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"We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done" I really appreciate the sentiment. In my experience

• beckingz 4y ago
  That's pretty good advice. Get stuff done and be likable is good.
  • Arisaka1 4y ago
    I have a colleague who almost feels like he's actively trying to make me hate him by throwing completely unrelated to work off-hand remarks in the most basic thing I do, like telling people that I'm gonna take a lunch break or just opening up a terminal prompt while we pair program. I know it's off-topic but It's hard for me to try to be likeable with people who are actively trying stuff like that, and I don't know what else to do. It feels like I'm sitting on a table and the other side ignores their table manners because they're just that valuable to the company that they can.
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      I think I don’t fully understand the opening up a terminal prompt part of that comment.
      • eric-hu 4y ago
        Not the one or replying to, but I’ve encountered this too. Some pair programming takes the form of two people operating one computer. When I’ve done this style and I’m driving, certain people wouldn’t let me finish my thought on what I’m doing. They’ll grab their keyboard or mouse and change programs, or just start typing in stuff while I’m typing too.
        • throwaway2037 4y ago
          I like pair programming with the right person. It is very rewarding. What you describe sounds awful. I would tell them to stop immediately. If it continues, I would stop the pair programming session. What a pain.
          • eric-hu 4y ago
            Yeah, I like it when it’s good. That experience happened at a company where it was full time mandatory, and with our clients’ engineers too. I had positive experiences from that, but also really frustrating ones.
    • programmarchy 4y ago
      Have you told this person what they’re doing bothers you and asked them to stop? If you haven’t, then you are partially to blame for not speaking up for yourself. Good opportunity for you to learn how to tactfully set boundaries with people.
• parineum 4y ago
  > In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. I think that's all true except for the "more than competence" part and it's a good thing. Competence is directly related to loyalty. When you recommend someone for a job and they excel, it makes you look good. It makes you loyal to them and giving the opportunity makes them more loyal to you. If someone isn't recommended you for job openings they know about, it's because they think you might make them look bad, either through experience with you or the lack thereof. Unfortunately, it takes time to prove you're competent and gain that loyalty. Sometimes nepotism can creep in and someone can use their influence to get someone under qualified into a position they shouldn't but that influence was, generally, built through competence, including a history of recommended qualified and competent people. > The best advice someone could give? > 1. Achieve impressive things > 2. Never give anyone a reason to dislike you I think the real advice is be reliable and don't be abrasive. A recommendation for a position goes a long way because it alleviates the risk of hiring an unknown person that may be unreliable or not be able to work with other people.
  • whoIsYou 4y ago
    Seconding this. I'm wondering if the person you are replying to might be having a bit of a dunning kruger issue I only recommend the people that I have worked with that I would want to work with again. Not because of loyalty, but because they are good, and will make me look good for recommending them
    • throwaway2037 4y ago
      To clarify for other users, "dunning kruger issue" means: The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias[2] whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  • greedo 4y ago
• sokoloff 4y ago
  The people whom I’d recommend are not on the basis of loyalty but rather on some dot product of competence and willingness/propensity to do hard work. It’s true that a network referral will inherently be of someone that I worked with (or have other [rare] reason to vouch for). That’s the value of it: if you know me enough to trust my judgment, that vouch has information value for you. I don’t see any other way it could work more effectively.
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    The people I would recommend are usually never needing help finding work and are probably already in their ideal role: I never have anyone to recommend!
• marcinzm 4y ago
  >In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. The point being? That is how human social network and constructs work. The ultimate point is to help yourself and not based on some ephemeral grand concept. No matter how competent someone is why would I want to work with them if they will stab me in the back one day? Incompetent people will indirectly stab you in the back eventually so you really want an adequate level of competence and loyalty. Dislike and loyalty are also very different things so not sure why you're equating them. There's people who do things I dislike that will support others that support them. There are people I like greatly who have a record of stabbing others in the back even if they were helped by that person. Guess which ones I'd recommend for a job?
  • naasking 4y ago
    Loyalty is not a quality that should be selected for. Someone could be "stabbing you in the back" because you're doing something wrong, either morally or because your choices are not good for the business, which is ostensibly what you both should be working towards. Demanding or expecting loyalty blinds you to important signals. Loyalty is a huge failure of human reasoning, and it's frankly bizarre that people see it as a moral virtue given how easily it can be and has been exploited in the past.
    • marcinzm 4y ago
      You're confusing giving feedback or pushing back with stabbing in the back. Someone loyal will tell you the truth to your face or confront you directly understanding that you mutually trust each other. In fact the people I consider most loyal are the ones most likely to call me out in situations and give me a different perspective.
      • naasking 4y ago
        Loyalty is defined as devotion to a person, institution or idea. I think"devotion" is somewhat stronger than what you're describing. I'd say someone calling you out is not exhibiting loyalty to you, but more like integrity, or loyalty to some other ideal, like truth, or business success, that you also value. Devotion to ideals is better than to people, though devotion by definition can still be blinding and dangerous (religion? Laissez-faire free markets?). I'd say that what you're describing is a respect for people with who will fight for principles that you agree with, and that generates a kind of camaraderie, but don't confuse camaraderie for loyalty. Anyway, not to go down a rabbit hole, the danger of loyalty as a concept is just something I happened to be thinking about lately. I just can't think of any valid instances of loyalty that didn't have very bad failure modes, so I'm inclined to write it off entirely as a value one should aspire to develop.
• warkdarrior 4y ago
  I think you are discounting the social aspect of the advice. Most people do great things, but very few can stand out only on the strength of their work. So for the vast majority doing good work has to be coupled with having a network that knows about one's work. And frankly looking for a job is probably one of the most self-serving efforts in one's life, by definition. That is a good thing.
• 908B64B197 4y ago
  Something I noticed in tech is that loyalty is generally a consequence of competence. If competent people are valued, recognized and promoted that leads to more interesting projects and compensation. That's how you build loyalty. We all know software shops that are always whining about the "tech talent shortage" and whose technical employees don't stay more than two years. And we know why nobody is loyal to those!
• deleted 4y ago
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• mtc010170 4y ago
  > 2. Never give anyone a reason to dislike you I'm someone who tends to get along and work well with others. That part definitely has its advantages for employability (and life in general), and is recommended. However, taking it to this extreme is just dangerous advice. Constantly being a people pleaser can carry enormous risks, especially (but not limited to) to yourself. It's important to learn to be ok with people disliking you sometimes.
  • ferrumfist 4y ago
    People pleasers can cause people to dislike them in a workplace, ironically. Being a people pleaser in software dev very often means you will over-burden yourself because you'd rather say "yes, I can do that for you" than "no, I don't have the bandwidth for that". I'd rather a teammate who is honest about their current limitations than someone who tells me what I want to hear. If someone admits they are stretched thin, it's now an "us versus the problem" to find why you are so overtasked. If someone consistently takes on too much (because they can't say no) and causes the team to miss deadlines, it's now an "us versus you" problem.
    • senbrow 4y ago
      10000%. The most hated guy at my old job would start every request with an elaborate hand-wrung introduction to make sure no one could possibly be offended by what he was asking for. Because of this, everyone had to read one or two paragraphs of niceties before they had any idea what he actually needed. It was incredibly annoying and actually quite selfish in practice since it wasted so much time.
      • Nihilartikel 4y ago
        A good manager would have broached the subject with the employee and gently moved them in the direction of adjustment and likely some therapy. That sort of people pleasing behavior can easily come from a past where asserting even a minor need or boundary was met with abuse from caretakers or peers. Not saying it's not maladaptive and irritating behavior. It is! But they probably came by it honestly.
• steveBK123 4y ago
  Your first comment re: exclusionary is simply a filter for the flip side of your 2nd point. The damage of a bad hire is 10x as bad as the positive impact of a good hire. A network of competent, easy to get along with people allows one to avoid the truly bad hires that we've all experienced. Sure you may view it as exclusionary, but if you're hiring for seniors, and been in your niche a decade or more.. the likelihood of someone no one in your network has ever heard of being a great hire vs a terrible hire weighs heavily on a managers brain. Many of these niches are small and are the same few dozen people recirculating over and over. If you are going to spend more time with these people than your spouse or kids, you would like it be be minimally painful.
  • greedo 4y ago
    I'm not sure about the 10x part. On my team I have roughly 15 coworkers. Two are pretty useless, or at least perform at a level dramatically lower than the other 13. So how do we deal with it? Like the Internet, we route around them. Sure they're a waste of company resources/money, but big companies often waste so much money in IT that it's not really a significant factor. Now if your team is very small, one or two bad apples can be quite damaging.
    • steveBK123 4y ago
      Maybe you've not gotten the truly bad apples, or have enough process in place to mitigate. I've been in environments with people who are breaking things at a rate that causes a day of their work to cause more than a day of work for others. Fighting with management for months and then shunting them off to their own 'strategic branch' for 6 months was the only way to protect the team until they were fired.
    • jghn 4y ago
      Most people don’t understand how bad “average” is. It’s true that a bad hire has a large impact. But people assume this means the folks like you’re describing. When not taking money into account I view those types of people as net neutral. A good litmus is to answer the question “would the team be any better off if we replaced them with no one”, and usually the answer is “no” or at least close to it. Factoring money in does change things. Especially for smaller companies. But even then people overestimate what “bad” means when they cite the massive impact of a bad hire
• deleted 4y ago
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