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I very much agree with this, especially the point on hubris. What I'm really looking for is advice on dealing on people in more senior positions that don't get

by kylek 7y ago

I very much agree with this, especially the point on hubris. What I'm really looking for is advice on dealing on people in more senior positions that don't get this. Being mostly self-taught, I often feel like I don't have any ammunition "against" the more academic folks, and it makes it difficult to maintain an open/curious mindset. What do I need to prove to stop the constant attempts to gaslight me? I strive to be a team player, but the amount of condescension is maddening sometimes.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
My advice: 1) Focus more on assisting your peers with their work. This doesn’t mean telling them what to do, but look for people who are struggling to keep their head above water on work that you know how to do well, and help them out of that place. 2) Let people win. Not when it’s important to you, but know when you’re in the “I’m right but this isn’t going to sink our project” place and let them have those wins. It will help take their “make sure that one stays in line” radar off you. Bonus points if you can make them feel like you learned something from them. 3) Quit. I don’t mean right away, but if you’re not generally enjoying your workplace, for ANY reason, or even for NO reason—quit. Some of this is basically like dating. When you don’t like someone, you just keep looking. There are more fish in the sea, as they say. 4) Remember that disagreements are fundamental to collaboration. There simply isn’t time to reach consensus on everything, even in a zero asshole environment. So teams are built on sparse networks of trust. There are likely a very small number of bottom lines that hold the org together. Everything else is a “nice to have”. Keep that in mind, and if you want to feel valued at a high level, you’re going to need to figure out what those bottom lines are, who is trusting who to watch them, and how you can help them long enough to become part of that trust network. 5) I heard a quote recently that I’ve been thinking a lot... Paraphrasing: “The master doesn’t convince anyone she knows the right way. She just works, and her work is flawless.” Just something to think about when you’ve got an assignment that doesn’t quite match what you think the ultimate strategic goal should be. You can still execute at a high level and feel good about that.
- kylek 7y ago
  Hey thanks for this response. I'll have to work on #2 - I suppose I need to search for more opportunities to ask them for advice, maybe it will help build a bridge. Difficult to get past the initial dismissiveness, though. I'm not ready to quit but that is a good reminder too. I'm actually incredibly happy with the role (besides not feeling like everyone is 100% on board, anyways). #4 is a great reminder as well (and while we're butchering quotes - "tension on a string can create majestic music" :) ). Really appreciate the stoic point of view of that quote in #5, too.
xsmasher 7y ago
While I 100% acknowledge that senior employees / academic folks can be as dogmatic and stubborn as anyone, the phrase "the constant attempts to gaslight me" throws up some flags. It sounds more than a little paranoid. What is their behavior? Are there any more-charitable explanations for their behavior? It's fine to doubt and to question - that's how we learn - but they may have experience and competence that you're discounting. I hope you're lucky and work with seniors who can give honest answers, like "we've always done it this way, we're not sure it's optimal" when appropriate, and good explanations otherwise.
- kylek 7y ago
  One instance that sticks out- had a private discussion over IM with one guy which essentially ended up as "yah, I'm aware of that problem and we're cutting that corner now for brevity, bossman is aware too. I've thought about it already and actually do have the code ready to do the right thing and it'll be implemented when the time is right." To me, just another minor detail (a detail that is not particularly in the purview of this engineer's projects. Once upon a time he may have been in a similar role (not exactly) and believes he has authority because of it). In a later, in-person all-hands meeting, he brought it up in a way that made it seem like it was a critical, urgent mistake that needs to be corrected ASAP. Why wouldn't he have expressed that 1:1 when we were actually talking about it? From what I can tell, he just wanted to make me look like a fool instead of suggesting a solution. Yah it's makes me paranoid, I'd rather just keep my mouth shut than give him something else to put on his list of transgressions to bring up whenever he wants to throw me under a bus.

by kylek 7y ago

erikpukinskis 7y ago

My advice: 1) Focus more on assisting your peers with their work. This doesn’t mean telling them what to do, but look for people who are struggling to keep their head above water on work that you know how to do well, and help them out of that place. 2) Let people win. Not when it’s important to you, but know when you’re in the “I’m right but this isn’t going to sink our project” place and let them have those wins. It will help take their “make sure that one stays in line” radar off you. Bonus points if you can make them feel like you learned something from them. 3) Quit. I don’t mean right away, but if you’re not generally enjoying your workplace, for ANY reason, or even for NO reason—quit. Some of this is basically like dating. When you don’t like someone, you just keep looking. There are more fish in the sea, as they say. 4) Remember that disagreements are fundamental to collaboration. There simply isn’t time to reach consensus on everything, even in a zero asshole environment. So teams are built on sparse networks of trust. There are likely a very small number of bottom lines that hold the org together. Everything else is a “nice to have”. Keep that in mind, and if you want to feel valued at a high level, you’re going to need to figure out what those bottom lines are, who is trusting who to watch them, and how you can help them long enough to become part of that trust network. 5) I heard a quote recently that I’ve been thinking a lot... Paraphrasing: “The master doesn’t convince anyone she knows the right way. She just works, and her work is flawless.” Just something to think about when you’ve got an assignment that doesn’t quite match what you think the ultimate strategic goal should be. You can still execute at a high level and feel good about that.

kylek 7y ago
Hey thanks for this response. I'll have to work on #2 - I suppose I need to search for more opportunities to ask them for advice, maybe it will help build a bridge. Difficult to get past the initial dismissiveness, though. I'm not ready to quit but that is a good reminder too. I'm actually incredibly happy with the role (besides not feeling like everyone is 100% on board, anyways). #4 is a great reminder as well (and while we're butchering quotes - "tension on a string can create majestic music" :) ). Really appreciate the stoic point of view of that quote in #5, too.

xsmasher 7y ago

While I 100% acknowledge that senior employees / academic folks can be as dogmatic and stubborn as anyone, the phrase "the constant attempts to gaslight me" throws up some flags. It sounds more than a little paranoid. What is their behavior? Are there any more-charitable explanations for their behavior? It's fine to doubt and to question - that's how we learn - but they may have experience and competence that you're discounting. I hope you're lucky and work with seniors who can give honest answers, like "we've always done it this way, we're not sure it's optimal" when appropriate, and good explanations otherwise.

kylek 7y ago
One instance that sticks out- had a private discussion over IM with one guy which essentially ended up as "yah, I'm aware of that problem and we're cutting that corner now for brevity, bossman is aware too. I've thought about it already and actually do have the code ready to do the right thing and it'll be implemented when the time is right." To me, just another minor detail (a detail that is not particularly in the purview of this engineer's projects. Once upon a time he may have been in a similar role (not exactly) and believes he has authority because of it). In a later, in-person all-hands meeting, he brought it up in a way that made it seem like it was a critical, urgent mistake that needs to be corrected ASAP. Why wouldn't he have expressed that 1:1 when we were actually talking about it? From what I can tell, he just wanted to make me look like a fool instead of suggesting a solution. Yah it's makes me paranoid, I'd rather just keep my mouth shut than give him something else to put on his list of transgressions to bring up whenever he wants to throw me under a bus.