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I used to work with this guy that was a prick to almost epic levels. We'll call him "Richard", because he was a Dick. (Not his real name of course) Most asshol

I used to work with this guy that was a prick to almost epic levels. We'll call him "Richard", because he was a Dick. (Not his real name of course) Most assholes are subtle, but somehow this guy kept his job despite being, basically, a monster. A few of the things he did: - Once, he kicked over a trashcan and stormed out for the rest of the day because I checked in a visual effect he didn't like (.. even though he approved the code review and it was trivial to disable). - Another time, he very authoritatively started inventing policy around branching. (Keep in mind, he was nobodies boss). When one of the senior engineers politely asked him if that was from our boss, or just something he wanted us to do, he incoherently started shouting and, once again, stormed out. - Every scrum, he would pounce on even the smallest misstatement to "correct" people (even if they weren't wrong). When it came to be his turn to give an update, he would condescendingly give the most terse eye-roll of an answer he possibly could, as if the entire thing was beneath him. - At a certain point, he just stopped showing up regularly. He'd maybe appear two out of five days of the week. Which meant three-out-of-five workdays were great! Despite this, he would get upset about not being consulted on decisions by people that actually did work daily... even though he wasn't there. - When he did show up, for the last six months or so he was employed there, instead of working on our product, he would take his laptop, co-opt the empty front-desk, and work on his own startup. (Luckily, he would still take the time to tell us the work the rest of us were doing was not to his liking). - One time, when me and my boss were bouncing some light-hearted banter back in forth, he immediately jumped in and started attacking my boss, which turned into a shouting match between them and he ended up storming out early... again. (notice a pattern here?) - Once, we had to pack our desks and move around some office furniture for some office construction. Being that Richard was a Dick, he decided not to show up for this, so his colleagues had to pack his desk for him. After three hours of heavy lifting, our boss decided to take us out for lunch. ... And suddenly, Dick shows up. Team player. That's actually the tip of the iceberg with this guy. I never thought much of the no-assholes-rule before (though I was familiar with it), but now I'm pretty much adamant that I won't work with people who think being an asshole is ok, even if it just comes to tolerating misbehaviour.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
Why was he kept on board for so long? With that much abuse I'd make it clear to my superiors that someone like him needs to have his future with the company reevaluated.
- overgard 10y ago
  In a weird way, I think it was just a quirk of circumstances. We were a small team in a satellite office of a much larger company, which generally meant we were financially stable but otherwise disconnected from the rest of the company (no HR present or anything like that). So when someone misbehaved, it was sort of a "what happens in vegas stays in vegas" kind of thing, IE, as long as your shenanigans don't have ramifications outside of the group we'd keep things in the family. I think because it was such a tight knit group, there was more tolerance than there would be in a more detached professional setting. I think this guy also got a lot more slack than he deserved because he was young and talented, so people chalked it up to immaturity. That might be overcomplicating things though. I think when it came down to it, our boss was basically a nice person who didn't really want to fire anyone, and there was no pressure to, so he'd procrastinate it, and the rest of us didn't really want to see him fired, at least to the extent of outright advocating for it, and so it just sort of kept going until he finally left to do something else.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

Why was he kept on board for so long? With that much abuse I'd make it clear to my superiors that someone like him needs to have his future with the company reevaluated.

overgard 10y ago
In a weird way, I think it was just a quirk of circumstances. We were a small team in a satellite office of a much larger company, which generally meant we were financially stable but otherwise disconnected from the rest of the company (no HR present or anything like that). So when someone misbehaved, it was sort of a "what happens in vegas stays in vegas" kind of thing, IE, as long as your shenanigans don't have ramifications outside of the group we'd keep things in the family. I think because it was such a tight knit group, there was more tolerance than there would be in a more detached professional setting. I think this guy also got a lot more slack than he deserved because he was young and talented, so people chalked it up to immaturity. That might be overcomplicating things though. I think when it came down to it, our boss was basically a nice person who didn't really want to fire anyone, and there was no pressure to, so he'd procrastinate it, and the rest of us didn't really want to see him fired, at least to the extent of outright advocating for it, and so it just sort of kept going until he finally left to do something else.