5 ms·

Managing people is the manager's job, not overhead.

mlyle 7y ago
Yes, but there are people who take many times as much management oversight than others. Since a manager tends to be an expensive employee, an employee that takes a disproportionate share of a manager's time is disproportionally expensive compared to his peers.
- cmiles74 7y ago
  The manager is already being paid to manage people and, as you point out, usually at a higher rate. In my opinion this is simply part of the job. There are some development tasks that take up more of my time then others but they are no less important. Not all tasks cost the same amount of time or money, such is life.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    Sometimes a development task can prove to cost so much that continuing to do it is not worthwhile. Similarly, I've had a team member make the rest of the team considerably less happy and take up most of my time on oversight and trying to fix these problems. There reaches a point, where if it cannot be improved, that you terminate the employee's employment. I look at these cases as personal failures, BTW: always wondering if there was a better way to handle them that could have resulted in the employee being productive, the rest of the team being happy, and me being able to complete other important tasks. But at some point you have to make a decision to move on.
    - cmiles74 7y ago
      I hear what you are saying and I agree with you. In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced.
      - mlyle 7y ago
        I think we're mostly in agreement. > In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced. Yes, but we rely upon our social reading of people to understand what is really happening in the work environment. If Bob tells you "no" to what seems like a reasonable request-- you now have a puzzle to figure out: why not? is Bob just blunt? Is Bob defiant? Repeat this interaction, and you can come to the wrong conclusion (Bob is uncooperative) or a somewhat wrong one (Bob is blunt and doesn't care about upholding the social contract), instead of the correct one (Bob has autism and is just answering me extremely literally without elaboration). Understanding of autism helps us understand Bob, and be empathetic and compassionate. It also helps us give the right answer when Mary comes up and says "I tried to get something I needed from Bob, [who just literally answered the question and ignored the important subtext and was brusque in his response] and he just refused so I ended up having to recreate the whole thing myself" --- while if we don't understand that and our own personal emotional memory is of Bob tending to "refuse" our requests it becomes a lot more serious.
        cmiles74 7y ago
        It feels like you are splitting hairs. I've worked with people on the spectrum and I'm a software developer; I've had the bare minimum of managerial training and interacting with people is not one of my core strength areas. Still, I put in some minimal effort and we worked together and it was fine. If you are trying to say that this minimal amount of effort these managers would need to spend to work with people on the spectrum is just too much work for us to expect, specifically someone like the person in this example who refused more tasks when asked because their schedule was full, then yeah, I guess we disagree. I have personally witnessed a painful amount of bending-over-backward on the part of management for so-called "heavy hitter" developers who, in my opinion, were far more work to get along with and far less an asset to the company. If managers can find time in their busy (and expensive) schedule to pander to these kind of high-cost employees then they can spend a little effort on people who happen to fall on the spectrum. After all, the "heavy hitter" who chooses to be hard to get a long with because of their legendary awesomeness is making a choice. Many people on the spectrum are doing their best to fit in and deserve a little more effort from their supervisors and management. After all, that is the job for which managers have signed up.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    >The manager is already being paid to manage people and, as you point out, usually at a higher rate. In my opinion this is simply part of the job. Just like an engineer is paid to write code and review code of their teammates. However, a teammate that pushes unreadable mess for reviews and requires tons of code review comments and iterations to get it to anything even resembling something functional is a drag and overhead for the rest of the engineers.
- okmokmz 7y ago
  Why are you assuming that having poor social skills creates added work for management? I am on the spectrum, have trouble with social skills, and I certainly don't take "a disproportionate share of a manager's time" as an engineer. In fact, I regularly out perform the rest of my team and get great performance reviews. While everyone else is wasting time socializing I get my work done, and when I do need to communicate with management, customers, peers I suck it up and get it done even if it's uncomfortable/challenging. My manager spends far more time managing the "neurotypicals" than myself
  - mlyle 7y ago
    I'm glad you're getting good reviews. I've had a lot of employees in the past, and a fair number who were likely somewhere on the spectrum. Most did great, sometimes with small adjustments to how I interacted with them. I've also had nightmare employees that have been ineffective because of excessive literalism and that have had troublesome interactions with their peers. (I've also had socially adept employees that have engaged in problematic behavior and expected to get away with it because of charisma. You can "go off the rails" in any direction. But if your peers become scared to ask you for things because they can't figure out how to communicate effectively with you and your answers sound rude, it's a problem).
    - okmokmz 7y ago
      I understand, some people on the spectrum or suffering from other disorders can certainly be very difficult to deal with and I can see how this would provide a challenge to management. I just dislike generalizations about people with poor social skills, as that can mean a huge amount of different things, and just because someone struggles socially doesn't necessarily mean communicating with them would be challenging/uncomfortable or they would require micro-management due to being a problem employee
- Shorel 7y ago
  Seems to me that people who require a single order instead of a dance of interactions will cause less management overload. In fact, nerd talk is many times efficient and to the point.

Yes, but there are people who take many times as much management oversight than others. Since a manager tends to be an expensive employee, an employee that takes a disproportionate share of a manager's time is disproportionally expensive compared to his peers.

cmiles74 7y ago
The manager is already being paid to manage people and, as you point out, usually at a higher rate. In my opinion this is simply part of the job. There are some development tasks that take up more of my time then others but they are no less important. Not all tasks cost the same amount of time or money, such is life.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Sometimes a development task can prove to cost so much that continuing to do it is not worthwhile. Similarly, I've had a team member make the rest of the team considerably less happy and take up most of my time on oversight and trying to fix these problems. There reaches a point, where if it cannot be improved, that you terminate the employee's employment. I look at these cases as personal failures, BTW: always wondering if there was a better way to handle them that could have resulted in the employee being productive, the rest of the team being happy, and me being able to complete other important tasks. But at some point you have to make a decision to move on.
  - cmiles74 7y ago
    I hear what you are saying and I agree with you. In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced.
    - mlyle 7y ago
      I think we're mostly in agreement. > In the case of this post, however, my understanding was that the discussion revolved around the employee that had a full workload and refused additional work in a way that was, perhaps, too blunt for their supervisor. In this case, while the employee may be more work for their manager, they do not sound like so much work that they need to be replaced. Yes, but we rely upon our social reading of people to understand what is really happening in the work environment. If Bob tells you "no" to what seems like a reasonable request-- you now have a puzzle to figure out: why not? is Bob just blunt? Is Bob defiant? Repeat this interaction, and you can come to the wrong conclusion (Bob is uncooperative) or a somewhat wrong one (Bob is blunt and doesn't care about upholding the social contract), instead of the correct one (Bob has autism and is just answering me extremely literally without elaboration). Understanding of autism helps us understand Bob, and be empathetic and compassionate. It also helps us give the right answer when Mary comes up and says "I tried to get something I needed from Bob, [who just literally answered the question and ignored the important subtext and was brusque in his response] and he just refused so I ended up having to recreate the whole thing myself" --- while if we don't understand that and our own personal emotional memory is of Bob tending to "refuse" our requests it becomes a lot more serious.
      - cmiles74 7y ago
        It feels like you are splitting hairs. I've worked with people on the spectrum and I'm a software developer; I've had the bare minimum of managerial training and interacting with people is not one of my core strength areas. Still, I put in some minimal effort and we worked together and it was fine. If you are trying to say that this minimal amount of effort these managers would need to spend to work with people on the spectrum is just too much work for us to expect, specifically someone like the person in this example who refused more tasks when asked because their schedule was full, then yeah, I guess we disagree. I have personally witnessed a painful amount of bending-over-backward on the part of management for so-called "heavy hitter" developers who, in my opinion, were far more work to get along with and far less an asset to the company. If managers can find time in their busy (and expensive) schedule to pander to these kind of high-cost employees then they can spend a little effort on people who happen to fall on the spectrum. After all, the "heavy hitter" who chooses to be hard to get a long with because of their legendary awesomeness is making a choice. Many people on the spectrum are doing their best to fit in and deserve a little more effort from their supervisors and management. After all, that is the job for which managers have signed up.
- filoleg 7y ago
  >The manager is already being paid to manage people and, as you point out, usually at a higher rate. In my opinion this is simply part of the job. Just like an engineer is paid to write code and review code of their teammates. However, a teammate that pushes unreadable mess for reviews and requires tons of code review comments and iterations to get it to anything even resembling something functional is a drag and overhead for the rest of the engineers.
okmokmz 7y ago
Why are you assuming that having poor social skills creates added work for management? I am on the spectrum, have trouble with social skills, and I certainly don't take "a disproportionate share of a manager's time" as an engineer. In fact, I regularly out perform the rest of my team and get great performance reviews. While everyone else is wasting time socializing I get my work done, and when I do need to communicate with management, customers, peers I suck it up and get it done even if it's uncomfortable/challenging. My manager spends far more time managing the "neurotypicals" than myself
- mlyle 7y ago
  I'm glad you're getting good reviews. I've had a lot of employees in the past, and a fair number who were likely somewhere on the spectrum. Most did great, sometimes with small adjustments to how I interacted with them. I've also had nightmare employees that have been ineffective because of excessive literalism and that have had troublesome interactions with their peers. (I've also had socially adept employees that have engaged in problematic behavior and expected to get away with it because of charisma. You can "go off the rails" in any direction. But if your peers become scared to ask you for things because they can't figure out how to communicate effectively with you and your answers sound rude, it's a problem).
  - okmokmz 7y ago
    I understand, some people on the spectrum or suffering from other disorders can certainly be very difficult to deal with and I can see how this would provide a challenge to management. I just dislike generalizations about people with poor social skills, as that can mean a huge amount of different things, and just because someone struggles socially doesn't necessarily mean communicating with them would be challenging/uncomfortable or they would require micro-management due to being a problem employee
Shorel 7y ago
Seems to me that people who require a single order instead of a dance of interactions will cause less management overload. In fact, nerd talk is many times efficient and to the point.