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As a somewhat disagreeable person, I have to agree. So much of my time spent at work is in a state of frustration at processes and people. I think it's my job

As a somewhat disagreeable person, I have to agree. So much of my time spent at work is in a state of frustration at processes and people. I think it's my job to be vocal about what I see, either to improve the situation, or correct my perspective (i.e. learn!). However.. I have to sanitize my language and use the most gross of corporate speak. I often sleep on it before sending a contentious email. I'm still the team asshole, but an old boss said every team needs one ;)

mcguire 4y ago
Once upon a time, I worked with a particular person. At one point we were evaluating version control alternatives and he looked at one. He said it was great, but would never respond when anyone asked, "How do you do X, Y, or Z?" Eventually we picked one of the others (partially because he would never tell us why his was better), but he refused to accept that, resulting in the team lead having to develop a script to exchange changes between the system he used and the one everyone else used. He's also the guy who kept commenting out "-Wall" from our C++ Makefile with comments like "Nobody has time for that." (Though apparently, I had time to fire up Valgrind and track down all the memory issues, most of which would have been caught by compiler warnings.) He also considered "Maybe I'll just throw myself under a bus" to be a valid technical point during a discussion. I began my career at IBM, where the loudest, most aggressive person got to be in charge. I have a lot of experience working around disagreeable co-workers---usually by doing things their way, whether or not it is best for the project---because there's no other way to get anything done. But then, I don't consider constant bike-shedding arguments as getting things done. Fortunately, I don't have to do that any more. I've quit jobs because I couldn't stand spending more of my time keeping a disagreeable person happy (well, not happy; they're never going to be happy) than getting my actual work done. (Oh, that co-worker from the first paragraph? A few years later he sent me an email asking if I would be a reference. I said no.)

mcguire 4y ago

Once upon a time, I worked with a particular person. At one point we were evaluating version control alternatives and he looked at one. He said it was great, but would never respond when anyone asked, "How do you do X, Y, or Z?" Eventually we picked one of the others (partially because he would never tell us why his was better), but he refused to accept that, resulting in the team lead having to develop a script to exchange changes between the system he used and the one everyone else used. He's also the guy who kept commenting out "-Wall" from our C++ Makefile with comments like "Nobody has time for that." (Though apparently, I had time to fire up Valgrind and track down all the memory issues, most of which would have been caught by compiler warnings.) He also considered "Maybe I'll just throw myself under a bus" to be a valid technical point during a discussion. I began my career at IBM, where the loudest, most aggressive person got to be in charge. I have a lot of experience working around disagreeable co-workers---usually by doing things their way, whether or not it is best for the project---because there's no other way to get anything done. But then, I don't consider constant bike-shedding arguments as getting things done. Fortunately, I don't have to do that any more. I've quit jobs because I couldn't stand spending more of my time keeping a disagreeable person happy (well, not happy; they're never going to be happy) than getting my actual work done. (Oh, that co-worker from the first paragraph? A few years later he sent me an email asking if I would be a reference. I said no.)