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Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

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Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#111
Once my boss told me: “You can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do.” And this guy just don’t want to work well with you. Period.

I learned one approach that sometimes works: Figure out what they want and give them what they want. But with the condition they change their behavior. From your post, it sounds like this guy wants to be promoted.

If I were you, I would talk to him like this:

“Look, you are good technically. You should be promoted. But higher levels here mean more than just code. It means mentoring, working closer with peers, hiring people, training them, helping management. We have a career path in place, let’s make a plan for you.”

In big companies it’s even easier. Use the promotion track. Show him what’s expected. If he wants the title, he has to play the role.

Three things can happen:

He rises to it: He starts acting more professional, helps others, builds trust. You win, he wins, team wins.

He tries and fails: He’s exposed higher up. He has direct reports. He’s in meetings with management. He can’t hide his behavior anymore. Eventually, they’ll act.

He says “no thanks”: Then it’s clear. He just wants to stay where he is and make your life harder. At least now everyone sees it.

This puts the pressure where it belongs. On him, to live up to what he says he wants.

[Edit]: You can also tell him that if he wants the promotion, he has to start acting like someone at that level. That means following the principle: “There are no mistakes, only lessons we learn from.”

Tell him: "There was an outage. OK. Then step up. Take the lead, organize a post-mortem, and work with others to find real measures that prevent it in the future. Not to assign blame, but to help the organization improve."

Maybe you don’t even join the post-mortem, let him own it. Just make clear: this isn’t about finger-pointing, it’s about building a culture where problems lead to better systems.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#112

Once my boss told me: “You can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do.” And this guy just don’t want to work well with you. Period. I learned one approach that sometimes works: Figure out what they want and give them what they want. But with the condition they change their behavior. From your post, it sounds like this guy wants to be promoted. If I were you, I would talk to him like this: “Look, you are…

I’m planning on making it clear we should do this. I’m expecting push-back. I’m just not going to entertain it and rely on my manager to handle scheduling while I take part in technical review. I’m exhausted of having to fight this guy to do what’s right.

It probably won’t be him who writes it but he’ll have to be involved at least as a code reviewer for the AIs. I’m sure he’s going to complain and try to make it look unnecessary. I’m mostly done trying to make things work with this guy. I’ll move up to my skip if I keep getting hassled like this.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#113

Been there, got the scars. First thing, explain to them in writing how their behaviour impacts the team as a collective, not just you specifically. If the behaviour persists, put them on a performance improvement plan. Specifically outline the behaviour that needs to change and importantly: hold the whole team to the same standard and scrutiny. Three outcomes in order of likelihood: - they take the hint and leave - t…

I can’t do that. My manager can, but I don’t think he’s strong-willed enough to actually do it.

I can put it in writing in his review, which I plan to do. I don’t want it to be a surprise.

I need way more from my manager. The only way I can get that is through my skip.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#114
post #53

A slight left-field suggestion, but have you tried asking this 'competent jerk' if he wants to go for a coffee (or pint, depending on your culture)? He might just not be aware he's being a jerk, have you tried having a casual, non-confrontational chat with him and raising your concerns? ie "I respect you as an engineer but you can be difficult to work with sometimes" Maybe he just isn't aware? Sometimes you just need…

We are remote. He’s been told at least a few times.

I can do this over 1:1 over remote, but it definitely doesn’t feel the same.

We have a team onsite in a few weeks. I could do it then. I still think it’s more likely than not that things will go sour, especially since the rest of the team will actually be there, and I’ll be letting him know a lot of the team has had issues with him.

The rest of the team is extremely passive and conflict-averse. It’ll be awkward then.

I can try a remote 1:1 since I think there are more ways to keep a cap on this.

The very fact that I have to tiptoe around this makes me realize this guy is super volatile and angry. Even reducing our 1:1 cadence, which I did for all team members simply due to too much meeting load on me, led him to cancel them altogether.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#115
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think from what I've written, it could be possible to interpret this as the case. At least part of it's true -- I'm not nearly as experienced in some of the technologies this team uses as the other engineer who's been working on the team for a lot longer. I think I'm self-aware about what I know and what I don't, and defer to him in those cases. I do think that plays into why he doesn't seem to have much respect fo…

It sounds as though there is unclarity in roles. You might have a style of avoiding or de-escalating confrontation which could make him believe your call for a post-mortem is a suggestion he can set aside. My advice would be 1) to not phrase decisions as suggestions, 2) motivate/justify with hard facts ("an outage occurred, we are having a meeting to discuss causes/mitigations"), 3) if post-mortems are perceived as p…

Good advice. This is what I’m planning to do. I didn’t do this in the meeting since he misrepresented how bad this was.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#117
post #7

VP of Eng here. If we take your statements at face value, your manager isn’t doing his job. Toxic employees are death to companies and it’s management’s job to get rid of them. (After attempting to address the issue. But my experience is that toxics are gonna toxic. Don’t coddle them.) If you’re willing to lightly scorch some bridges, talk to your skip-level manager. If that doesn’t work, or you don’t want to, your b…

Now how do I deal with an engineer who seems to be brilliant - though this is sometimes hard to gauge since code quality can be subjective - who always leaps in to answer things quicker and is loved by upper management because he, I guess, constantly codes even outside of work hours, but who is extremely grating to get along with. Lord I need a different job.

As a manager? Coach your report on his soft skills. Software dev is about being a good team member as much as a good individual contributor. If the strongest guy is dominating meetings and dominating the team's direction with his opinion, that's something to work on.

He has to give others space to contribute by not jumping in. And his manager should be coaching this directly. As the EM, you want your whole team to be able to confidently do what he does. Functioning teams have multiple engineers concurrently owning your scope.

If your company isn't toxic, over-working would also be seen as a negative because of the precedent it sets. If this guy wants to be a leader and not a monkey, he has to appreciate that. And senior/staff counts as "leader" here.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the name of this philosophy you espouse? I am assuming it exists because you seem deeply committed. Seems to apply simple, clear, and rigid moral determinations to a soft and very complex subject.

- You cannot control others, only how you respond and what you allow into your life (Stoicism) - You can be kind, but you also have to be kind to yourself (psychology) - Collaboration works only when participants share goals (game theory) - Everyone contributes to one shared output (systems thinking) - Respecting your profession and honoring the effort that got you to your position (Aristotelian and Confucian role et…

I see, so would “self-assured syncretism” be unfair?

As such, is the definite certainty justifiable or more of a personality choice?

Not picking on you, exactly, trying to find why I’ve been hearing this kind of language used so confidently among more or less equal peers, and what it’s actually doing for people.

Re: Ask HN: Not treated respectfully by colleague – advice?

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- You cannot control others, only how you respond and what you allow into your life (Stoicism) - You can be kind, but you also have to be kind to yourself (psychology) - Collaboration works only when participants share goals (game theory) - Everyone contributes to one shared output (systems thinking) - Respecting your profession and honoring the effort that got you to your position (Aristotelian and Confucian role et…

I see, so would “self-assured syncretism” be unfair? As such, is the definite certainty justifiable or more of a personality choice? Not picking on you, exactly, trying to find why I’ve been hearing this kind of language used so confidently among more or less equal peers, and what it’s actually doing for people.

Cunningham's Law: "The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

If I am wrong, someone will point it out and I will have learned something new in the process.

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