I've been in IT Industry since 1999 and been working with many people, however there was always that one co-worker that just rub me the wrong way..
For me it was always one of those co-workers "Know it All" or "Let me try to put you down upfront of 20 people and act like I know sh**"
So what's your most disliked attitude in workplace?
(Btw if you feel like sharing comment anonymously hit sloan@dev.to)
Top comments (25)
Personally, I dislike three very specific behaviours:
As you mentioned the "Know it All".
But the worst type of coworker is, as mentioned, the Complacent One. The person who's happy where they are so they don't want to budge. Code gets written slow, sloppy and if it works it's good enough, never mind if it's 5 times as long.
I personally always strive for better. In myself, others, friends and family... So being kept behind like that really frustrates me.
My most disliked attitude: Definitely the "Know it all", it blinds people and often times backs teams into a corner because there wasn't enough input from around the table.
Other disliked attitude: "Complacent developer guy" - Very frustrating trying to move a project along when someone you depend on doesn't want to move forward or put in the work to make great things happen.
Other disliked attitude: "I got this manager job because I have extensive military training" IT Manager. No doubt that I am thankful for your service and we need to make sure we've got opportunities for vets... no politics here. But when you make them the leader of a multi-million dollar IT organization, it's pretty insane. No doubt that I had a lot of laughs in that position though. Very interesting when you try to transform an engineering culture into a group of "rank and file" workers.
As a military veteran and senior software engineer, I feel like this needs challenging...
In the US Army at least, there's an entire 'Signal Corps' which is in charge of networking/communications/IT for A $trillion+ organization (well, the DOD as a whole is a trillion+ organization)
Even a battalion with a couple of thousand soldiers probably owns and maintains millions of dollars of signal gear. A Signal Warrant Officer or Senior NCO would probably make an amazing IT manager for any size company.
I was infantry myself, with a lifelong interest in IT and engineering. I got out and went straight to work based on previous experience and code-level work I did in the Army as an additional duty (assisted greatly by the GI Bill and a flexible schedule). I have little interest in being a people manager, but I can tell you I have years of experience doing it because of the Army.
The manager might have been bad at managing civilians, or they might have just been incompetent, but hiring Vets (especially in a field their MOS specialized in) is almost always a safer bet for an employer, all other things equal. There's risk with any new hire. I just don't think the cause was because they were former military.
Hey Scott,
First and foremost, thank you for your service. I'm glad that you were able to get into the industry and pursue a career in a field you were passionate about.
My example is indeed an extreme case and those issues have nothing to do strictly with the person being in the military. The issue I have lies with management hiring someone for the role just because they had military experience. The individual in my example had zero IT experience in the military, and "copy+paste" was literally a miracle to him. Assignments for entry level helpdesk staff and interns were literally cleaning his desk and hanging a huge portrait of the USS Enterprise on his office wall. The portrait was badass though.
I would welcome any former military officer with relevant IT experience into an organization. It is likely that they'll have the drive, commitment and leadership abilities more than many other candidates depending on the role. As you said, it is indeed a safer bet.
Hope this clears things up!
-- Jimmy
Hey, no issues here... We're not any less prone to being incompetent in fields we never trained in :D, and a lot of guys get out thinking they can do anything, whether they've trained in it or not hahaha!
Yeah, that's definitely a hiring issue. As much as I support hiring Vets, they set him and your whole team up for failure. If he's starting over, a lot of career guys don't realize they might need to start from the bottom in a new field.
We have impressive-sounding jargon and monetary 'responsible for' numbers in our resumes, and may have even handled civilian VP-level tasks (I know I did), but if your skills don't translate then you AND your team are going to be frustrated.
Anyway, thanks for sharing the details!
Basically just these petty things that make you wonder how a person can't develop into an adult in 20+ years of existence.
If we talk about dev habits the most annoying is stubborn ignore of any advice given on the code reviews.
The Ostrich.
They know they have a problem. They know they're going to be late. But they hide it. They don't own it.
I understand why a lot of people can be like that though. Many companies will chew you up for admitting you don't know. I'm prepared to give Ostriches the benefit of the doubt and I've developed a few techniques to help them speak out. As a boss, I want people who own their mistakes early and reach out. If they don't feel safe to do that, it's on me. But if they can't even admit to themselves they're wrong or they need support, there's nothing I can do.
I've seen that. There's also a related behavioural pattern that makes the Ostrich pale by comparison, and it's sometimes seen in Dilbertian bosses from hell who instigate ostrich-like behaviour when they refuse to accept that planning errors, unrealistic deadlines, and performance prediction mistakes can sometimes happen.
Force too many people to behave like ostriches in any organisation and you end up with the most dysfunctional bureaucracy you have ever seen.
I've worked with plenty of organisations like that, which is why I try not to blame the Ostrich at first. In a situation like that, it's a valid defence mechanism. Any organisation that blames individuals instead of process will wrap itself up in red tape and stop achieving anything.
The CEO of my company has a background in economics, where to draw conclusions there's usually first a set of "assumptions", such as, "Assuming a perfect market, insert generalization about market economy".
I had a coworker that no matter how complicated the project proposal, he nods and says "no problem, everything looks good". Then when we would actually begin development, I ended up in endless meetings where he takes issue with every detail of the user flow, the UX plan, the component layout, all of it.
Seems to me he was "assuming he's smarter than everyone else" and a perfect dev, and whenever he encounters an obstacle, he's content to blame it on everyone upstream instead of working out a new solution. It was to the point where we had to take his objection meetings into account when giving development estimates.
"Well, Developer X will probably cry about a lot of this later, so instead of 20 hours we better say 30..."
Obv no one knows everything, and saying "I don't know" is not a crime
I'm a pretty easygoing guy and so I don't find too much trouble with a lot of people. But I've noticed that one of the main ones is I have a co-worker who is easily angered. I don't like being angry, or being around angry people. But half of the time I'm around this co-worker he'll get angry very easily over fairly minute things. Sometimes he'll slam stuff, or just start yelling or cussing vulgarly. Not a big fan. I am unaware of how common this is, but I presume that it is not so uncommon in the world of IT since people have to constantly deal with computers, and it can certainly be frustrating!
No its not common at all and it is hostile environment.
Individual 1 probably has some anger issues and needs to solve that before it escalates. Either at work or home..
I am totally over and repulsed by passive aggression.
-Some will have issues with work direction and flow while others think it's perfectly fine.
-Some will adopt an attitude of needing to "tell it like it is" and complain about "people getting their feelings hurt" which really is just them justifying being mean.
-People begin to split into counter-productive cells of communication.
YES. these days people are quick to proudly announce they "tell it like it is" or they "don't care if the truth hurts people's feelings", but honestly, that's just a cop-out to take no responsibility for being really mean to people who disagree with you
Trying to make fun of you by insulting or cracking a low grade joke. Another one is calling some funny names which are kind of Cheap behavior. I respond in a funny way at times, but you can't always be smiling to it, at times people can be in different mood, they might be going through something which they won't reveal and they do this to you, it can hurt and the reply could be harsh.
I'm currently sitting annoyed and bored at work, so this is more venting about my day than my coworkers ^^;