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If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. Ever been told to do something by a developer and you firmly disagree? I'm not going to give in and do wh

If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. Ever been told to do something by a developer and you firmly disagree? I'm not going to give in and do what he says, I'm going to make an argument and hope it changes things for the better. If I just put up with the shit then it's me who has to deal with it in the future when it all falls apart. Giving in to shit management will just reinforce it. Changing teams isn't a solution if your enjoy the team. Standing up for yourself and the team is. Could he have gone about things better? Probably. But your job isn't just to follow directions, especially as a senior engineer.

GiorgioG 4y ago
> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. That's a naïve way to look at it. As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do. Now, if the manager hadn't been an asshole, none of this would have been an issue. But when you're dealing with an asshole (in a position of power over you), the last thing you want to do is continue to piss him off. I've been there, done that and when I there was mutual respect and trust between the manager and I, I would push back on things that could be done better. When the manager was an asshole, I just stayed in my lane. My job wasn't to fix the org's problems, my job was to build software and (from my perspective) my primary concern was staying employed. If he wanted to stay at Spotify he just should have kept quiet and switched teams.
- Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
  So what you're saying is it's fine for a power tripping asshole manager to be a power tripping asshole manager because the victim is a contractor and therefore deserves to be treated worse than a regular employee? The manager was affecting his ability to do his job. I don't think it's fair for anyone to have to put up with shitty managers just because they're contractors. The thoughts and feelings of a contractor are just as valid. It shouldn't just be "put up or shut up". It should be Spotify ensuring their managers aren't assholes.
  - blueflow 4y ago
    When you are going over the line when dealing with an asshole, the company ends up with two assholes. You are not making the situation better. This blog post IMHO makes the author unemployable, they publicly demonstrated they are a high-friction person and even tacked their name on it. Being able to handle social conflict gracefully without escalation is a virtue and they don't have it.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    > So what you're saying is it's fine for a power tripping asshole manager to be a power tripping asshole manager because… Nobody is saying that. You’ve been misconstruing people’s responses throughout this thread. The bottom line is that both people can be in the wrong in a situation like this. The employee is not entitled to behave poorly because they have a bad manager and the manager is not entitled to behave badly simply because they’re a manager. However, the fact that neither party could do anything other than escalate the situation and even continue fighting battles after being fired is unprofessional behavior.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      The manager however, is in a position of power over the employee, especially a contractor, and as such they should be held to a much higher standard.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - w0m 4y ago
        They should be. But a Contractor is not generally in a position to hold a manager accountable. At some point; you have to know your role.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mugsie 4y ago
  > As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do. or, told another way: dance monkey, dance. If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people. Someone who doesn't push back on giving an estimate for something they have never seen is useless in a senior role. Sure, the kanban stuff might be a little out there, but if a manager is doing a shit job of blocking tasks mid sprint, again it is better they try and suggest something to help their co workers.
  - mechanical_bear 4y ago
    > dance monkey, dance See def. contractor.
    - mugsie 4y ago
      except when you hire a senior engineer as a contractor it is a different relationship to a code monkey contractor. If you want them to do sprint planning / estimations / train interns it is a lot closer to a traditional employee than a "we pay $XXX a day for 7.5hrs of coding" contractor
    - jamil7 4y ago
      I think this is really context dependent. It sounded like the author was a senior engineer deeply embedded in the team and a part of standup, sprint planning, retros etc. Which is different to farming out a specific component to a specialist to work on in isolation.
  - GiorgioG 4y ago
    > If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people. Senior people should know how to read the situation and either A) figure out how to persuade management to their way of thinking and failing that (repeatedly) B) STFU and do as your told. I'm not opposed to making suggestions/recommendations, but some people don't want to hear it, for whatever reason. As a contractor I'm not going to upset if you don't take my recommendations and it takes longer (after all, contractors are usually hourly...more money, more money). If you're unable to "STFU and do as you're told", bide your time and find another position on your own terms. That's the lesson this person needs to take away from this.
- polotics 4y ago
  If your "asshole" is a psychopath, find others that have been under his or her path before, collect evidence. If your "asshole" is unable to cope with stress, ask peers how they are doing, ask for advice on specific occurrences of issues in a non-confrontational way. If your "asshole" is just a mean bad-manager, just says "Yes Yes" and move on before he blows something important up.
windows_sucks 4y ago
> Ever been told to do something by a developer and you firmly disagree? I'm not going to give in and do what he says How do you go about doing this? A direct confrontation? Or by asking for documentation for their request (like a JIRA ticket), and then replying in the ticket with your suggestion? etc
- nopenopenopeno 4y ago
  Historically, the best approach by far has been through forming a union.
  - robin_reala 4y ago
    Doesn’t apply to contractors (and as this is in Sweden it’s likely that he would have been in a union—probably Unionen—had he been an employee).
    - hav 4y ago
      Most of the IT workplaces in Sweden (Spotify included) aren't unionised even though many are part of unions. In those cases what the unions can do is provide legal support to you if you needed.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  Collect evidence, ask to change team, report to his superior
dapids 4y ago
Which is why the professional thing to do is leave. Why continue to work for shit, as you allude to? This whole argument sounds like a strawman. Especially given the fact he is a contractor and not just an employee. You make your own bed as a contractor, and you will lay in it.
ghaff 4y ago
There are plenty of situations where, after making reasonable attempts to push back on things and/or develop a better working relationship with a manager, you have basically two choices: put your head down and collect your pay check or go somewhere else (whether internally or externally). Trust me, I've been there. At one point, I ended up going to my manager's manager--who I knew well--and basically said transfer me somewhere else or I quit. Which he did and I did some legacy work for a while and it was fine.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved That’s not what anyone is saying. The parent comment specifically said that the OP needed to work on changing teams, not going to war with his own manager. As a manager of managers, it’s not that hard to see when a manager’s own team doesn’t like them. Getting multiple requests from people on a team who want to escape it is a huge warning sign that warrants further investigation. However, if I instead get reports that a team member is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn, I have to approach it as interpersonal conflict. Some times (like this story), both parties can be in the wrong. If the situation as written is accurate and honest, I’d be moving toward heavy mentorship for both parties involved but they’d both be up for removal if they couldn’t improve. One person behaving badly doesn’t give a free license for the other person in the conflict to also behave badly. “But he started it first” isn’t even a valid excuse in elementary school and it’s not valid in the workplace either.
- nailer 4y ago
  > > If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved > The parent comment specifically said that the OP needed to work on changing teams I don't have any further thoughts, but changing teams to avoid a poor manager seems precisely like 'sucking it up'.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    “Sucking it up” means dealing with your situation and not trying to change anything. If you want to change something, you have to demonstrate that you’re acting in good faith and trying to work with the system rather than against it. Asking to change teams is working with the system. Getting into personal fights with your manager and escalating the battle at every opportunity is working against it. People who work with the system and behave professionally are going to improve the overall health of a company. People who escalate every battle and want to fight every conflict until one party loses (in this case this backfired on the OP and they became the loser) generally only make the system worse. The thing to keep in mind is that the company doesn’t have to choose which person is “right”. A manager and employee blowing up conflicts can both be wrong and can both be removed.
dagw 4y ago
I'm not going to give in and do what he says, I'm going to make an argument and hope it changes things for the better. Absolutely, I hope most people would. And if that was all he did then that would have been great. However once you switch from "making an argument" to mocking and bullying and passive aggressive bullshit you have obviously crossed a line and lost the high ground. Part of being an employee or contractor is accepting that often you don't have the final decision. Once you have presented all your arguments as best you can to all the relevant people you have to be prepared that they will turn around and say "I've heard your arguments and taken them into consideration, however we are still going to do it my way". And once you have reached that point you have to either accept their decision or say that as a professional you cannot accept that decision and feel you have to step away from the project. If you want to be the one making the final call, apply for the job as the person who gets to make the final call.
- addicted 4y ago
  > Part of being an employee or contractor is accepting that often you don't have the final decision. Once you have presented all your arguments as best you can to all the relevant people you have to be prepared that they will turn around and say "I've heard your arguments and taken them into consideration, however we are still going to do it my way". I wish someone had explained this to me when I began my career. It would have saved 5 years of my professional life, a lot of frustration, and losing out on a really good job other than disagreements with my manager.
- vladcodes 4y ago
  This.
matwood 4y ago
> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. Nothing gets solved with sarcastic passive aggression either. I've been told I have a 'healthy disdain for authority' from a boss before, yet we still got along and were able to work well together.
makach 4y ago
Unfortunately this is the way. I had the misfortune to completely misinterpret my manager once. Turns out our relationship wasn't equal (go figure) - when I challenged my managers decision it backfired to the point of nuclear-escalation from management. Even though it happened in the right forum and from a professional viewpoint. Even though I hadn't done anything wrong, everything was perceived in ill faith. Department management wanted to talk to me in a meeting. They did not want to disclose the agenda. Fortunately, I was in a union. So when I asked for them to include my union representative in the meeting they backtracked HARD. After having discussed the case with my union representative we came to the conclusion that I hadn't done anything wrong, and that they were most likely abusing their powers - and that there was a prior history of this in this particular department. With my union representative present, management moderated themselves immensely. They had started something without thinking that I would include my my union. In the meeting, we ended up exchanging pleasantries. Some action items were made, applicable for all involved parties to avoid - so that we could avoid these kind of misunderstanding in the future. The meeting ended with me having the moral high ground, but I knew that my days in the company was coming to an end. I felt like a marked employee. I spent a couple of months rebuilding my image. Just conforming to everything they told me to do. After a while, I turned in my resignation and am now working elsewhere. Doing the same, but less work for much higher pay and for a company that cares a little more about their employees well-being.
akhmatova 4y ago
If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. You aren't there to solve their problems. You're there to make them happy. While related (and sometimes intersecting), fundamentally these are vastly different things. And at the end of the day, "making them happy" is what takes precedence. Even if it means holding your nose while you wade through that big giant mess of legacy code that could have been made into a much smaller mess by the time you got around, "if only, if only". And learning, finally, to STFU until it's time to GTFO. Rather than waste your breath (figuratively or literally) telling them things they don't want to hear, and wouldn't be able to grasp the import of anyway. It took me forever and a day and then some to figure this out. Granted, it shouldn't be this way, and sometimes we actually do get to work with who are fully functional adults, who know their limitations and can handle disagreement have, you know, empathy. And who have not completely lost themselves in the game that is their "role" to the point that they are incapable of dealing with their organizational underlings as people, let alone as equals. Alas, these situations are few and far between. Most of the time, it's pretty much as I described up above. Not that we shouldn't at least try to make a difference. Of course we should. But when we get the sense that our efforts are going against the grain -- they're going against the grain. And all we can do is step back, breathe, and say to ourselves "OK, this isn't my problem". And remember why we're there in the first place.
w0m 4y ago
Advice i was given once and try and follow.. > If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved Fight Twice. On Record; push back against something you disagree with (Be it Style or design decision) Twice. If the other side (especially if they are above you in the food chain) still persists - Suck it up and do the work. If you can't live with that situation - look into moving on (while sucking it up). Continuing to push a beleaguered point (even if you're "Right") will inevitably lead to nothing good.

GiorgioG 4y ago

> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. That's a naïve way to look at it. As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do. Now, if the manager hadn't been an asshole, none of this would have been an issue. But when you're dealing with an asshole (in a position of power over you), the last thing you want to do is continue to piss him off. I've been there, done that and when I there was mutual respect and trust between the manager and I, I would push back on things that could be done better. When the manager was an asshole, I just stayed in my lane. My job wasn't to fix the org's problems, my job was to build software and (from my perspective) my primary concern was staying employed. If he wanted to stay at Spotify he just should have kept quiet and switched teams.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
So what you're saying is it's fine for a power tripping asshole manager to be a power tripping asshole manager because the victim is a contractor and therefore deserves to be treated worse than a regular employee? The manager was affecting his ability to do his job. I don't think it's fair for anyone to have to put up with shitty managers just because they're contractors. The thoughts and feelings of a contractor are just as valid. It shouldn't just be "put up or shut up". It should be Spotify ensuring their managers aren't assholes.
- blueflow 4y ago
  When you are going over the line when dealing with an asshole, the company ends up with two assholes. You are not making the situation better. This blog post IMHO makes the author unemployable, they publicly demonstrated they are a high-friction person and even tacked their name on it. Being able to handle social conflict gracefully without escalation is a virtue and they don't have it.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > So what you're saying is it's fine for a power tripping asshole manager to be a power tripping asshole manager because… Nobody is saying that. You’ve been misconstruing people’s responses throughout this thread. The bottom line is that both people can be in the wrong in a situation like this. The employee is not entitled to behave poorly because they have a bad manager and the manager is not entitled to behave badly simply because they’re a manager. However, the fact that neither party could do anything other than escalate the situation and even continue fighting battles after being fired is unprofessional behavior.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    The manager however, is in a position of power over the employee, especially a contractor, and as such they should be held to a much higher standard.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - w0m 4y ago
      They should be. But a Contractor is not generally in a position to hold a manager accountable. At some point; you have to know your role.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mugsie 4y ago
> As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do. or, told another way: dance monkey, dance. If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people. Someone who doesn't push back on giving an estimate for something they have never seen is useless in a senior role. Sure, the kanban stuff might be a little out there, but if a manager is doing a shit job of blocking tasks mid sprint, again it is better they try and suggest something to help their co workers.
- mechanical_bear 4y ago
  > dance monkey, dance See def. contractor.
  - mugsie 4y ago
    except when you hire a senior engineer as a contractor it is a different relationship to a code monkey contractor. If you want them to do sprint planning / estimations / train interns it is a lot closer to a traditional employee than a "we pay $XXX a day for 7.5hrs of coding" contractor
  - jamil7 4y ago
    I think this is really context dependent. It sounded like the author was a senior engineer deeply embedded in the team and a part of standup, sprint planning, retros etc. Which is different to farming out a specific component to a specialist to work on in isolation.
- GiorgioG 4y ago
  > If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people. Senior people should know how to read the situation and either A) figure out how to persuade management to their way of thinking and failing that (repeatedly) B) STFU and do as your told. I'm not opposed to making suggestions/recommendations, but some people don't want to hear it, for whatever reason. As a contractor I'm not going to upset if you don't take my recommendations and it takes longer (after all, contractors are usually hourly...more money, more money). If you're unable to "STFU and do as you're told", bide your time and find another position on your own terms. That's the lesson this person needs to take away from this.
polotics 4y ago
If your "asshole" is a psychopath, find others that have been under his or her path before, collect evidence. If your "asshole" is unable to cope with stress, ask peers how they are doing, ask for advice on specific occurrences of issues in a non-confrontational way. If your "asshole" is just a mean bad-manager, just says "Yes Yes" and move on before he blows something important up.

windows_sucks 4y ago

> Ever been told to do something by a developer and you firmly disagree? I'm not going to give in and do what he says How do you go about doing this? A direct confrontation? Or by asking for documentation for their request (like a JIRA ticket), and then replying in the ticket with your suggestion? etc

nopenopenopeno 4y ago
Historically, the best approach by far has been through forming a union.
- robin_reala 4y ago
  Doesn’t apply to contractors (and as this is in Sweden it’s likely that he would have been in a union—probably Unionen—had he been an employee).
  - hav 4y ago
    Most of the IT workplaces in Sweden (Spotify included) aren't unionised even though many are part of unions. In those cases what the unions can do is provide legal support to you if you needed.
jokethrowaway 4y ago
Collect evidence, ask to change team, report to his superior

dapids 4y ago

Which is why the professional thing to do is leave. Why continue to work for shit, as you allude to? This whole argument sounds like a strawman. Especially given the fact he is a contractor and not just an employee. You make your own bed as a contractor, and you will lay in it.

ghaff 4y ago

There are plenty of situations where, after making reasonable attempts to push back on things and/or develop a better working relationship with a manager, you have basically two choices: put your head down and collect your pay check or go somewhere else (whether internally or externally). Trust me, I've been there. At one point, I ended up going to my manager's manager--who I knew well--and basically said transfer me somewhere else or I quit. Which he did and I did some legacy work for a while and it was fine.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved That’s not what anyone is saying. The parent comment specifically said that the OP needed to work on changing teams, not going to war with his own manager. As a manager of managers, it’s not that hard to see when a manager’s own team doesn’t like them. Getting multiple requests from people on a team who want to escape it is a huge warning sign that warrants further investigation. However, if I instead get reports that a team member is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn, I have to approach it as interpersonal conflict. Some times (like this story), both parties can be in the wrong. If the situation as written is accurate and honest, I’d be moving toward heavy mentorship for both parties involved but they’d both be up for removal if they couldn’t improve. One person behaving badly doesn’t give a free license for the other person in the conflict to also behave badly. “But he started it first” isn’t even a valid excuse in elementary school and it’s not valid in the workplace either.

nailer 4y ago
> > If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved > The parent comment specifically said that the OP needed to work on changing teams I don't have any further thoughts, but changing teams to avoid a poor manager seems precisely like 'sucking it up'.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  “Sucking it up” means dealing with your situation and not trying to change anything. If you want to change something, you have to demonstrate that you’re acting in good faith and trying to work with the system rather than against it. Asking to change teams is working with the system. Getting into personal fights with your manager and escalating the battle at every opportunity is working against it. People who work with the system and behave professionally are going to improve the overall health of a company. People who escalate every battle and want to fight every conflict until one party loses (in this case this backfired on the OP and they became the loser) generally only make the system worse. The thing to keep in mind is that the company doesn’t have to choose which person is “right”. A manager and employee blowing up conflicts can both be wrong and can both be removed.

dagw 4y ago

I'm not going to give in and do what he says, I'm going to make an argument and hope it changes things for the better. Absolutely, I hope most people would. And if that was all he did then that would have been great. However once you switch from "making an argument" to mocking and bullying and passive aggressive bullshit you have obviously crossed a line and lost the high ground. Part of being an employee or contractor is accepting that often you don't have the final decision. Once you have presented all your arguments as best you can to all the relevant people you have to be prepared that they will turn around and say "I've heard your arguments and taken them into consideration, however we are still going to do it my way". And once you have reached that point you have to either accept their decision or say that as a professional you cannot accept that decision and feel you have to step away from the project. If you want to be the one making the final call, apply for the job as the person who gets to make the final call.

addicted 4y ago
> Part of being an employee or contractor is accepting that often you don't have the final decision. Once you have presented all your arguments as best you can to all the relevant people you have to be prepared that they will turn around and say "I've heard your arguments and taken them into consideration, however we are still going to do it my way". I wish someone had explained this to me when I began my career. It would have saved 5 years of my professional life, a lot of frustration, and losing out on a really good job other than disagreements with my manager.
vladcodes 4y ago
This.

matwood 4y ago

> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. Nothing gets solved with sarcastic passive aggression either. I've been told I have a 'healthy disdain for authority' from a boss before, yet we still got along and were able to work well together.

makach 4y ago

Unfortunately this is the way. I had the misfortune to completely misinterpret my manager once. Turns out our relationship wasn't equal (go figure) - when I challenged my managers decision it backfired to the point of nuclear-escalation from management. Even though it happened in the right forum and from a professional viewpoint. Even though I hadn't done anything wrong, everything was perceived in ill faith. Department management wanted to talk to me in a meeting. They did not want to disclose the agenda. Fortunately, I was in a union. So when I asked for them to include my union representative in the meeting they backtracked HARD. After having discussed the case with my union representative we came to the conclusion that I hadn't done anything wrong, and that they were most likely abusing their powers - and that there was a prior history of this in this particular department. With my union representative present, management moderated themselves immensely. They had started something without thinking that I would include my my union. In the meeting, we ended up exchanging pleasantries. Some action items were made, applicable for all involved parties to avoid - so that we could avoid these kind of misunderstanding in the future. The meeting ended with me having the moral high ground, but I knew that my days in the company was coming to an end. I felt like a marked employee. I spent a couple of months rebuilding my image. Just conforming to everything they told me to do. After a while, I turned in my resignation and am now working elsewhere. Doing the same, but less work for much higher pay and for a company that cares a little more about their employees well-being.

akhmatova 4y ago

If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. You aren't there to solve their problems. You're there to make them happy. While related (and sometimes intersecting), fundamentally these are vastly different things. And at the end of the day, "making them happy" is what takes precedence. Even if it means holding your nose while you wade through that big giant mess of legacy code that could have been made into a much smaller mess by the time you got around, "if only, if only". And learning, finally, to STFU until it's time to GTFO. Rather than waste your breath (figuratively or literally) telling them things they don't want to hear, and wouldn't be able to grasp the import of anyway. It took me forever and a day and then some to figure this out. Granted, it shouldn't be this way, and sometimes we actually do get to work with who are fully functional adults, who know their limitations and can handle disagreement have, you know, empathy. And who have not completely lost themselves in the game that is their "role" to the point that they are incapable of dealing with their organizational underlings as people, let alone as equals. Alas, these situations are few and far between. Most of the time, it's pretty much as I described up above. Not that we shouldn't at least try to make a difference. Of course we should. But when we get the sense that our efforts are going against the grain -- they're going against the grain. And all we can do is step back, breathe, and say to ourselves "OK, this isn't my problem". And remember why we're there in the first place.

w0m 4y ago

Advice i was given once and try and follow.. > If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved Fight Twice. On Record; push back against something you disagree with (Be it Style or design decision) Twice. If the other side (especially if they are above you in the food chain) still persists - Suck it up and do the work. If you can't live with that situation - look into moving on (while sucking it up). Continuing to push a beleaguered point (even if you're "Right") will inevitably lead to nothing good.