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Are You a Grumpy Developer?

blog.rickyrobinett.com

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Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#51

Post by BryantD »

freework wrote: post #47
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #32

If you are working for me, my expectation is that you will treat everybody (both on my team and not) with professionalism and respect, even if you feel you aren't getting enough respect from others[1]. Even if you are doing that, if you are continually negative and surely (e.g. not quite grouchy, but certainly not pleasant), your tenure on my team will be short[2]. Negativity spreads like a cancer until it destroys m…

What kind of person turns into a "0.1x" developer because of another person's grumpiness? Seem to me, those are the ones who should be fired.

If you believe that unsupportive management can affect your productivity, surely unsupportive/hostile peers can do the same thing?

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#52

Post by lucisferre »

codegeek wrote: post #38
lostnet wrote: post #37

Before you go hiring all those "happy developers" I would suggest searching for "grumpy employee productivity". You can cross reference it with estimates of the GDP affect of various fields. Your grumpy developers are in the state where they identify the most problems and introduce the least bugs. They also might not be grumpy when not concentrating on your train wrecks. But not to worry, giving bad management advice…

You are taking the word "grumpy" literally. In my opinion, the author is talking about a broader issue where you don't add value to a team/project when your attitude (grumpiness or whatever) is not in line with the rest of the team. Sure developers who identify most problems and introduce least bugs are great. But if they do that by constantly putting down others is being "bad grumpy".

Is he? I don't see what else could the author be referring to. Sure some people are definitely just assholes, bad seeds and whatnot, but this are rare enough and it's hardly worth stating the obvious about what to do with them.

So we must be talking about the broader issue of simply disgruntled team members, who, as stated, probably have valid reasons these managers and businesses are just plain ignoring.

Mediocre, complacent and just plain bad employees are easy to keep happy and retain. It's the real talent you have to work hard if you want to earn their respect and trust.

That all said, the article isn't even remotely clear on the problem it's talking about, and realistically it really probably is just a "stating the obvious" post about a non-problem. The discussion on HN on the other hand has much more substance and I feel the grandparent comment is relevant in that context.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#54

Post by mingmecca »

drumdance wrote: post #42
andrewljohnson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't control what other people think or say, but you can control how you respond. I think I learned that from some TV character in anger management classes, but it seemed like a good nugget of wisdom. I don't think it's a wise idea to get grumpy (particularly visibly grumpy) with people who make unreasonable change requests. They don't do it to be mean, they do it because they are ignorant. So, it's up to you to…

I've found that when someone is grumpy/angry (i.e. a customer who is pissed off), the best way to disarm it is to just empathize a little. Example: Customer: "Your site went down right in the middle of an edit I was making." Me: "Argh! That sucks! You're probably really frustrated right now. Let's see what we can do to get the bottom of it." Just showing a little empathy can go a long way .

I agree. Giving empathy generally evokes the empathy of the recipient, forming a positive feedback loop.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#55

Post by dasil003 »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #15
dasil003 wrote: post #12

Sometimes projecting an air of grumpiness is the most socially apropos way to keep people away from you when you need to focus intensely on difficult problems. It's one thing if you're talking to another developer or someone who at least has some sense of the focus that programming requires, but if you work with a fair number of non-technical people it's sometimes not enough to give an academic explanation. It's just…

How on earth do you get to "it's the most socially appropriate way"? It's often the easiest and lowest effort for the developer, but what basically amounts to passive aggression is never going to be remotely sociably appropriate. If you educate people you get a massively better outcome - you don't get interrupted when that's important to you and you're more likely to get valuable and useful interaction when that's ac…

There's a lot of wiggle room in the word grumpy.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#56

Post by SoftwareMaven »

freework wrote: post #47
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #32

If you are working for me, my expectation is that you will treat everybody (both on my team and not) with professionalism and respect, even if you feel you aren't getting enough respect from others[1]. Even if you are doing that, if you are continually negative and surely (e.g. not quite grouchy, but certainly not pleasant), your tenure on my team will be short[2]. Negativity spreads like a cancer until it destroys m…

What kind of person turns into a "0.1x" developer because of another person's grumpiness? Seem to me, those are the ones who should be fired.

An example: "good" engineer thinks management are a bunch of idiots, leading him to constantly criticize and question decisions. This criticizing is done amongst the team, leading the entire team to question management and, therefore, the direction of the product. Now, instead of doing their best work, they are doing the minimum required to not get fired.

I've seen this happen. The engineer sowing the poison was complaining that management wasn't hiring enough engineers, even though the product was "profitable". He never considered that the analysis had been done that the product would not be any more profitable by cranking out more features and would, in all likelihood, be less profitable.

As a result, other engineers picked up on the meme and significantly reduced their efforts. After all, who is going to give their best efforts if management is just going to be stupid and waste it?

So maybe 0.1x is a bit of an exaggeration, but I can live with that.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#57

Post by Evbn »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #45
akdetrick wrote: post #5

"Praise Publicly, Criticize Privately" This point got me thinking. Public criticism of specific individuals is not something I ever to publicly, but I have been all too quick to compose tweets about things like "wishing that Internet Explorer had a face so I could punch it", or how terrible healthcare is in the US, etc. It seems obvious in hindsight, but refraining from putting too much negativity in my public stream…

I very much agree with you (and am prone to negative tweets), but also wonder: at what point does it become emotional self-censorship? Are we to only post fun, happy things online? Are we slaves to our personal brand? Is it important that others perceive us better? Taken too far, this seems like yet another way our online image becomes fractured from our identity. And maybe its better that way. I just detest the feel…

I try to follow every gripe with a positive comment amount something (else) to get back in the saddle of good spirits.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#58

Post by Evbn »

viraptor wrote: post #44
akdetrick wrote: post #5

"Praise Publicly, Criticize Privately" This point got me thinking. Public criticism of specific individuals is not something I ever to publicly, but I have been all too quick to compose tweets about things like "wishing that Internet Explorer had a face so I could punch it", or how terrible healthcare is in the US, etc. It seems obvious in hindsight, but refraining from putting too much negativity in my public stream…

There are pros of publicly criticising some work (not the author). If it's something common, then everyone involved gets to see a bad example and a better solution. Otherwise you'll have to explain the same thing to a number of people separately costing you even more time and even more criticising. There are just some things where providing a positive example just isn't enough. Some things get broken many times in th…

Yeah, the quote refers to people, not products.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#59

Post by Evbn »

dasil003 wrote: post #12

Sometimes projecting an air of grumpiness is the most socially apropos way to keep people away from you when you need to focus intensely on difficult problems. It's one thing if you're talking to another developer or someone who at least has some sense of the focus that programming requires, but if you work with a fair number of non-technical people it's sometimes not enough to give an academic explanation. It's just…

Same reason beautiful women and celebrities seem "bitchy". It is their way of handling DDOS attacks.

Re: Are You a Grumpy Developer?

#60

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

wisty wrote: post #24
Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth do you get to "it's the most socially appropriate way"? It's often the easiest and lowest effort for the developer, but what basically amounts to passive aggression is never going to be remotely sociably appropriate. If you educate people you get a massively better outcome - you don't get interrupted when that's important to you and you're more likely to get valuable and useful interaction when that's ac…

> what basically amounts to passive aggression How is being outwardly aggressive "passive aggression"? It's basically the complete opposite. Passive aggression would be cheerfully saying "Thanks, that's a great idea, I'll be on it ASAP!", then just ignoring the idiotic request. "Oops, I forgot to tell you, that change we discussed? I looked into it, and it's just not feasible. But I can have another shot, if you stil…

I read it as passive aggressive as generally there is little actual communication, it's more about putting up an air of unapproachability but I accept that may vary from developer to developer.

But regardless, it's anti-social and suboptimal for anyone other than the developer and even then only in the short terms.

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