A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice” • Hacker News Board

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#111

Post by srcreigh » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

mjr00 wrote: post #66

CuriouslyC wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works better in comic books than software. As an example, I have a coworker who is pretty good in terms of domain knowledge, and can push out work pretty fast, but he does things like write migrations that insert rows of data one at a time in a loop, or adds three layers of almost do-nothing wrapper functions around business logic that doesn't need to be abstracted. He's made a lot of useful contributions but th…

This reflects more poorly on your engineering leadership than your coworker imo. Where are the guardrails? Why aren't his migrations going through a pull request where you can review and say "this should be a batch insert?" If PRs are in place but nobody speaks up, why is the culture afraid of pointing these things out?

Yeah this kind of stuff is always best solved with general eng guidelines.

I’ve been that guy many times. Having to do my PR 3 separate times over the course of a week because of feedback. IMO each solution worked fine, and the feedback was also fine.

The trouble with explicit guidelines is it’ll make clear that your high-clout engineers are always breaking them.

The reality is some peoples time matters more. And ideas aren’t always better, it’s about reducing the mental workload of one person at the expense of another person.

There was a comment on previous thread about how they beautifully offered the autistic guy his own somewhat independent projects and he excelled. This is unthinkable in many places. It’s common to have the one high clout senior guy who wants to maintain clout but doesn’t have the mental resources to offer autonomy of the underlings. One can dream, though.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#112

Post by acdha » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #101

acdha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I periodically think about the stigma ADHD had when I was a kid in the late-80/90s and wonder how many people have some degree of impact on their life but have resisted a formal diagnosis and treatment. Some people used to talk about medication like it was a lobotomy.

This was me. Unironically, my first few times actually finally trying medication not helping me very much is what made me get over the stigma. When it simply... didn't help much, rather than making me a pill-addicted raving addict, something clicked.

We’ve definitely talked about the cruel irony that my dad never got treatment for depression but tried basically every illegal thing he could get his hands on trying to self-medicate. The line in his mind between medicine and party drug was tragic.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#113

Post by flappyeagle » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #37

flappyeagle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often it’s extremely misguided. It’s better for people to work at a job they don’t struggle with. Fire them and move on so they can too

If people didn't need jobs to have food and shelter you might have a point, but as it is our society is constructed such that even the time it takes to find a new job will have significant impact on most people's ability to pay for basic necessities. Maybe we should fix that? Nah, let's just treat people like expendable resources so we don't have to increase taxes on the wealth elite who never need be concerned with…

That’s what severance is for

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#114

Post by jackvalentine » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

gavinmckenzie wrote: post #103

UncleOxidant wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be 60 in a few months and looking back I've tended to think that anxiety has been the main thing that held me back in my career, but I can also relate to the post above where they say they do great in the early days of a job/project, but as time goes on find it more and more difficult to stay engaged. I guess I would think this is caused by anxiety in my case, but now I'm wondering if maybe there isn't more goin…

Yes, my understanding is that some people present with anxiety (and/or depression), and that anxiety will become the focus of treatment by their doctor or psychologist, when in fact the anxiety stems from the undiagnosed ADHD. For these people, treating the anxiety alone isn't very effective, compared to getting an ADHD diagnosis and treatment plan that also has a positive impact on the anxiety symptoms. Anecdotally…

This whole thread has been a gut punch. My sister and her kid were recently diagnosed with ADHD and combining that fact with what has been described here I need to go see someone myself I think.

I have been on the anxiety treatment path before and what you describe rings true with me.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#115

Post by strikelaserclaw » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 11:21 PM UTC

tr3ntg wrote: post #63

alfor wrote: post #10

ADHD is probably the problem under this behaviour. Can’t complete tasks and underperform but want to help other, be part of the team. People with ADHD have developed coping behaviour to fit in but have very low control on their executive functions, they can’t keep working on something that doesn’t catch their attention. It’s very hard to understand for someone who don’t have the problem "why can’t they just do it!" W…

I hear this all the time, and these workplace-focused descriptions of "phases of underperformance" really apply to me, but I don't think it's ADHD. I can focus on all sorts of things when I try, and when I look up symptoms of ADHD, maybe just 5% apply to me. For me, I've joined new teams and crushed it for a few weeks where it was at least expected performance, but then I quickly fall off a cliff for seemingly no rea…

maybe most office jobs are just boring as hell.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#116

Post by zamnos » Thu, Mar 30, 2023, 11:45 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #82

zamnos wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're that executively dysfunctional to the point where it's affecting your career, then it's time to escalate the problem beyond what your immediate manager can provide (but do talk to them about this), and find a mental health professional that can help. everybody has their off days but if those days turn into months and then days and then years, it might be burnout, at which point you'll still want a mental he…

In my case, I got a job I really enjoy doing, and I'm extremely productive at it, but I agree in general.

That's great! Yeah I got a job in the incident response part of the industry because it turns out my brain will work if it thinks it's an emergency, and I'd like to think I've done quite well for myself.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#117

Post by Fr0styMatt88 » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 1:04 AM UTC

alfor wrote: post #10

ADHD is probably the problem under this behaviour. Can’t complete tasks and underperform but want to help other, be part of the team. People with ADHD have developed coping behaviour to fit in but have very low control on their executive functions, they can’t keep working on something that doesn’t catch their attention. It’s very hard to understand for someone who don’t have the problem "why can’t they just do it!" W…

This is so timely. I’ve recently had a performance review and distractibility and ending sprints with multiple, unfinished tasks is a huge problem that got flagged and that I need to work on.

The frustrating thing is I’ve done multiple ADHD self-tests and quizzes (like the ASRS) and Asperger tests (like the Aspie Quiz) and I’m always just on the border or right in the middle for both (eg- two grey boxes on the top of the ASRS instead of three IIRC and almost equal parts Aspie and equal parts normal on the Aspie Quiz). Even still I can relate to this. I know people with really severe ADHD that affects all aspects of their lives and I don’t think I fit that category, but at the same time I have to look at the external indicators (current job performance, being told by multiple people I’m likely ‘on the spectrum’, etc) and they make me unsure of my own judgement of myself.

This is more complicated by the fact I was blind for some time after I was born and people in that situation often have autistic traits (‘blindisms’) so it’s really hard to know what traits come from where.

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#118

Post by zamnos » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 2:58 AM UTC

prometheus76 wrote: post #79

zamnos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missed Potential is the name of the band featuring everyone with ADHD who was called "smart but unmotivated" by their teachers, never got tested, and never derived the benefits of treatment. You're free to do whatever you want, but if someone in a wheelchair refused a simple surgery that would fix their problem, and said that people trying to help them walk were "jamming them into workflows", you'd really think that…

As someone who was diagnosed in my 30s, used medication for about eight years, then got off of it for about three years, I'm going to offer another viewpoint. I am grateful for the clarity I got with the meds, but something always felt off and I definitely talked too much. I finally decided to get back off meds, and my anxiety really subsided. By that time, I had built a pretty effective external structure of calenda…

Anxiety is really the crux of it. My psych prescribing anti-anxiety meds was life changing!

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#119

Post by rtpg » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 4:37 AM UTC

danaris wrote: post #58

rtpg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely people who have ADHD and are simply not diagnosed, as well as people who are "afraid of" medication for reason X. For people who are unsure about this, though, ADHD having-ness is not 100% equivalent to "being unable to do your job with focus". Like parent mentions, ADHD is fundamentally about low executive control. So if you find yourself often saying things and immediately regretting it (often…

ADHD also isn't just one thing: it's a constellation of symptoms with similar causes, and two people can "have ADHD" and have very different subsets of those symptoms.

I think that "it's not one thing" is definitely true in symptoms, especially because coping mechanisms differ, but there's specific behavior in the brain, and ones that, frankly, don't just turn off outside of a work context.

Falibility to addictive behavior is one, to me, feels like a big one that is almost universal because it plays so well into the underlying issue in the brain. But of course "normal" humans are faliable to addictive behavior to some degree!

Re: A Response to Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s “Incompetent but Nice”

#120

Post by zamnos » Fri, Mar 31, 2023, 10:59 AM UTC

prometheus76 wrote: post #79

zamnos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missed Potential is the name of the band featuring everyone with ADHD who was called "smart but unmotivated" by their teachers, never got tested, and never derived the benefits of treatment. You're free to do whatever you want, but if someone in a wheelchair refused a simple surgery that would fix their problem, and said that people trying to help them walk were "jamming them into workflows", you'd really think that…

As someone who was diagnosed in my 30s, used medication for about eight years, then got off of it for about three years, I'm going to offer another viewpoint. I am grateful for the clarity I got with the meds, but something always felt off and I definitely talked too much. I finally decided to get back off meds, and my anxiety really subsided. By that time, I had built a pretty effective external structure of calenda…

If you've been on medication, and know the effects of it on you well, and you're able to put systems in place to overcome the shortcomings this legally recognized disability has afflicted you with (as well as the blessings), then absolutely be off medication as you please. Tis your life to live! But for those that haven't been on medication for extended periods, or even just tried medication at all, for whatever reason, be it fear pushed by anti-medication zealots, or an inability to access it; for those that are tired of their life failing for reasons that everybody else seems to just be able to do, medication is, sometimes literally, a lifesaver.