:

1. Know what you're solving for, know what your people are solving for. Make sure that they are in alignment.

2. Invest in your people. Time, money, etc. Not just technical skills, but soft skills. A smile and remembering someone's name go a long way.

3. Keep everything that isn't their job, out of their job. If someone is a bottleneck then there needs to be a defined point in time every week where they do documentation and/or training until they are no longer the bottleneck. Assume it will take other people longer to do the same task at first and accept it, make sure that they understand this is normal.

Edit: I'd also include this blog post in your reading: http://firstround.com/review/this-90-day-plan-turns-engineer...

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#147

Post by moon_of_moon »

"Rick" is generally actively supported by a non-technical manager who wants to keep the project from going to a more agile team ("it will take you 1000 man years to replace this and if you try we will make your attempts fail until we do it ourselves") and it locks in nice inflating budget.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#148

Post by jenscow »

b_t_s wrote: post #123
cupscale wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but sometimes they need to be fired because the work situation is unrecoverable. Regardless of who’s fault it is. “Put down” here is an analogy for being fired. I don’t actually think Rick should be put down. I’d hoped that was obvious.

"fired" is a very negative word, but the point is there needs to be a break between company and employee. As someone who was fired for cause in a situation like this, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. The ship was on fire and sinking fast, and I was totally burned out, bailing as fast as I could. Requested my vacation time once we shipped(nearly on schedule) & got fired instead. Felt awful at the time and…

Same story here.

Although, I was halfway through my journey home when I felt a huge weight had been taken off my back.

Sometimes getting fired is good.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#149

Post by jenscow »

Mithaldu wrote: post #136
cupscale wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but sometimes they need to be fired because the work situation is unrecoverable. Regardless of who’s fault it is. “Put down” here is an analogy for being fired. I don’t actually think Rick should be put down. I’d hoped that was obvious.

I know you did mean firing, but even that wasn't necessary. In germany we actually force companies to at least try and work things out. In order to fire someone you need 3 documented instances of misbehavior followed up improvement attampts, or an actual breach of law. This gives everyone time to sit down, gain distance, sleep over it and calm down and try again. Plus, if the feeling of not getting along remains afte…

I thought that was also the case in the UK, but it turns out you need to have been employed for 2 years for that rule to apply.

Re: You fired your top talent. I hope you’re happy

#150

Post by talmand »

thestephen wrote: post #61

We re-released the product to this group. It consisted of 10% of Rick’s original code which was pretty stable. It also had a few thousand lines of new code to replace about 150,000 lines of incomprehensible mess. The team had replaced five years of work in about six months. Over the next few months we expanded from pilot to full customer release. Up next: Manager on Medium bragging that he or she would be able to typ…

I'm curious how they managed to refactor about 150,000 lines of code down to a few thousand lines.
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