How to build toxic software teams

This is how I prefer it too, but the problem is that honesty is a luxury when times are good. When times aren't so good, having a self-documented history of failure doesn't help your case for retention when the jerk next to you who deflects everything appears to be a golden boy.

> I'm not sure hiding it would be helpful, but I haven't tried that.

From the police playbook: after raising awareness of a problem, proactively make excuses for other teams and/or deflect blame to a vendor ("we don't know it's that team's fault; they're understaffed and we don't know what they're having to deal with over there; give them a break because nobody can understand the vendor's fucking incoherent documentation and their software is garbage anyway"). Confusing the issues and misdirecting blame gives the team time to address the problem while saving face. Everybody hates Microsoft anyway so they're an easy scapegoat. (Sorry, Microsoft employees.)

For better or worse, it fosters a culture where people cover for each other, not throw each other under the bus. This is how you wrangle even the most toxic Narcissists-- they recognize and appreciate when someone's doing them a public favor, and (IME) this compels them to respond in kind because they'll want to one-up you as everyone's savior. (We're starting to see this with all the moral crusading and self-appointed "safety" workers. All Narcissists.)

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In 2020 I briefly worked for a small company. I should have said no, but due to life circumstances, I was uncomfortable passing on the job.

When I joined, there were security problems all over the place. They were self-hosting a Mercurial server with http, not https. I eventually brought up the issue with the (cough) tech lead. (I should point out that the lead had been the lead since graduating college, for a decade, and generally had little to no mentorship in the process.)

First, I asked why they were self-hosting their Mercurial server. I got back a wishy-washy "that's how we're used to doing it" answer.

Next, I subtly pointed out, "You know, if you were using Bitbucket to host source code, you wouldn't have this issue."

The response was, "Oh, don't you remember, Bitbucket dropped Mercurial years ago."

My next response was, "Uhm, then do you think we should switch to git?" (For context, I used to like Mercurial better than git, but years ago moved everything to git when I started using git at a prior job and saw "the writing on the wall.")

The (cough) tech lead then went on a tirade about how we just couldn't switch to git, because he didn't want to have to handhold everyone in figuring out git, and then arguing about minutiae regarding minor differences between the two.

I tried to reason with him in pointing out how, if you build a business around a technology, and that technology loses in the marketplace, you put your business at risk. I mentioned that a business that used Betamax would have needed to switch to VHS once it became clear that Sony was discontinuing it and VHS was winning in the marketplace.

A few weeks later, the (cough) lead mentioned at standup that he was having trouble getting his medication, and acted like he was going through stimulant withdrawal. He never acted like someone with ADD or ADHD off of their meds, though. At that point I put two-and-two together and realized that his behavior was textbook "too many stimulants."

Shortly before my time with this company ended, they very nervously announced they were switching to git. I watched everyone on the team, except the leadership, breath a sigh of relief.

Men aren't impervious to sexual harassment, that's true. But in my career women have been overwhelmingly on the receiving end. I've seen a woman not be hired by a male interviewer because she was "too hot", I've had one woman tell me she was groped, a number been subject to unwanted sexual advances, and I've seen male staff cat call. I've had a manager massage me out of the blue. It's a gendered problem, the statistics bear this out, and acknowledging that is necessary in order to address it.

> Young women are working ridiculous hours as well.

That's not the point I was making.

> What child care, most of the highly educated aren't having kids to begin with.

That's not the point I was making.

> That's universal as well, not specific to women only.

Again, yes, Not Only Men, but there is a gender component to this that I am acknowledging.

Well what happened? Why did you leave? It sounds great!

Also, if someone contributes tests, never run them yourself.

Bonus points for making changes in other peoples' code without even running it locally before committing and pushing up.