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Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

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Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#171

Post by mars4rp »

lucozade wrote: post #92
mars4rp wrote: post #53

I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing! I work in an environment when very small percentage of people know what are they doing. and people that know what is going on do not speak up because they are frustrated and know probably nothing will change. in this environment I do speak up whenever I get a chance and I've been in arguments with managers 3 4 level above me. everybody else wants to be…

> why am I wrong ? I'll bite. Does it work? Is your approach effective? In your engagement with the senior folk, do you just complain? Or do you suggest changes that you know are affordable and achievable? Are you arguing so you feel better about trying or are you genuinely attempting to affect change? Also, has it occurred to you that the higher ups might not be the fools and cowards they appear? Is it possible that…

"Does it work? Is your approach effective?"

not all the times, but I had some success here and there! but not as much as I hoped for.

"has it occurred to you that the higher ups might not be the fools and cowards they appear?"

I am not that arragont to think I am the smartest person in a big organization or I am right all the times and others are always wrong! but those constrains are coming from somewhere and I believe most of it comes from people are lazy and don't like to argue with others because they want to be liked! There are lots of people that wants to please everybody and never push back on stupid ideas! the culture is top down and I have 7 level of management above me! I only can blame the top one or two :D

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#172

Post by mars4rp »

zzzeek wrote: post #98
mars4rp wrote: post #53

I am an Alice and I need some feedback as why is it a bad thing! I work in an environment when very small percentage of people know what are they doing. and people that know what is going on do not speak up because they are frustrated and know probably nothing will change. in this environment I do speak up whenever I get a chance and I've been in arguments with managers 3 4 level above me. everybody else wants to be…

> PS: where I currently work is wasting public money and I feel obligated to do something as a Libertarian! do non-libertarians feel that there's nothing wrong with companies wasting taxpayer money?

I don't know, everybody else looks fine with it and try to milk the cow as much as possible !

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#173

Post by leroy_masochist »

JimboOmega wrote: post #151
grandalf wrote: post #33

The situation I've encountered is a jerk who was actually fairly mediocre in his abilities but whose bully characteristics and brash confidence had led many of the non-technical people in the company to believe he was extremely skilled. I think one reason people become bullies is because they know they can't back up their decisions with skill. Linus is brash, but is quite able to work well with people and has the res…

There a lot of things that lead to this, including... 1) The whole 10x thing. The implication being that if you're brilliant, you're worth an entire team or more; if you're average, you're... worthless. Thus, you have to be better than everyone else to be worth anything 2) Classic bro culture - somebody who gets rewarded for being obnoxious, bullying, and "alpha" is a very "bro" thing. 3) Tech people tend to be peopl…

I'd say another thing that leads to this is lack of work-life balance / overinvestment of waking hours in one's job.

If your job is basically your life, then the stakes are a lot higher in terms of what you do about your brilliant jerk of a co-worker. Let's say for example there's a jerk in the office who is abusive to lots of people, not just you, but you're tired of it and plan to do something about it -- confront them directly, talk to the manager, whatever. If you have shitty work-life balance, this is a much scarier thing to do. The downside isn't just losing a job that you at least to some extent dislike because of a bad colleague -- it's the end of your social life as you know it. And to make matters worse, for a lot of young people in tech, the job is not just a paycheck and source of friends, it's a source of existential prestige; something your mom brags about.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#174

Post by s73ver_ »

alexanderstears wrote: post #138
watwut wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people, including highly skilled, who are not jerks and are not destroying anything to others. There are even people who are not jerks despite management itself being evil. Management has part of blame, but jerk is responsible for his own behavior. Jerk is responsible for what strategies he choose to look brilliant. (And people with autism don't count as jerks unless they are. Most of them are willing to st…

You're right that productive people are productive despite being jerks, not because they're jerks. And sure, cast as much judgement on jerks as you feel is proper. But most people are pretty set in their ways. Everyone who yells at cashiers when they're 40 has done so before, they've probably faced some consequences for their actions and the behavior persists so either you need to be more persuasive than the totality…

I find the comparison of being a jerk to your co-workers, and someone taking time off (to which they are entitled in companies that have sick leave) to care for their sick child to be false equivalence to the point of absurdity.

Further, why should I tolerate someone who is making my work life that much unpleasant? I can easily get a job somewhere else.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#175

Post by fhood »

sliverstorm wrote: post #143
fhood wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong because the vast majority of people take criticism personally. It turns out that when you tell people they are wrong and present them with reasons they are wrong, a surprising number of people double down. I'm sure you have heard this before, but you have to make them think it was their idea. Edit Source: I make this mistake all the god damn time, and never realize it until the person breaks and finally…

It also really depends on your delivery. You can shoot down ideas and make counter-arguments in friendly & supportive ways, or smug & arrogant ways. I can see why you'd think that, I made the same mistake earlier, but see there's this problem here... vs No, that's obviously wrong, why would you even think that? Let me show you the right way...

You can only take that tone for co-workers. Doesn't work for your superiors as op describes.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#176

Post by watwut »

alexanderstears wrote: post #138
watwut wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people, including highly skilled, who are not jerks and are not destroying anything to others. There are even people who are not jerks despite management itself being evil. Management has part of blame, but jerk is responsible for his own behavior. Jerk is responsible for what strategies he choose to look brilliant. (And people with autism don't count as jerks unless they are. Most of them are willing to st…

You're right that productive people are productive despite being jerks, not because they're jerks. And sure, cast as much judgement on jerks as you feel is proper. But most people are pretty set in their ways. Everyone who yells at cashiers when they're 40 has done so before, they've probably faced some consequences for their actions and the behavior persists so either you need to be more persuasive than the totality…

Yes, old jerk have often been young jerks. But the reason why behaviour escalates is that it is rewarded or at least tolerated. In an environment where yelling at cashier is not socially accepted, yelling at cashier happen less often. If senior cuts junior and then manager/leader address behavior and let junior speak, then the team work entirely different then if leader makes fun of half heard junior proposal.

1.) Many jerks are considered brilliant because they act like jerks, not despite or in addition to. Acting like jerk makes people less likely to question you, it makes your collegues look less capable if managent believes your crap. It makes them more angry and less confident.

Association between jerk and brilliant does not help, I have seen (literally) people finish complaint about bad behavior with "but he is great coder" over dude they knew nothing about profesionally. Zero information. He acted arrogant, therefore they assumed higher competence.

2.) Parent comment put all the blame on management and none on jerk. That is not fair and amounts to blaming other tribe.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#177

Post by s73ver_ »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #56
ZoFreX wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a jerk and disagreeing are orthogonal. You can be a jerk while agreeing with someone, and be a not-jerk while disagreeing. I'm curious, in reference to the post, how you would have no problem working with a "Bob"? Is there really no behaviour there that would bother you in a coworker?

> Being a jerk and disagreeing are orthogonal In theory. In practice, it's much more difficult.

Not really. It's quite possible to do. The problem is that many in tech haven't really tried to develop the skill. Part of that whole, "Soft skills are useless in STEM; raw engineering prowess is all that matters!" mindset.

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#178

Post by AcerbicZero »

mirceal wrote: post #126
AcerbicZero wrote: post #58

Early on in my career (DevOps/Virtualization/SDN/etc) I landed a role as a junior admin, a backfill for a more senior engineer who was moving up in the organization, but staying on the same team. It could be said he landed somewhere between "Alice" and "Bob", probably due to some mild autism. Without getting into excessive detail, working with him was hard, but by far the most rewarding, educational, and instructive…

roll less than 10: you lose your job... :|

Lol, fortunately he wasn't my manager. The only time I rolled well was when it didn't matter :(

Re: Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

#179

Post by alexanderstears »

s73ver_ wrote: post #174
alexanderstears wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that productive people are productive despite being jerks, not because they're jerks. And sure, cast as much judgement on jerks as you feel is proper. But most people are pretty set in their ways. Everyone who yells at cashiers when they're 40 has done so before, they've probably faced some consequences for their actions and the behavior persists so either you need to be more persuasive than the totality…

I find the comparison of being a jerk to your co-workers, and someone taking time off (to which they are entitled in companies that have sick leave) to care for their sick child to be false equivalence to the point of absurdity. Further, why should I tolerate someone who is making my work life that much unpleasant? I can easily get a job somewhere else.

If the person has a kid that's sick as often as the jerk is a jerk (read - a majority of the time), you won't be so thrilled about picking up their slack. There are people who have chronicly sick kids and you have to believe that it affects their productivity / affects them every single day.

And the situations aren't perfectly analogous with respect to the intention behind leaving work for a sick kid, or being a jerk. But the effect is the same and they can use the same solution: accommodations.

Now, you shouldn't tolerate someone making your life worse and if you change jobs to improve your life, more power to you. But I humbly argue that management could solve your problem so you changing jobs is an issue of bad management, not a bad coworker.

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