When your coworker does great work, tell their manager • Hacker News Board

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#231

Post by Consultant32452 » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #209

Consultant32452 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the biggest problem with stack ranking is that it's not easy to update. I mentored a developer and he skyrocketed from the bottom of the stack to near the top in real terms over the course of two years. But he could never escape his "reputation" as a lower tier person. He left, over two years quadrupled his income, and now I work for him. I doubled my income.

> He left, over two years quadrupled his income, and now I work for him. I doubled my income. This is such an American story :-) I don't think there's any other developed country where you can remain an individual contributor, a developer, and quadruple your income in 2 years. Heck, in most other developed countries the whole salary range for a profession is about 2x, from the lowliest junior developer to the highest…

>To make more you'd have to become a consultant

My name checks out :)

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#232

Post by stuxnet79 » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #214

HarryHirsch wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company only looks out for itself and will support you only when it benefits. It will never benefit from supporting an ex-employee that left on bad terms, and the ex-employee will never benefit either from supporting it. So why bother, there is no rational reason. The bond to co-workers at a former workplace is strange and tenuous - actually it goes the other way around, they reach out to you when they want to im…

> and the ex-employee will never benefit either from supporting it. Like I said, even when you get fired, you still have stock options. So you do in fact benefit by helping the company when you're leaving. > The bond to co-workers at a former workplace is strange and tenuous - actually it goes the other way around, they reach out to you when they want to improve their situation. Let them ask you when they want out, t…

> Whatever happened to "we're all in this together"?

Because we are not in this together. I like working in collaborative environments but after switching jobs more times than I can count I've become more cynical.

- Co-workers are not your friends.

- HR is not your friend.

- Management is not your friend.

It's a business relationship and in the eyes of the corporate structure you are just a fungible resource being consumed to produce shareholder value. Some companies do a great job of creating a "culture" but even in these companies it's only a thin veneer over the machiavellian tactics that keep the corporate machine chugging along.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#233

Post by oblio » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #169

parliament32 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're having a bad time with PRP you're just trash at implementing it. PRP doesn't mean you should literally "Good job on X. You fucked up on Y. Also good job on Z." -- you still need to have some human interaction skills. But in general, your feedback (whether it's a conversation or an email or a comment on a PR) should follow the general guidelines for what order to present things in.

You raise an interesting point. Your comment failed at PRP. You showed how difficult giving criticism is.

Kudos to you, my kind interlocutor.

At first I found your haiku hard to parse.

But in the end I was enlightened by it.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#234

Post by walleeee » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #172

gowld wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"stagnation" mens "avoiding the rat race" and it has mental health benefits that masy be worth more than the raise.

I'm stressed because they will find a way to get rid of me if I stagnate too long. They begin to think there is something wrong with you if you haven't moved up. I'm 8 years into my career and this company, I'm a midlevel developer, and have an MSIS.

Sounds like you might consider your quality of life improved with an employer that doesn't expect you to climb arbitrary ladders?

There are a lot of medium-small employers in lesser-known or unsexy domains that under normal circumstances struggle to compete with FAANG/similar to find people. How many are hiring right now I don't know, but it might be an option.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#235

Post by jmchuster » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #36

Google has a culture of internal peer bonuses and kudos, which in some ways is great and meant to help with this kind of thing... except that it also leads to an internal culture of "congrats!" and "thank you for your amazing work!" centi-threads which often overlook other contributors on a project, or are used strategically by overly political managers to boost their own reports and projects and gain corporate visib…

I definitely consider it part of my job as a manager to boost my own reports and their projects. If even your own manager isn't going to publicly congratulate you on your hard work, then who is going to?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#236

Post by AceyMan » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

AceyMan wrote: post #8

I worked for the airlines (first career) and for public-facing employees it was a big deal if you got a 'good letter' from a customer. (It was equally suck if you happened to get a bad one...). We also could file 'thank you / attaboy' paperwork for our colleagues, both in our own department or ones we interacted with. Those were just as valuable (if not more) than ones from the customers. Over the years (11) during m…

[errata] "since I'm not in management..." That goof did not change anything about my retold experience but I couldn't let that sit there and be so wrong .

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#237

Post by maps7 » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #104

vidarh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be extremely demoralising for co-workers in all kinds of roles when they see that kind of recognition being given to someone who they feel don't deserve it. Personally I think it's risky to acknowledge these kind of things in front of a team for that reason unless it's better quantified. I've personally as well been in situations where I've been outright resentful because the recognition of someone I knew was…

> It can be extremely demoralising for co-workers in all kinds of roles when they see that kind of recognition being given to someone who they feel don't deserve it. This is why wages are secret. Everyone is convinced they deserve to be in the top half of earners.

Source? or is this a personal theory?

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#238

Post by AmericanChopper » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #166

The flip side of this is, if you want to sink someone's career, badmouth them to their manager. Having worked at many companies, I've observed how shockingly easy it is for a manager's assessment of their reports to be colored by "hearsay" whether good or bad. I once had several members of another team who deeply disgreed with a product decision I'd made complain to my manager that I was being uncooperative, not a te…

This depends on the manager more than anything else. Somebody who complains all the time is just as likely to come across as low-credibility and untrustworthy. If they’re the only person complaining perhaps that’s a signal to the manager that they’re in fact a problem for the team they’re working in, and perhaps they shouldn’t be there anymore.

Conversely somebody who readily gives credit to others might come off as high-integrity and trustworthy. Perhaps a person like that is an incredibly positive influence and valuable member of their team.

Each approach can succeed or fail depending on what your manager values. I wouldn’t say one is more likely to succeed than the other, but if you want to end up working for a boss that values integrity, then I’d suggest taking the integrity route.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#239

Post by wolco » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:48 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #170

xvector wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a massive amount of trust placed in managers. I've had asshole managers before that didn't have this much power thanks to company structure. Honestly I would never work at a place like this. Maybe it's lean and efficient for the company, but it definitely doesn't sound fun for the employee.

It's not as bad as it sounds. Yes, it certainly happens and it sucks for the good person that it happens to. But managers like that don't last very long. When you get let go, they ask in the exit interview if you were warned, if your manager gave you any feedback leading up to it, etc. And then they follow up if the person says, "it was a total shock". I've definitely seen managers make some bad firing decisions, but…

Exit interviewers are for those who quit. Never seen a firing exit interview.

Re: When your coworker does great work, tell their manager

#240

Post by IggleSniggle » Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #31

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stupid in this way, too.

How's your career? Did this have an impact? Mine is ruined and this might have contributed a little. I'll never be more than an intermediate developer and I'm worried about being fired/laid off.

Not that poster, but in my personal experience praising others is good to match with humble by noisy comments about the work you are doing.

Whether this works or not depends if you have any psychopathic coworkers, which isn't something you can really know very easily.

I also don't think the actions of others really define whether or not you are "intermediate," unless you're only talking about some corporate ladder bullshit.