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

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

#51

Post by weinzierl »

indymike wrote: post #36
weinzierl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article has a clickbait title: It uses the word "incompetent" when it should have said "underperforming" . There are may reasons an employee is not performing and the article discusses a few of them. Sometimes it is right to fire the person, sometimes another approach might be better. It's as nuanced as the reasons.

This article, and the one it was written in response to are both about the scenario where someone is under-performing because they are incompetent, not capable of becoming competent and really nice and likable. What both articles missed is that in many organizations nice, incompetent people often get promoted to leadership positions and become the subject of business books and bad memes... and unfortunately go on to…

Maybe this is a language thing, but if someone underperforms because of health issues or burnout (like discussed in the article) I would not call them incompetent.

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

#53

Post by MontyCarloHall »

TexanFeller wrote: post #45
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ADHD is probably the problem under this behaviour. Whether this is the case quickly becomes apparent by working closely in tandem with the person, e.g. pair programming. It will be obvious within the first few minutes whether the person simply cannot hold a train of thought for as long as the problem requires. As you write, there are concrete ways of addressing this. On the other hand, it is also obvious when the la…

Pairing is actually one of my most helpful strategies for keeping myself on task with boring tasks. People probably notice my ADHD much less when pairing with me. One reason remote work has destroyed my productivity is that pairing just can't happen in the same way.

I totally agree. I have some minor attention deficit issues, but working closely with others really lights a fire under my ass and I experience zero distractions.

I also agree that there's something distinct about working when someone is directly watching you, versus working without direct observation (e.g. over Zoom). Perhaps this is why I'm far more productive working remotely from coffeeshops than I am from home.

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

#54

Post by probably_wrong »

In his "Make good art" speech [1] Neil Gaiman mentions a third axis in the good-bad/nice-jerk graph, namely, "delivers the work on time".

I'm not sure how good it would work for software development, but the comic book world has plenty of successful artists like that - their art is okay at best, but they have plenty of work because they reliably hit their deadlines.

Assuming your worker is not entirely terrible, I always thought this made for a reasonable tie breaker.

[1] https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/make-good-art-by-neil-...

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

#55

Post by danaris »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #38
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…

>ADHD is probably the problem under this behaviour. Whether this is the case quickly becomes apparent by working closely in tandem with the person, e.g. pair programming. It will be obvious within the first few minutes whether the person simply cannot hold a train of thought for as long as the problem requires. As you write, there are concrete ways of addressing this. On the other hand, it is also obvious when the la…

> I’ve seen people focus intently for hours to complete a task that would most take others on the team a few minutes, and not for lack of knowledge or training; their brain simply worked at a much slower speed.

You do have to be somewhat careful about this.

While there are people who do genuinely have the problem you describe without mitigating factors, I have seen people who superficially fit this description to a T—but whose rate of errors is far below those who appear to do the same work faster.

Sometimes, "slower thinking" is much more effective at getting the job done right than a fast-thinking "cowboy" approach.

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

#56

Post by danielvaughn »

I'm now in my second role where this applies to me. The first one, I was fired from, but I chalked it up to inexperience.

This time around I have a lot of experience under my belt, and for that reason it's weighing on me quite a lot. I'm finding myself digging into Kubernetes for the first time and no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to crack it. None of it makes any sense to me - I get what K8s is at a high level, but man...once you get into the details, it just feels impossible. I don't know if I've ever experienced this much stress in a job before.

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

#57

Post by CuriouslyC »

probably_wrong wrote: post #54

In his "Make good art" speech [1] Neil Gaiman mentions a third axis in the good-bad/nice-jerk graph, namely, "delivers the work on time". I'm not sure how good it would work for software development, but the comic book world has plenty of successful artists like that - their art is okay at best, but they have plenty of work because they reliably hit their deadlines. Assuming your worker is not entirely terrible, I al…

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 the stuff he's been heavily involved in is borderline indecipherable so the tech debt tradeoff has been pretty brutal.

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

#58

Post by danaris »

rtpg wrote: post #34
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…

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.

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

#59

Post by danpalmer »

danielvaughn wrote: post #56

I'm now in my second role where this applies to me. The first one, I was fired from, but I chalked it up to inexperience. This time around I have a lot of experience under my belt, and for that reason it's weighing on me quite a lot. I'm finding myself digging into Kubernetes for the first time and no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to crack it. None of it makes any sense to me - I get what K8s is at a high…

That sucks. Can you focus on strengths instead? I happen to find infra quite easy, but CSS/design systems, I just always seem to suck at, and I'm thankful to work with people who are good at these things.

I'm all for working on weaknesses! But at some point I think it's better to focus on where we can add value and play to our strengths.

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

#60

Post by nateabele »

danielvaughn wrote: post #56

I'm now in my second role where this applies to me. The first one, I was fired from, but I chalked it up to inexperience. This time around I have a lot of experience under my belt, and for that reason it's weighing on me quite a lot. I'm finding myself digging into Kubernetes for the first time and no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to crack it. None of it makes any sense to me - I get what K8s is at a high…

It's not you. K8s' design is terrible: the combinatorial explosion of nouns to learn is specifically because the abstractions are bad. It's quintessential of an industry that self-selects for high comfort with complexity.
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