I have a theory that you learn lessons from all your colleagues--best, worst, and everything in between. Interested to hear what lessons you feel are worth sharing.
Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
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Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#2Best: delivering high-quality work quickly matters
Worst: but it's amazing how long a person can last without doing much at all!
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#3Best: Office politics is more about perception of doing work and less about actually doing work.
Worst: Apparently knowing how to use excel efficiently isn't better because manual calculations prevent errors.
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#4Best: Talking to people and discussing ideas will get you further than an email. Email should almost be a tool to summarise your discussion, spread to a wider audience and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Worst: That pretending you know what you are doing, never asking questions if you don't know what you are doing and having no sense of humility will lead to your demise.
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#5Trust no one.
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#6Best: Decisions don't get made in meetings. Tailor your communication to your audience. Be diligent and ethically consistent and people will respect you for it.
Worst: Stay in your lane.
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#7Best: It's possible to go from being lowballed as an engineer at $30K/yr at the start of your career to pulling $250K plus bonuses in 10 years.
Worst: If you slather a sub in the hottest sauce available from Firehouse subs, and eat it as a way of proving how tough you are, you can be rendered useless as an employee for the next 36 hours. Very nice guy. But strange in a way not typical to engineers.
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#8Best: be competent, be kind, collaborate
Worst: be competent, be rude, don't collaborate
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#9Best: It's okay to say you don't know something
Worst: Don't tell employees you pay them so they shouldn't have to use Google.
Re: Ask HN: What lessons did you learn from your best or worst colleagues?
#10Best: Stay calm and recognize that long term success is more important than short term ups and downs.
Worst: Good people can sometimes land in the wrong role. Change conditions before passing judgement.