I suspect there's more to this than this one incidence. Has there been friction between you and the developers in the past?
Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
11–20 of 30 posts
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#12Without speaking to your specific situation, because I know neither you nor your coworker nor the full details of what happened...
I think every Python dev I've met (myself included) has a funny/embarrassing story about default initialization in Python. It's a behavior which exists the way it does for a good reason, but nonetheless goes against most people's intuitions. So, we tend to get bitten by it at least once, and then we remember our embarrassment and avoid it going forward.
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#13> And I was telling him like, well, how can you claim to be better than a PHP dev (I have been a PHP dev, but it still one of my favorite bashing at any dev) when you don't care about scopes, immutability, allocation of variables when you pretend to code into a language?
This is where you went wrong. What you said was very `unnice`. Rather than plotting to kill him, start plotting your apology. Then figure out whether you are a "Boss" or a "Leader". It makes all the difference in the world. If you find that you are a boss, quickly relinquish your position. If you are a leader then you will find a way to apologize and turn it into a teachable moment for yourself and for your co-workers.
Do a quick google search on "Boss vs Leader" to understand what I am getting at.
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the problem. Your attitude has probably negatively effected the people that work for you.
because companies are about attitude now and not any more about earning money? Sometimes it is all about technical details, costing, pricing efficiency and getting things done. Because at the end, it is all about the money. And defects are expensive. And you may prefer an efficient worker with bad attitude than a cool bro that introduces bugs in code like a priest in a brothel. Because bugs cost more money than assho…
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Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the problem. Your attitude has probably negatively effected the people that work for you.
because companies are about attitude now and not any more about earning money? Sometimes it is all about technical details, costing, pricing efficiency and getting things done. Because at the end, it is all about the money. And defects are expensive. And you may prefer an efficient worker with bad attitude than a cool bro that introduces bugs in code like a priest in a brothel. Because bugs cost more money than assho…
And in your original post you said you knew how to solve the problem but wanting the dev to learn a lesson. SO you must regard training time more valuable than customers bugs.
AND now you start arguments with anyone that disagrees with you??
Take a chill pill, fix the bug, move on, laugh a little, and look the poor bloke in the eye and say you are sorry. People will respect you more, and maybe next time things won't get so blown out of proportion. Above all, relax, you got this bro :-)
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#16Don't ignore your feelings. You should get pissed, and also understand the forces at play.
Not everyone you work with will have an equal or greater work ethic as yours. The harder you work, and the better you become at your work, the more apparent it will become development in many companies is less than ideal.
And that's ok. You'll be happier if you understand that.
You went on to dig deeper as a result of getting annoyed, which people who blindly succumb may not have done, and may lead to changes.
But please, stay focused on the bug, not the person. Address the process, not the person. The process is a stronger force.
One of the most effective ways to handle cases like this is to face the problem directly. In your case it may have been to send an email, containing only one sentence and nothing else (so there are no distractions) that says "I believe the problem is with scopes in compute_since_how_long -- can you please test this function?"
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the problem. Your attitude has probably negatively effected the people that work for you.
because companies are about attitude now and not any more about earning money? Sometimes it is all about technical details, costing, pricing efficiency and getting things done. Because at the end, it is all about the money. And defects are expensive. And you may prefer an efficient worker with bad attitude than a cool bro that introduces bugs in code like a priest in a brothel. Because bugs cost more money than assho…
Let's imagine that lots of people don't like working with assholes. Let's also imagine that good developers can more reliably pick where they work. If that's so, being an asshole skews your hiring pool away from good workers. That might very well cost you money.
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is the problem. Your attitude has probably negatively effected the people that work for you.
because companies are about attitude now and not any more about earning money? Sometimes it is all about technical details, costing, pricing efficiency and getting things done. Because at the end, it is all about the money. And defects are expensive. And you may prefer an efficient worker with bad attitude than a cool bro that introduces bugs in code like a priest in a brothel. Because bugs cost more money than assho…
You caused extra downtime for the customer so you could make an example of someone and relish in your victory.
You're winning an argument while you lose the war.
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#19>He answered what I was saying is unnice! And used the coworkers as witnesses of me being an asshole for this.
If I read that correctly, other coworkers also think you're an asshole, correct? If that's correct, that is pretty important. If you are seen by not only him as unkind, but also by others as unkind, you'll be fired once the opportunity presents itself. There are even tech companies with the motto "Fire the assholes" because it is often more productive to work with someone less technically competent, but less of an asshole, than it is to work with someone who is more competent, but more of an asshole.
In addition, I had to read your post a couple of times before it made sense. The next time you're bothered by an employee, you may want to consider that for each of your emails, texts, etc, that the other person may have to do twice the work to read it.
Re: Ask HN: Am I excessive in wanting to fire a dev?
#20Either everyone will get sick of you to the point where you're fired, or the guy will probably quit anyway.
I've noticed in situations like these it will end in one of those situations so you don't really have to do anything.