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> Learn to recognize toxic people; stay away from them > You'll find people that, even if they don't small talk you, they will bad mouth everything else -- eve

> Learn to recognize toxic people; stay away from them > You'll find people that, even if they don't small talk you, they will bad mouth everything else -- even some other people -- openly. So true. It has happened to me so often - actually at most brown-field projects - that when I get onboarded, someone is telling me in which bad state this and that is, even how bad this and that person is supposed to be. Although I tend to be optimistic, when the project seems to be nicely challenging at first (not only from the code), I somehow take over this negative attitude for the rest of the project. I think people should be able to informally talk about projects, even gossip sometimes. But it has its limits, especially team/project leads should IMHO be really careful about taking negative stances on certain projects/people/teams. In fact the limits to mobbing are fluid. For me this is the single biggest annoyance in any job.

ShamelessC 7y ago
> So true. It has happened to me so often - actually at most brown-field projects - that when I get onboarded, someone is telling me in which bad state this and that is, even how bad this and that person is supposed to be. I certainly don't want to encourage any sort of toxicity like this. I will say, however, that I recently started a new job. People haven't been particularly welcoming so far but I finally managed to bond with someone over a discussion of the skill gap that exists between some of the employees and the lack of quality code produced by a few of the stubborn veterans. It wasn't just a bonding experience either. I was able to learn more about the nature of the organization and how I can help to improve things in the future. It also had a calming effect because I was originally pretty intimidated by some of these veterans but now I know they're just flawed humans like the rest of us.
- blablabla123 7y ago
  Pretty close to that was also my last experience. But having seen that before, I wasn't intimidated by all these accomplishments. In fact running a linter objectively showed the overall low code and design quality. Anyhow, complaining doesn't help but trying out things and gradually improving. In fact it's possibly even a good opportunity because nobody else wants to touch such code so there's room for creativity (of course within the limits that the stakeholders are fine with).

ShamelessC 7y ago

> So true. It has happened to me so often - actually at most brown-field projects - that when I get onboarded, someone is telling me in which bad state this and that is, even how bad this and that person is supposed to be. I certainly don't want to encourage any sort of toxicity like this. I will say, however, that I recently started a new job. People haven't been particularly welcoming so far but I finally managed to bond with someone over a discussion of the skill gap that exists between some of the employees and the lack of quality code produced by a few of the stubborn veterans. It wasn't just a bonding experience either. I was able to learn more about the nature of the organization and how I can help to improve things in the future. It also had a calming effect because I was originally pretty intimidated by some of these veterans but now I know they're just flawed humans like the rest of us.

blablabla123 7y ago
Pretty close to that was also my last experience. But having seen that before, I wasn't intimidated by all these accomplishments. In fact running a linter objectively showed the overall low code and design quality. Anyhow, complaining doesn't help but trying out things and gradually improving. In fact it's possibly even a good opportunity because nobody else wants to touch such code so there's room for creativity (of course within the limits that the stakeholders are fine with).