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A new study of rudeness in the workplace

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Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#21

Post by dvtrn »

mharroun wrote: post #9
EliRivers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is very different. The rudest people I've had to work with are generally incompetent to mediocre at best, often believe themselves to be far more competent than the evidence suggests, and end up significant drains on the company as people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents. The actual best performers tended to be quietly polite and uno…

From my experience rude + under-performing = termination, if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around? I didn't put it in my original post but incompetent managers who use "boasting" as a success metric instead of objective metrics can lead to such an issue as well.

if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around?

I'm asking this question presently as a team lead.

We have a contributor who is a drain on just about every aspect of our team's operations. They frequently miss meetings, they don't seem to take instruction well (example I brought up once to another team member, this person will ask for help, cut you off constantly, suggest their way is better, or do the direct opposite of whatever recommendation you offer and spend days on a problem set delaying sprints), have delayed multiple projects, caused numerous production outages so on and so forth.

All of this combined has made trying to train this person or help them improve difficult and frustrating--very few on the team wants to work with them anymore.

It's not a secret among the team that this person just is not the contributor we need, and it's pretty evident from his reactions a few times that our department head is not pleased either, but he doesn't seem interested in letting this person go--none of us are quite sure how to have that talk with our leader that we think this person should be cut loose and a replacement found.

Suggestions on broaching that topic?

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#22

Post by mharroun »

dvtrn wrote: post #21
mharroun wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience rude + under-performing = termination, if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around? I didn't put it in my original post but incompetent managers who use "boasting" as a success metric instead of objective metrics can lead to such an issue as well.

if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around? I'm asking this question presently as a team lead. We have a contributor who is a drain on just about every aspect of our team's operations. They frequently miss meetings, they don't seem to take instruction well (example I brought up once to another team member, this person will ask for help, cut you off constant…

As team lead are you the persons manager? If so you should have every right to go to hr to either terminate or start a performance improvement plan.

If your a team lead with no hire/fire power you need to go to your department head (and rally those whoa agree with you to do the same) and be blunt. "X is is not performing to expectations on top of that the way X is not performing is disrupting, impeding, and alienating other members of the team and its now become not just a performance issue but one of employee attrition".

This makes it about X vs the rest of the team/department and allows him to clearly see what is actually at risk. Its very unlikely 1 person is so valued that a manager would accept major turnover in their department.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#23

Post by nefitty »

mharroun wrote: post #16
rfrey wrote: post #13

In 25 years of working in the software industry, I have never witnessed somebody's assholity defended by their performance. I have also never encountered... NEVER encountered... an asshole who was also a top performer. In contrast, the top 7 performers I can think of off the top of my head were to a person kind, generous with their knowledge, patient with those less talented, and generally Good People, both to work w…

To be clear there are under performing assholes just they usual get the ax quickly if management is competent. How would those 7 top performers act if placed alone in a situation of failure? Where its obvious the company is failing and is clear is certain individuals? Is it not "rude" to point that out? Or are we defining being rude or assholity differently? I personally seen many times people who push back or raise…

There's a huge difference between saying someone sucks at their job and being able to point at specific failures and illustrating a pattern of behavior. One is constructive, the other is rude.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#24

Post by jdnenej »

mharroun wrote: post #17
usefulcat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will note that although I have never met an asshole who was a top performer, I have met many who were convinced that they were. Definitely this. I find that insecurity also correlates strongly with the above description.

So what do you label someone who does most of the work while other contribute little to nothing? How to they profess that and not be labeled an asshole?

You are either involved in hiring and can remove useless people or you are not and shouldn't care what others are doing.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#25

Post by chroma »

caminante wrote: post #18

>Notably, those employees who reported being victims of rudeness were largely perceived by their managers as perpetrators of rude behavior. The article and research abstract [0] doesn't appear to address the most interesting point. I want to know why the victim blaming persists. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30640491

My guess is that it's related to the saying, "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you are the asshole."

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#26

Post by [deleted] »

caminante wrote: post #18

>Notably, those employees who reported being victims of rudeness were largely perceived by their managers as perpetrators of rude behavior. The article and research abstract [0] doesn't appear to address the most interesting point. I want to know why the victim blaming persists. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30640491

[deleted]

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#27

Post by trabant00 »

I'm quite often rude to others at work and I freely admit it.

Reason: ofc I feel I am justified to be so. Just like everybody else I feel I am right.

I am not rude to everybody. Just people who don't want to carry their weight but want an equal share of the pie.

I am rude to Project "Managers" who only assign story points in jira. To product owners who always side with the external client and dump the technical team under a bus for the smallest things. With managers that think we can maintain full speed all year round. With hiring people who only care about getting the head hunting fee. Etc.

I am also a 3x productivity wise. Have not been matched in any of my jobs. (Spoiler: never worked at google or anything like that). Always on the edge of burnout.

Am I toxic or am I just blunt? Depend on who you ask. Am I to be promoted or fired? The same. One thing more I should note: the same people who make HR complaints behind my back ask me to help them with things that are not in my job description nor are documented work.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#28

Post by mharroun »

jdnenej wrote: post #24
mharroun wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do you label someone who does most of the work while other contribute little to nothing? How to they profess that and not be labeled an asshole?

You are either involved in hiring and can remove useless people or you are not and shouldn't care what others are doing.

Im the executive who oversees all of UI/UX, Product, QA, Devops, and Engineering. This is one of the core aspects of my job hence its my job to care and puts me the fair position of giving a top down view of such issues.

edit: wow down voted into oblivion over this... I came for a reasonable debate. Its super clear now why "rude" people rule and all the passive aggressive do is down vote me over a reply.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#29

Post by iamleppert »

mharroun wrote: post #2

How do you define being rude? From what I read and experienced in my career the real reason "rude" people get away with what they are doing is simple. They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals. I have met many sub-par workers who love to throw around the word "toxic" to define and attack such people. I have seen such "rude"…

Great engineers make everyone around them better. Bad engineers put down their co-workers and dismiss them as incompetent.

Almost every great engineer I have worked around has been nice, patient and relaxed. Because they know you can catch far more flys with honey than with vinegar.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#30

Post by darawk »

rfrey wrote: post #13

In 25 years of working in the software industry, I have never witnessed somebody's assholity defended by their performance. I have also never encountered... NEVER encountered... an asshole who was also a top performer. In contrast, the top 7 performers I can think of off the top of my head were to a person kind, generous with their knowledge, patient with those less talented, and generally Good People, both to work w…

Isn't Linus Torvalds a pretty strong counter-example to this?
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