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Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

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Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#151

Post by mirekrusin »

Funny that he complains about "jerk" seeing world as black-and-white in article that categorises people as jerks/non-jerks without any mention of in-betweeners.

Also what if the "jerk" is actually right? What if he is truly surrounded by incompetent people and needs to push things himself, repeating himself all the time, his suggestions being ignored or simply not understood or completely outside of intellectual capacity of his colleagues? What if perceived progress after firing him is illusory. Created by banal steps and pseudo milestones. What if the "progress" in few years perspective will mainly mean running in circles without adding any real value, just code debt?

Good manager wouldn't let go person like that, he can always jump into R&D, creating prototypes of systems/ideas alone or with somebody matching his competence.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#152

Post by ender7 »

People responding about how they personally aren't bothered by jerks are missing the point. It's great if you have thick skin, but it's hard enough to hire quality engineers without having to stipulate that they must also be psychologically hardened against lazy, petty, or oblivious aggression from coworkers (i.e. jerky behavior).

If I can choose to hire one brilliant jerk or three merely "good" engineers who don't need to be reminded to treat their coworkers thoughtfully, then I take the three engineers every time.

Arguments pointing to famous productive jerks (e.g. Linus Torvalds) also miss the point. Sure, Linus's prickliness may actually be a benefit given his singular position, but it's just that -- singular. You'll notice that no one else in the Linux dev community gets lionized for their random acts of rage. The world can tolerate a single Linus, but the solution doesn't scale, especially not to a random work group at a tech company.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#153

Post by phaed »

Sure I bet management goals are met in the short term, but you have to wonder at what level of quality now that they are left to their own devices. Fixing defects after release is 10-25x more costly than if found during construction (McConnel 2003 - Code Complete). How much do you want to bet that removing that brilliant dev that was finding all the issues is going to cost that project much more than they realize.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#154

Post by emmelaich »

See also this discussion in response to an article "Emotional Intelligence is overrated" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8389065

and let me dupe my comment to that:

Without falling on either side of the debate, it's probably a good time to bring out this quote from 1704.

    "Good engineers are so scarce, that one must bear with their humours"

    - Lord Galway, 1704

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#155

Post by antisthenes »

ImTalking wrote: post #137

Been there. Was involved in a telco software project where one person was a genius, a true unicorn. We were in meetings where some of his insight and perspective left us scratching our heads in amazement. Yet he was the most destructive co-worker I've ever come across. He never did anything. He would belittle others if they didn't grasp things. He would see a well-layout project plan and laugh and say that he could d…

So what's the best way for people like that to apply themselves in your view?

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#156

Post by falsedan »

Waterluvian wrote: post #24
beachy wrote: post #13

> A “No Jerks” Policy Must Be Built Into Your Culture. It is entirely possible to be extremely passionate (and even brilliant) without being a jerk. A “no jerks” policy must be preached and practiced from the highest levels. Following simplistic rules like this is usually what leaves us knee deep in the proverbial. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never worked with anyone who's as much of a jerk as described in the ar…

Hey that's me! I had a frustrating moment the other day where a colleague said that float(5) was more explicit and personally preferred in Python than a literal 5.0 I realised I was being pedantic but I genuinely believed in "good craftsmanship" when I really pushed him to change it. I need to get better at this because the social friction I caused may cost more than the poor craftsmanship. But the other part of me i…

This one's tricky, because you're absolutely right, and telling them that won't help them improve. Try asking them, "hey I must have not read that PEP, can you link me to where that's recommended so I can get in sync?", or "hey I read this guide recently and it recommends doing X because ", or (best), "I don't understand why this is recommended, where can I learn more" (which hopefully doesn't end up on a holistic learn-the-world journey that ends with a 1-to-1 with your boss where you share your concerns about this developer's performance).

"Good craftsmanship" is both subjective AND hard to relate to an increase business value. Better to stick with third-party recommendations, like textbooks or linters.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#157

Post by watwut »

TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #63

I have never had a good job. Most of my life has been miserable working in QA and not finding any value in anything I do or being able to find something better. This currently leads me to where I am today, working at a huge corp in a pool of mediocrity. The people around me have absolutely no big ambitions to do anything meaningful in life and are very comfortable with their mediocre kids. These people are happy whic…

Are you sure you are not projecting your own attitude on them? I know testers who like that job. Not like as "I want to become famous", but like as "I actually like doing that activity and like people on that job".

To address the personal attack in second paragraph: Some of those dudes might consider their families meaningful. It is goods for kids when their parents love them even as kids are average - most kids are average so it is good when parents are comfortable with them. There is nothing wrong nor shameful about men being comfortable with their own children. Fathers are as important for children as mothers.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#158

Post by ahallock »

This post is full of contradictions and vagueness.

> Its[sic] not that he was wrong — he rarely was

> He had good reasons, and he was more often right than not

> He just stated his opinions as fact. It was clear that he saw the world in black or white — no gray areas — and we were all wrong.

So the author agreed that he was right almost all of the time, but he should allow for gray areas? Makes no sense.

Later on:

> A funny thing happened almost immediately after he left: morale increased steadily and we actually began to meet our goals even faster with one less person on the team.

But the "jerk" was always right and "slaughtered" the code reviews of his peers, so what kind of code were they producing to meet their goals?

Maybe this guy was a jerk and didn't work well on the team, but it also sounds like the other people involved were terrible at their jobs and should either get re-educated or find another career.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#159

Post by WalterBright »

beachy wrote: post #13

> A “No Jerks” Policy Must Be Built Into Your Culture. It is entirely possible to be extremely passionate (and even brilliant) without being a jerk. A “no jerks” policy must be preached and practiced from the highest levels. Following simplistic rules like this is usually what leaves us knee deep in the proverbial. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never worked with anyone who's as much of a jerk as described in the ar…

Every organization needs a rogue here and there - one who will challenge conventional wisdom and authority in confrontational, i.e. jerkish, ways. It's management's job to try to fit them in and put them in the right positions. I'm sympathetic because I'm very socially inept myself.

Re: Brilliant Jerks Cost More Than They Are Worth

#160

Post by SeanDav »

Waterluvian wrote: post #24
beachy wrote: post #13

> A “No Jerks” Policy Must Be Built Into Your Culture. It is entirely possible to be extremely passionate (and even brilliant) without being a jerk. A “no jerks” policy must be preached and practiced from the highest levels. Following simplistic rules like this is usually what leaves us knee deep in the proverbial. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never worked with anyone who's as much of a jerk as described in the ar…

Hey that's me! I had a frustrating moment the other day where a colleague said that float(5) was more explicit and personally preferred in Python than a literal 5.0 I realised I was being pedantic but I genuinely believed in "good craftsmanship" when I really pushed him to change it. I need to get better at this because the social friction I caused may cost more than the poor craftsmanship. But the other part of me i…

Unless you can prove that one method is significantly faster or the other structurally dangerous, it is just a matter of coding style and opinion. Agree to disagree, or let the lint tool be the referee.
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