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Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

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Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#21

Post by edmundsauto »

mindcrime wrote: post #16
edmundsauto wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good that could happen: comp increase, or promotion. Or even just making sure their manager is aware that the entire dept productivity is on OP (makes their leverage obvious). Or, if the expectations are low, OP could de-stress and kick back at work, improving their life. Possible bad: gets the other person fired. Puts a target on OPs back. Point being, this will fester if it isn't addressed. Fairness is importan…

The good that could happen: comp increase, or promotion. The odds of that happening are approximately 0. More likely the "slacker" guy is allowed to get away with it because of nepotism or some other factor, and calling him out with result in negative consequences for the OP. Very, very little good usually comes out of speaking up about stuff like this.

First, let’s acknowledge that “odds approaching 0” is your opinion. I happen to have a different one.

Second, for some people, fairness is important. If OP is one of those people, they may prefer knowing if their employer shares those values. If they don’t, then OP may want to know with certainty so they can work elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#22

Post by deanmoriarty »

datavirtue wrote: post #20
deanmoriarty wrote: post #8

Slackers are the number one reason I do not enjoy corporate America anymore. I don’t care if you are not able to perform and need help or produce crap, as long as you put in the effort and try to pull your weight. In my decade of experience I have witnessed people, technical people, who magically manage to just not do anything at all, ever. They jump from initiative to initiative without producing anything, and someh…

"and they could be having massive positive impact in the organization" That's adorable. Startups do not pay less. I'm bringing in $300k as a developer in Ohio. Individual contributor.

In my experience, they do pay less for senior roles, especially the ones below 200 people who don’t suffer from politics mentioned in my original post.

I’m paid $1.2M as IC at a FAANG, not in Bay Area or NYC. To get a similar compensation I would have to get very, very lucky at a growing startup. Instead here I entered through the front door last year and got basically that comp (experienced some mild stock growth so far as a nice bonus).

I will concede the argument that a person might not need that much, but I’d rather milk it until it lasts and get a $300k job when I’ll have no alternatives. I’m actually kind of hoping it will stop so the opportunity cost of doing something else, more interesting, will be less steep to pay :-)

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#23

Post by edmundsauto »

mindcrime wrote: post #11

Nope. Stay out of it. There are more bad things that can happen, than good things, if you choose to speak out about it. And at the end of the day, your situation vis-a-vis your employment is between you and your employer and nobody else factors in. Example: If you want more money, ask for it. If they refuse, it isn't "because of the money they're wasting on this guy", it's because they don't perceive your value as ju…

I disagree, with the caveat that I prefer working on a team versus a group of individuals. Taking a sports metaphor, if one of my teammates isn't carrying their weight, it harms the entire team and puts our objectives at risk.

I have been in situations where it's every individual for themselves, and agree with your advice in those. I also quickly left those roles to find a team that works together to achieve common objectives that are more impactful than I could achieve on my own. Hurt the team, and I am going to say something (first to the IC directly, then to the manager). If the manager doesn't care about making the team better, then they don't care about the same things that I do, and I will move.

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#24

Post by ineptech »

Several thoughts:

1. The best way for a manager to tell who is/isn't doing good work is to ask their teammates. If you cover for someone lousy (which may sometimes be the reasonable thing to do, especially if it's a fairly bullshit job) you kind of forfeit the right to complain about being on a lousy team, as bad teammates will eventually drive away good ones.

2. In a lot of places, firing someone takes ages; if you express concerns to this person's manager and they say, "Thanks for the feedback" without asking questions, that's probably what's going on. It's also possible that the person is working through something (divorce? health problem?) and the manager feels like they just need time to get back on track. Either way, once you say, "Hey, I have concerns about Joe, he doesn't seem to get much done," you've done your part.

3. Beware the people saying "Talk to the person directly, not their manager". They may take it as a wake-up call, or they may take it as an attack. I would not do this unless a) you're confident that everyone on the team agrees with you about this person, and b) you feel that you are socially adept enough to deliver the message in a way that will not be counter-productive.

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#25

Post by hidudeurcool »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #8

Slackers are the number one reason I do not enjoy corporate America anymore. I don’t care if you are not able to perform and need help or produce crap, as long as you put in the effort and try to pull your weight. In my decade of experience I have witnessed people, technical people, who magically manage to just not do anything at all, ever. They jump from initiative to initiative without producing anything, and someh…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#26

Post by tomohawk »

Is your work not being tracked? It should be obvious to management who is doing work and who is not. If it is not, try to get better transparency into what is going on. Maybe you can run a report every month showing what is going on. Don't talk about the person - talk about the work.

Whatever you do, don't just sit there and take it.

Had a coworker who did work, but the work was actually detrimental to what the team was doing. It would have been better if they did nothing.

I didn't say anything. When I got back from a vacation, I had been moved off the team.

Apparently while I was gone, this guy's main talent, being a jailhouse lawyer, helped him to shift blame on to me when a problem came up that he caused. I wasn't there at the time, and the manager was inexperienced.

Later, the manager apologized, but it was too late by then.

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#27

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

> "Is there any scenario in which this makes sense for me to mention something to my manager or should I just keep my mouth shut?"

The only thing you should bring up to your manager is if the person is not meeting their commitments in a way that impacts you meeting your own commitments; you do want the responsibility for that to land where it should. Even then, do it in a non-accusatory way.

Beyond that, it's just plain none of your business. You don't know their circumstances; maybe they're genuinely slacking, maybe they have family issues, maybe they're having physical or mental health problems, maybe they're fighting burnout/boreout, etc. I have been in this industry long enough to see quite a few people go through bad patches in their life. Consider that, someday, it might be you struggling to recover and hoping your co-workers will give you the breathing room you need.

You also don't know what, if anything, the manager is doing to address the problem nor are you entitled to. If you want to be in the business of dealing with that kind of issue, become a manager yourself.

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#28

Post by gbjw »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #22
datavirtue wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and they could be having massive positive impact in the organization" That's adorable. Startups do not pay less. I'm bringing in $300k as a developer in Ohio. Individual contributor.

In my experience, they do pay less for senior roles, especially the ones below 200 people who don’t suffer from politics mentioned in my original post. I’m paid $1.2M as IC at a FAANG, not in Bay Area or NYC. To get a similar compensation I would have to get very, very lucky at a growing startup. Instead here I entered through the front door last year and got basically that comp (experienced some mild stock growth so…

This is insanity -- you get paid $1.2M as an IC?! How? Is this total comp?

Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?

#29

Post by deanmoriarty »

gbjw wrote: post #28
deanmoriarty wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, they do pay less for senior roles, especially the ones below 200 people who don’t suffer from politics mentioned in my original post. I’m paid $1.2M as IC at a FAANG, not in Bay Area or NYC. To get a similar compensation I would have to get very, very lucky at a growing startup. Instead here I entered through the front door last year and got basically that comp (experienced some mild stock growth so…

This is insanity -- you get paid $1.2M as an IC?! How? Is this total comp?

Total comp with some mild stock appreciation. My entry offer was $950k+ when I joined last year. https://levels.fyi has several data points similar to mine, look at the L6/L7 IC tracks at most FAANG.

I feel we are going a bit off topic here, but I’ll say that you have to deal with a lot of frustrating situations in these large organizations, so it tends to wear you out. Startups, in my experience, are more fun if you are a person who thrives off being productive. Still to this day, I look fondly at my “early startup employee” phase, I have never been able to be so fulfilled in my professional life ever since, despite my compensation going up 10X+ from those days.

Plus, a lot of people on HN routinely and proudly state how they would never want to work for companies like Meta or Google for ethical reasons, so there’s that too.

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