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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?

#121

Post by cwmoore »

29athrowaway wrote: post #120
cwmoore wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That was rewarding, thanks for the chat.

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

#123

Post by spectraldrift »

This sounds incredibly frustrating. But given you're in the leadership seat, it's worth taking a hard look at yourself asking how you're playing a role in this, especially since it's unlikely people are this difficult for no reason. I am rather a bit skeptical of this account as written.

One hint: he was told he was meant to be the lead. That's a bit of a shitty promise to be given and taken away.

This guy is almost certainly operating from a place of "status injury." He sees you as the person who took his job.

So, some hard questions for self-reflection:

Knowing he felt slighted, did you ever try to build an alliance with him and acknowledge his expertise? Or did you just expect him to fall in line?

Are you showing him respect, or just demanding it because of your title?

Are his arguments over "trivial things" really trivial? Or is it his (unproductive) way of trying to assert the technical authority he feels you're ignoring?

Right now, your manager hears a personal problem ("This guy is a jerk to me"). That's why he's giving you the weak "don't let it bother you" response.

Stop making it personal. Use your leadership skills to actually lead this person. Try to fix the relationship. Give him ownership.

If that fails, you can go to your manager with a leadership problem ("I've tried A, B, and C to leverage his skills, but his behavior is still causing X business risk"). That is a problem a manager has to solve.

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

#124

Post by DANmode »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #60
tacostakohashi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds very familiar to me... I know of a guy like that, who will rapidly jump on and propose and implement half-baked "tactical" solutions to any production incident. As you say, he is valued by management, because he is very responsive, at all hours, and always has some kind of snake oil "fix" to offer for any problem, and generally maintains a bit of a "mad scientist" vibe. The issue is that, most of his "fix…

I’d go so far as to say that you and this other engineer both fill vital roles on your team. It’s not that you’re right or he’s right; you’re both right. I’ve been on teams where I needed to be the methodical engineer who carefully built critical infrastructure and agonized over every decision. I’m currently at a small startup that hasn’t yet reached breakeven, so I’m scrambling like crazy to build things our custome…

Could replace them both with an “overpaid” even-keeled and unemotional engineer who will make sure it fits just right…

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

#125

Post by DANmode »

golly_ned wrote: post #113
bargainbin wrote: post #82

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.

You’re stuck in a culture of live and let live,

vs excellence.

Either swap roles with this asshole, or “be the bigger person” and move on from the toxic firm.

Especially if you get pushback above your direct manager.

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

#126

Post by DANmode »

DANmode wrote: post #125
golly_ned wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You’re stuck in a culture of live and let live, vs excellence. Either swap roles with this asshole, or “be the bigger person” and move on from the toxic firm. Especially if you get pushback above your direct manager.

Unless something changes,

$Asshole is the manager anyway,

if he’s being tolerated.

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

#127

Post by golly_ned »

jdlshore wrote: post #49
golly_ned wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your advice. > your manager isn’t doing his job Yeah, I do believe this and agree. My manager's new, and hasn't gotten much guidance or mentorship. I feel like he depends on me for a lot, and since I don't have a clear answer for him in this situation since I'm actually involved in it, I think he doesn't know what to do. He's said in the past with respect to this engineer's conflict with a struggling en…

Based on what you’ve written, you owe it to your skip to have this conversation with him. This issue isn’t just affecting you, it’s affecting the whole team, and I guarantee it’s dragging down the performance of the team as a whole. (Team performance always jumps up after a toxic employee is removed, in my experience, no matter how brilliant or essential they seemed to be.) Your manager’s fear of looking bad to his b…

I talked to my manager just now. He knows of some cases where engineers have had bad experiences with him, but not others. Some apparently just talk to me but don't raise it to our manager. He still knew he was a problematic engineer, but wasn't getting the same confirmation that I was getting. I gave him the names of two more engineers with recent experiences with the guy he can talk to, one within the team and one outside the team.

I also gave the feedback to my manager that I don't think he's handled this well. I brought up that he's, each time, mentioned another excuse for the difficult engineer. He agreed, and apologized to me. He was sincere, and apologized more than once. Meanwhile, I apologized for bringing this up again.

It's discouraging that he didn't have as many other people talking about the guy to him as they have to me. It makes me think I may just have way more problems with him than me, and that I've overestimated how problematic he is; though I also think the other engineers who've complained about him to me are conflict-averse and wouldn't want to raise this to a manager who may pass it on to the difficult engineer. I was also disappointed that my manager said that he doesn't think it's personal, and that that's just how the difficult engineer is to everyone; it's clear to me that that's not the case since I'm living it first-hand.

It was also hard to get to a concrete, specific, actionable behavior change to request the difficult engineer to commit to. It's easy to say "don't condescend to your teammates". It's hard to say what behaviors that entails.

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

#128

Post by golly_ned »

DANmode wrote: post #125
golly_ned wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You’re stuck in a culture of live and let live, vs excellence. Either swap roles with this asshole, or “be the bigger person” and move on from the toxic firm. Especially if you get pushback above your direct manager.

Frankly, I think if you asked the difficult engineer, he'd say we're also stuck in a culture of live and let live vs. excellence, and that he's on the side of excellence, and his teammates just aren't good enough.

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

#129

Post by jdlshore »

golly_ned wrote: post #127
jdlshore wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on what you’ve written, you owe it to your skip to have this conversation with him. This issue isn’t just affecting you, it’s affecting the whole team, and I guarantee it’s dragging down the performance of the team as a whole. (Team performance always jumps up after a toxic employee is removed, in my experience, no matter how brilliant or essential they seemed to be.) Your manager’s fear of looking bad to his b…

I talked to my manager just now. He knows of some cases where engineers have had bad experiences with him, but not others. Some apparently just talk to me but don't raise it to our manager. He still knew he was a problematic engineer, but wasn't getting the same confirmation that I was getting. I gave him the names of two more engineers with recent experiences with the guy he can talk to, one within the team and one…

It’s surprisingly common for managers to have no clue what’s going on in their teams. Doubly and triply so for skip-levels and higher. The reason is exactly what you’re seeing here: people will complain to each other, but not inform their manager.

One of the essential but most difficult jobs of a manager is to create psychological safety: the ability for people to raise what’s really on their mind, and to do so with the people who can act on that information.

I think you made the right call here. Telling your manager you were disappointed with their handling took courage, too. Now they can look into it further, starting with talking to the people you named.

Maybe they were just going along with you, “oh yeah, that guy’s a real jerk.” Maybe (and more likely) they didn’t raise it themselves because they’re don’t have the senior mindset you do. If your manager asks them directly, they’ll probably get a reasonably honest answer, although it’ll likely be softened a bit.

> It was also hard to get to a concrete, specific, actionable behavior change to request the difficult engineer to commit to.

Oh yeah, that’s the hell of these things. You end up playing whack-a-mole, too, because HR wants something more concrete than “don’t be an asshole,” and it turns out you can follow the letter of a PIP while finding plenty of other ways to be an asshole.

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

#130

Post by DANmode »

golly_ned wrote: post #128
DANmode wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re stuck in a culture of live and let live, vs excellence. Either swap roles with this asshole, or “be the bigger person” and move on from the toxic firm. Especially if you get pushback above your direct manager.

Frankly, I think if you asked the difficult engineer, he'd say we're also stuck in a culture of live and let live vs. excellence, and that he's on the side of excellence, and his teammates just aren't good enough.

Two paths.

Give him what he wants (your seat) if you truly just want to clock in there and work in peace as you've indicated.

If you want more than that, it may be time to move on.

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