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> needs to be forcefully briefed This will let you feel superior and get the pleasure of making the dumb person feel terrible, but it really won't accomplish a

> needs to be forcefully briefed This will let you feel superior and get the pleasure of making the dumb person feel terrible, but it really won't accomplish anything productive. What do you hope to gain by doing this? Will they start being smarter? Will they be better at their job? I'm sorry, doing what you describe is just being a bully. If management isn't dealing with the problem person you should privately make them aware of the issues (in writing if possible). If management is aware of the issues and won't do anything about it, well you did your part and you aren't allowed to fix the problem. Unless it is a life and death or national security situation, either accept that the dummy is going to be around or resign. If they haven't done any work for a year their manager is useless. You work at a place where managers don't do their job. If you take it upon yourself to set this person straight, you are basically propping up this useless manager. Useless managers hire useless people and chase away good people. Fixing this problem treats the symptom and may let the bad manager last longer than they would have otherwise, which means you are going to have to go set two additional people straight about how useless they are next year.

peteradio 8y ago
This is good advice.
cmurf 8y ago
I agree it's a management problem. However, I've encountered the case where a developer abruptly teleports from "plateau of sustainability" (high confidence, knowledge and experience) instantly to "Mt. Stupid". And every time it was a case of users becoming confused with UI and doing something that caused injury (including data loss). In that case the developer consistently blamed both the user and user advocate. I do not think it's bullying to give a bully a taste of their own medicine. It may not solve the problem, to be sure, but pushing back on bullies is not wrong. Pointing out their cognitive dissonance, and drawing a line from their stubbornness to being a bad developer is not wrong either. In particular where the manager doesn't care because 90% of the time that developer is delivering the goods, and just doesn't properly assess the ensuing (UI/UX) hostility. Bad UI will piss off users. It's I completely expect they should express that frustration directly to the responsible developer. If that developer can't handle it, both accepting the criticism and making appropriate design adjustments, get out of the UI/UX development business.

peteradio 8y ago

This is good advice.

cmurf 8y ago

I agree it's a management problem. However, I've encountered the case where a developer abruptly teleports from "plateau of sustainability" (high confidence, knowledge and experience) instantly to "Mt. Stupid". And every time it was a case of users becoming confused with UI and doing something that caused injury (including data loss). In that case the developer consistently blamed both the user and user advocate. I do not think it's bullying to give a bully a taste of their own medicine. It may not solve the problem, to be sure, but pushing back on bullies is not wrong. Pointing out their cognitive dissonance, and drawing a line from their stubbornness to being a bad developer is not wrong either. In particular where the manager doesn't care because 90% of the time that developer is delivering the goods, and just doesn't properly assess the ensuing (UI/UX) hostility. Bad UI will piss off users. It's I completely expect they should express that frustration directly to the responsible developer. If that developer can't handle it, both accepting the criticism and making appropriate design adjustments, get out of the UI/UX development business.