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Nope. Stay out of it. There are more bad things that can happen, than good things, if you choose to speak out about it. And at the end of the day, your situatio

Nope. Stay out of it. There are more bad things that can happen, than good things, if you choose to speak out about it. And at the end of the day, your situation vis-a-vis your employment is between you and your employer and nobody else factors in. Example: If you want more money, ask for it. If they refuse, it isn't "because of the money they're wasting on this guy", it's because they don't perceive your value as justifying it. That perception may be right or wrong, but it is what it is. You're getting paid, you're doing your work (presumably), this other person and their actions (or lack thereof) are really irrelevant to you unless they are somehow having a direct impact on your work. IF they are making commitments to do certain things and then failing to deliver AND that in turn is making you look bad, THEN it might make sense to call this out to management; IF you can document the situation. More likely, if it is directly impacting you, or your innate desire for "fairness" is piqued that strongly, the thing to do would be to just leave and go work somewhere else with better management.

edmundsauto 5y ago
I disagree, with the caveat that I prefer working on a team versus a group of individuals. Taking a sports metaphor, if one of my teammates isn't carrying their weight, it harms the entire team and puts our objectives at risk. I have been in situations where it's every individual for themselves, and agree with your advice in those. I also quickly left those roles to find a team that works together to achieve common objectives that are more impactful than I could achieve on my own. Hurt the team, and I am going to say something (first to the IC directly, then to the manager). If the manager doesn't care about making the team better, then they don't care about the same things that I do, and I will move.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  I actually agree with you, to the extent that I agree that the sports team metaphor is applicable. It just happens that I don't find sports teams to be a good metaphor for the kinds of teams one usually (IME) finds in the corporate world. But yes, in the specific case where an under-performing individual is hurting the team in a way that is ultimately hurting the other individuals on the team, then it does make more sense to call them out. No disagreement there.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    In many ways, I think joining or creating those teams is the secret to long lasting fulfillment in engineering. We focus so much on the compensation aspect that of course we underindex on quality of life at work. Theres a reason that Ted Lasso is such a phenomenon - people want to be on a team where they can trust their teammates and everyone is trying to accomplish a shared goal.

edmundsauto 5y ago

I disagree, with the caveat that I prefer working on a team versus a group of individuals. Taking a sports metaphor, if one of my teammates isn't carrying their weight, it harms the entire team and puts our objectives at risk. I have been in situations where it's every individual for themselves, and agree with your advice in those. I also quickly left those roles to find a team that works together to achieve common objectives that are more impactful than I could achieve on my own. Hurt the team, and I am going to say something (first to the IC directly, then to the manager). If the manager doesn't care about making the team better, then they don't care about the same things that I do, and I will move.

mindcrime 5y ago
I actually agree with you, to the extent that I agree that the sports team metaphor is applicable. It just happens that I don't find sports teams to be a good metaphor for the kinds of teams one usually (IME) finds in the corporate world. But yes, in the specific case where an under-performing individual is hurting the team in a way that is ultimately hurting the other individuals on the team, then it does make more sense to call them out. No disagreement there.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  In many ways, I think joining or creating those teams is the secret to long lasting fulfillment in engineering. We focus so much on the compensation aspect that of course we underindex on quality of life at work. Theres a reason that Ted Lasso is such a phenomenon - people want to be on a team where they can trust their teammates and everyone is trying to accomplish a shared goal.