Nope, keep your mouth shut. Almost impossible to spin it in a way that doesn’t hurt you. I did this once, because it was very negatively impacting me as well. Wasn’t a total disaster, but did more harm than good anyway.
Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
41–50 of 120 posts
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
"some mild stock appreciation".. quite an understatement. $250k (annual) appreciation in a year. Whew.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#43Don't mess with the guy unless its directly harming you. Screwing with his employment is screwing with his life directly and it should not be undertaken lightly. I say this as a person who has been on both sides of this issue.
Two stories from my life: A guy tried to get me fired for years because his wife thought I was "cute." I had never met either of these people at the time the harassment started. When I found out what was going on, I was very unkind to him.
The only time I've ever tried to get someone fired-- this individual was only working about 3 hours a day (he was supposedly managing a remote team at night), and then the only thing he was doing was doing was renaming files and namespaces which broke a product that was in production and caused several emergencies. He fancied himself as an Architect and mostly considered himself to be above writing code. So each morning you'd come in and find all the code moved around.
I pulled his commits and their timestamps and was able to prove he simply had never committed anything later than a 3 hours window in the afternoon--and-- that all of his commits for months had just been renaming files, etc. The team he was supposedly managing said they hadn't heard from him in months.
That's not what got him fired though-- he eventually was laid off because he decided to take his team to Hooters for a celebratory dinner-- on the companies money. It took them a few months to get all their ducks in a row, but when there was a round of layoffs he was first on everyone's list to go.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#44Keep track of the what goes on and document it. It can then be used to blackmail your manager for higher pay or taken to his management so you can move up the ranks. Tech is a ruthless industry, you have been treated like a cog all you life now is your chance to be a cog that moves other cogs. Read Machiavelli.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
Joke's on you. This is the top-rated response.
Well, it's only because his post activated virtue signalling and deep seated guilt. Like quantum mechanics, he already reduced the uncertainty waveform to guilt rather than wrath.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#46Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#47> either in some excuse or obfuscation.
I had a coworker like this. Not only would he not get anything done but at standup he would say clear BS to our manager who seemed to not understand it was BS. The BS was the thing that really got under my skin. Because his BS seemed to pass the test with the manager but was such elementary BS to the other engineers.
Finally one day I flipped out and called him out directly and wrote a long lengthy email to the managers. In my head I thought maybe this is what high performance teams do, like Apple and Microsoft, and I needed to step up.
I lost the job, and I still have regret three years later.
And it was my fault. Getting angry was very dumb.
I don't know what the right move is, but I had to create this account to urge you not to do what I did. I picked that battle and it was a mistake.
Let me add, in his defense, he was nice and didn't get in the way, and I had no idea what was going on in his situation. For all I know he went on to be a star employee (I have no idea). I screwed up.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The "which is more likely" principle applies: is it more likely you will get a raise, or that the manager gets it? You were being a busybody, but the manager was doing their assigned work.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#49Do you have stock options and/or is it a small company where the success of the team may have a significant impact on the ability of the company to promote you in the future?
If either of those is the case, I think there may be reason to escalate as it does impact your future.
Re: Ask HN: My coworker doesn't work. Does it make sense for me to say anything?
#50Tons of comments saying it’s none of your business. I disagree.
If you care, you can’t stop caring. You’ll drive yourself nuts watching this coworker continue to be a drag on the company. Either find a new job or swing for the fences and try to make the company better.
I want people at my company who give a damn. If a coworker slacking off is pissing you off, it shows me that you actually care about the company, the product/clients and progress.
If you “mind your own business”, it shows me that you just care about your paycheck.
The questions I’d be asking myself in your position is what is it about the company workflow / accountability structure that allows this to happen? Research better options, put together some ideas. Find out if you like problem solving at that organizational level. If you don’t, then maybe find a new job. If you do, then tactfully look for someone who is successful at the company and seems to share your passion for getting stuff done, even if they’re a level or two above you.
You can try to pitch your ideas to them and it’ll be apparent pretty quickly if they think you’re a godsend or a troublemaker. The Socratic method can be useful, asking questions like: “Why don’t we track individual progress?” Or “Why don’t we use [method from your research] here?”. It’s a less hostile way to approach the problem through curiosity and people will send you political signals like: “Oh, I tried that before and Bob put his foot down.” Or, “Wow, you sound just like Sally. I bet she’d like to talk to you about that.” Sometimes these problems are political rather than organizational.
Even just asking questions to your superiors shows that you care and will probably get you some bonus points, unless you’re at a really crappy company where everyone is doing their best to skate by and those who aren’t skating by are persecuted.
The most aggressive approach that might work is anonymizing them and simply saying: “I really want this company to achieve [company goal] and I’m worried that we’re not all working efficiently enough to make that happen.” Or, “I’m really needing more support from [other department] in order to deliver on [your commitment].” You might be asked for details and names, which is kind of a point of no return. Action will probably be taken towards you or them.
Anyway, there’s a chance you ruffle some feathers, but there’s also a chance you draw some positive attention.
Or you can keep your head down like others are suggesting, but the fact that you care this much, I doubt you’ll be able to continue to do it without stifling your own ambition to make the company better, and why would you want to do that?