> I could easily imagine a situation, however, where this is not the > desired outcome, such as in a company where software is only a > minor component. Perc

> I could easily imagine a situation, however, where this is not the > desired outcome, such as in a company where software is only a > minor component. Perceptive point by mmt - I do most of the programming work myself. I don't know if I'd feel the same way if a critical employee doing coding for a major system behaved this way. I wouldn't knowingly hire someone like that though, and unless someone was truly critical, I'd rather send them on their way than have them create a situation in which their behavior negatively affected office norms, yes. My business is quite small and doesn't have professional managers, so mmt's expectation that there is a level there to deal with this stuff is wrong. Problems are just more work on my plate and distract from the things that people pay us for.