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Yes, this is the problem. Unprofessional, low-quality employees think employment is "king of the hill," when really it's "tides lift all boats." It only takes

Yes, this is the problem. Unprofessional, low-quality employees think employment is "king of the hill," when really it's "tides lift all boats." It only takes 1 person in a company of a hundred to completely destroy it. Allow one psychopath into your company and it'll go bankrupt or otherwise defunct within just a couple years. These folks are afraid. They know their performance is substandard. They exist by hiding that low quality work from management. When someone like you goes in there and makes a 3 hour report a real time dashboard, you can be sure management heard all manner of reasons why it took so long and that's just how things are and their expectations are unreasonable if they want it faster, they can try to hire someone, but there's no one who can do it better. Until you. And then it's better and now their lives are worse, so you pay for it. You have to be gotten rid of because you are proof they their work isn't up to snuff. You came in and landed right on top of the hill. You were the king, so they had to knock you off. Welcome to the war on competence.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cbozeman 5y ago
This literally happened to me today. I left my shitshow of a job because I finally got fed up with the petty favoritism, backstabbing, inability to deal with conflict in a reasonable and adult manner, and just plain poor management. And I legitimately felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
- justatdotin 5y ago
  congrats.
  - mrslave 5y ago
    Second. My last project from hell was all "let's just get it done," with a deadline that shifted from January to May one month at a time. Eventually I pulled the pin. Pretty sure that subsequently there was a lot of "the last guy really caused us a lot of problems," gossip to the project managers but I don't care. Lots of the staff had terrible attitudes and the management cultivated such.
    - bourgwaletariat 5y ago
      The "last guy" is the scapegoat. In toxic companies, deadlines are the date at which you get a new deadline. The effect is that people hustle to make the deadline, constantly having the rug pulled out from under them by the deadline, only to realize, they have to hustle for another month... and another month... Because the project managers are cowards. Unwilling to tell management they have repeatedly set unrealistic expectations for them and of the staff. Of course they blame the staff for be lazy or slacking. The reality is, they were never able to properly define and estimate the scope. They are folks who never take accountability for their responsibilities. They blame others. Even after they did their best to fix the problems and then got blamed for them all after they left.
Griffinsauce 5y ago
Your comment relates it all to bad performance. That doesn't cover the "brilliant asshole" problem though, do you think we should allow such behavior for people who show good (personal..) results?
- bourgwaletariat 5y ago
  "Hey, you're great at what you do, but you're causing some strife on the team because ... to be honest, folks think you're a brilliant asshole. I know it might sound silly, but you hurt their feelings and it makes them not want to work with you. They need to be encouraged and supported more often than they need to be disrespected. Keep doing what you're doing, except for the asshole part. You're leading the pack right now, what we'd like to see is you help others succeed as well and that benefits all of us, including you, the most actually. There's a great place for you here if you can do that. Can you do that?"
onion2k 5y ago
Unprofessional, low-quality employees think employment is "king of the hill," when really it's "tides lift all boats." Very few people believe teamwork is a rising tide because very few companies do. A perf improvement that takes something from hundreds of minutes down to 1.2s does make the person who did the original implementation look bad. Questions will be asked why it was so much worse before, especially if those minutes came with an associated cost like build minutes or something, and doubly so if the original author has been claiming any improvement is impossible. Those people may be concerned that they've been knocked down the hill, but they're also probably concerned they'll be seen as incompetent and a liability, and could be fired (rightly so in this case). A company will often see an improvement a new hire makes less as making something better, and more as fixing the existing employees' mistakes, with absolutely no consideration given for why those mistakes were made.
- mrslave 5y ago
  > A perf improvement that takes something from hundreds of minutes down to 1.2s does make the person who did the original implementation look bad. But does it have to? I've worked at both ends of the spectrum, from quick-to-pounce (what you describe) to mature assessments (e.g. "This product is important and makes us profitable, but there's still some rough edges. Glad you had the resources & capability to improve it!") Fortunately my present team & entire company is closer to the mature end. I also agree that most teams in a large company will reflect company-wide values.
- bourgwaletariat 5y ago
  So then fire them. Not only did they mess up. They lied. They were too incompetent to know better, then they bullied the person who was. Gone. Period. Zero tolerance policy on bullying and harassment. It's never good. Ever.
- smsm42 5y ago
  > A perf improvement that takes something from hundreds of minutes down to 1.2s does make the person who did the original implementation look bad. Yes, it does. An adult in this situation says "dude, did I write a shitty code! Thanks for fixing it, good job!" A manipulator starts to refer to the code "the code I initiated with X's improvements" or just "our code". An idiot starts screaming so everybody remembers about his failure and tells about it to strangers years after. It's hard to be an idiot.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cbozeman 5y ago

This literally happened to me today. I left my shitshow of a job because I finally got fed up with the petty favoritism, backstabbing, inability to deal with conflict in a reasonable and adult manner, and just plain poor management. And I legitimately felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

justatdotin 5y ago
congrats.
- mrslave 5y ago
  Second. My last project from hell was all "let's just get it done," with a deadline that shifted from January to May one month at a time. Eventually I pulled the pin. Pretty sure that subsequently there was a lot of "the last guy really caused us a lot of problems," gossip to the project managers but I don't care. Lots of the staff had terrible attitudes and the management cultivated such.
  - bourgwaletariat 5y ago
    The "last guy" is the scapegoat. In toxic companies, deadlines are the date at which you get a new deadline. The effect is that people hustle to make the deadline, constantly having the rug pulled out from under them by the deadline, only to realize, they have to hustle for another month... and another month... Because the project managers are cowards. Unwilling to tell management they have repeatedly set unrealistic expectations for them and of the staff. Of course they blame the staff for be lazy or slacking. The reality is, they were never able to properly define and estimate the scope. They are folks who never take accountability for their responsibilities. They blame others. Even after they did their best to fix the problems and then got blamed for them all after they left.

Griffinsauce 5y ago

Your comment relates it all to bad performance. That doesn't cover the "brilliant asshole" problem though, do you think we should allow such behavior for people who show good (personal..) results?

bourgwaletariat 5y ago
"Hey, you're great at what you do, but you're causing some strife on the team because ... to be honest, folks think you're a brilliant asshole. I know it might sound silly, but you hurt their feelings and it makes them not want to work with you. They need to be encouraged and supported more often than they need to be disrespected. Keep doing what you're doing, except for the asshole part. You're leading the pack right now, what we'd like to see is you help others succeed as well and that benefits all of us, including you, the most actually. There's a great place for you here if you can do that. Can you do that?"

onion2k 5y ago

Unprofessional, low-quality employees think employment is "king of the hill," when really it's "tides lift all boats." Very few people believe teamwork is a rising tide because very few companies do. A perf improvement that takes something from hundreds of minutes down to 1.2s does make the person who did the original implementation look bad. Questions will be asked why it was so much worse before, especially if those minutes came with an associated cost like build minutes or something, and doubly so if the original author has been claiming any improvement is impossible. Those people may be concerned that they've been knocked down the hill, but they're also probably concerned they'll be seen as incompetent and a liability, and could be fired (rightly so in this case). A company will often see an improvement a new hire makes less as making something better, and more as fixing the existing employees' mistakes, with absolutely no consideration given for why those mistakes were made.

mrslave 5y ago
> A perf improvement that takes something from hundreds of minutes down to 1.2s does make the person who did the original implementation look bad. But does it have to? I've worked at both ends of the spectrum, from quick-to-pounce (what you describe) to mature assessments (e.g. "This product is important and makes us profitable, but there's still some rough edges. Glad you had the resources & capability to improve it!") Fortunately my present team & entire company is closer to the mature end. I also agree that most teams in a large company will reflect company-wide values.
bourgwaletariat 5y ago
So then fire them. Not only did they mess up. They lied. They were too incompetent to know better, then they bullied the person who was. Gone. Period. Zero tolerance policy on bullying and harassment. It's never good. Ever.
smsm42 5y ago
> A perf improvement that takes something from hundreds of minutes down to 1.2s does make the person who did the original implementation look bad. Yes, it does. An adult in this situation says "dude, did I write a shitty code! Thanks for fixing it, good job!" A manipulator starts to refer to the code "the code I initiated with X's improvements" or just "our code". An idiot starts screaming so everybody remembers about his failure and tells about it to strangers years after. It's hard to be an idiot.