Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

111–120 of 120 posts

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

#111
post #19

I'd set up a 1:1 to discuss strategies for falling through the cracks yourself. I had a co-worker at Google who would go fishing in the middle of the day, and that was before the pandemic. Sweet gig.

I want this guy as a mentor.

Don't use "Office Space" as a true-life example.

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

#113

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…

Could you write from your experience the methods to identify those types of people? Would be a useful guide.

Eg needing a month to move one ticket from one queue to another. Because only this guy has the permissions to do so, but 5 other guys are blocked.

That's why you name the blockers in your standup.

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

#114

Earlier 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.

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

Sure, no problem. I tend to roll with the belief that essentially everything posted here is "just somebody's opinion" (with few rare exceptions) and I've grown away from bothering to preface everything with "in my opinion" or "IME" or whatever. I consider that to be assumed.

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

#115

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 o…

I actually agree with you, to the extent that I agree that the sports team metaphor is applicable. It just happens that I don't find sports teams to be a good metaphor for the kinds of teams one usually (IME) finds in the corporate world. But yes, in the specific case where an under-performing individual is hurting the team in a way that is ultimately hurting the other individuals on the team, then it does make more sense to call them out. No disagreement there.

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

#116
There are different ways to look at this.

It can indeed be demoralizing to see coworkers slack of all the time, when others are busting their asses off.

However – before mentioning this to a manager, you should contemplate if anything good can come out of it. There is a non-zero possibility that nothing good would come out of it.

If it is the case that he’s slacking off, his manager should notice that after a few weeks/month. And if the manager doesn’t notice – what does that say about the company…?

If I were you I would focus on the bigger picture. Are there other, good coworkers? Are your tasks fulfilling? If the bigger picture is fine, maybe you should just turn a blind eye to this. And if the bigger picture is not fine, maybe it’s time for you to go on to new adventures.

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

#117
post #31

Yes keep your mouth shut. I have the opposite problem of doing too much but people who get bothered about other people's laziness are my pet peeve. Unless you are a manager, managing people is not your responsibility. If you do well and offer your support to get them to where they need to be, you are doing your best, take the nice paycheck home and enjoy! I have no idea what people are going through or what they brin…

How would he be responsible for the guy offing himself? This sounds a bit like manipulation. If OP is getting pissed of about it to the point where he wants to leave, he should definitely say something to his manager. You shouldn’t just bottle this shit up and let it keep angering you every day. As long as OP tells the truth there isn’t any problem. The only difficulty is in /not/ coming off as a jealous co-worker who is just out to hurt people. The guy has been fucking himself and his team over by not working and it needs to stop.

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

#118
post #92

I once compiled a load of data that I consistently close more tickets, close more story points, commit more lines of code, more number of commits, etc compared to my coworkers with the same or similar title. I was laid off a few weeks later because my "goals were not the same as the company's". If you want to keep your job, don't bring it up. If you think you deserve better, find a new employer.

Wow. But why would your manager do that though? Were you working unreasonably hard, so much so that others couldn't keep up and it made them look bad? Did they dislike something about your attitude? I want to understand their perspective on why they jettisoned a high-performing employee.

I did get feedback that working hard all the time was disenfranchising to the rest of the team. Much of the team did in fact play video games and browse the internet at work. I think the decision was well above my manager. The story is a lot longer but it probably doesn't add much.

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

#119

> " 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…

> maybe they have family issues, maybe they're having physical or mental health problems

then they should quit! stealing time, value, money from the company and its fellow employees isn't right. It's shitty behavior and nobody should defend it.

But - the most accurate model for what other people will do is electricity - they will follow the path of least resistance. That's all the "manager" is doing. If you make too many problems, getting rid of you might be easier than dealing with those problems!

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

I actually agree with you, to the extent that I agree that the sports team metaphor is applicable . It just happens that I don't find sports teams to be a good metaphor for the kinds of teams one usually (IME) finds in the corporate world. But yes, in the specific case where an under-performing individual is hurting the team in a way that is ultimately hurting the other individuals on the team, then it does make more…

In many ways, I think joining or creating those teams is the secret to long lasting fulfillment in engineering. We focus so much on the compensation aspect that of course we underindex on quality of life at work.

Theres a reason that Ted Lasso is such a phenomenon - people want to be on a team where they can trust their teammates and everyone is trying to accomplish a shared goal.

Post reply on HN