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Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

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Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#1

Post by zldkz5 »

Long story short: I've been working in this position for a couple of years with a colleague at the same level as me. We both lead a few product team giving them advice on technical implementation, best practices and architecture.

I've been doing a lot of work to clean up the debt that was accumulated and, meanwhile, I improved the reliability and the efficiency of the infrastructure. I wrote common components and library to avoid duplication and shared it with wiki pages on how to implement certain things correctly.

On the other hands, my colleague, is more focus on building relationships and acting like he's the manager even tho he's not. In a couple of circumstances he event tried to give me orders which is not what he supposed to do. In meetings with our manager he brag on stuff that I did sharing it as a "we did", while when he does something alone (which most of the time asks to me as well) he would say "I did".

Most of the team members know it as they always asks technical informations to me. Most of the new architectural design has been done by myself same as the library that they use daily bases.

This kind of behaviour was ok at the beginning but since our boss left and he got promoted as manager is not sustainable anymore.

So here I'm asking for some advice. I started to look for a new job already, other than that I can't find a way to make my life easier has it might required some time (European market is not that good) and I got a break to travel a bit and clean up my mind.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#4

Post by cupofjoakim »

Have you talked properly to the colleague in question? It seems like you've bottled up all this frustration for far too long, making this infected, which in turn makes it harder to talk about it.

Even if it's hard, just tell him how you feel. Take it easy (don't start by listing all his faults) and stay objective - as in "When you do ... I feel ...". Be honest and say that you're not sure if you want to stay, and that the situation needs to be resolved so that you can have a healthy working relationship again.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#7

Post by heywire »

Since it seems you must work closely with this colleague, perhaps you could look for opportunities to improve together? Maybe taking a training course or attending a talk together or as a team? Maybe you could even give an internal talk on an area you feel is important that they could benefit from?

I would also be careful to assume that your colleague is incompetent. Perhaps the two of you have just very different styles. I once worked with a "solution architect" who would over-engineer every project. Even the smallest utilities would become a "system" with lots of moving parts. Management lauded his technical abilities, but those who later had to maintain these "systems" he created were not as impressed. I could see how he might consider some of the other members of the team "incompetent" because they did not work in the same way.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#8

Post by clavalle »

I never heard anything about incompetence in your description.

Technical debt can build up for myriad reasons not related much to competence.

What I would suggest is not to approach this situation as how you can wall off or otherwise attack this person but, instead as a life lesson on the importance of interpersonal relationships and politics.

Politics are a fact of life. Humans are social creatures. All things being equal, and some ways even when not equal, those that are proficient in interpersonal relations will come out ahead. Grok that fact. There is no escape from it.

Good. Now that unpleasantness is out of the way. On to how to cope. Scratch that, /thrive/, in an environment of people doing people things when you are a technical person.

First, information. That is the lifeblood of many systems and politics is no different. Simply make sure important information is conveyed to the right people at the right time.

You use the example that this fellow was able to take credit for your work. Had you passed the information of what you were doing and why it was important to the right people, he would have simply looked foolish to try to take credit.

It can be uncomfortable, to toot your own horn, but it is necessary. Additionally, it can be important to the organization. Assuming you are creating value, it is important that decision-makers know that so they can make the correct decisions. Don't feel bad. Toot away.

Building relationships is critically important in almost every human endeavor. Get good at it. It is a skill like any other.

The target of your annoyance became a manager because he built up those skills and made it known.

Build your skills and make it known. It is just that simple.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with incompetent people

#10

Post by zldkz5 »

clavalle wrote: post #8

I never heard anything about incompetence in your description. Technical debt can build up for myriad reasons not related much to competence. What I would suggest is not to approach this situation as how you can wall off or otherwise attack this person but, instead as a life lesson on the importance of interpersonal relationships and politics. Politics are a fact of life. Humans are social creatures. All things being…

Yes I agree with you, the point is that being technical person doing a technical job I thought that the value that I create will talk more than the nonsense of some people. As I like to act first and share later, but there are people who talk but don't know how to act properly.

I can build this skills as you said, true, but in my position now it would be impossible to get a promotion as the available spot has been taken already.

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