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It's brutal. You want to sound like an Office Space character. But in Office Space, there is no mission, there is no good engineering to do. So all the douche-
by d--b 4y ago
It's brutal.
You want to sound like an Office Space character. But in Office Space, there is no mission, there is no good engineering to do. So all the douche-y people who get in the way of work are more pityful than enemies.
But here, you believe in good engineering yourself, and the -10x engineer you encounter get under your skin. So you're venting online about why you hate their guts (in a funny way, for sure, but still the aggressivity transpires)
It's understandable. I met many bad engineers. They're a nightmare to work with. And yes, many will have a net negative impact on overall productivity. Still, coining the term -10x engineer and making an aggressive piece about all the ways they can screw your work life is not exactly healthy.
Yes, I think your post is going to be empowering jerks. What did you think? That this was just a "funny, haha" post? There are many people who are angered by bad engineers in their daily lives. This is just adding fuel to their anger. This is the Jerk effect taking place. This article reads like a jerk venting, and that language will spread to frustrated people. You can already see it in the comments here.
- d23 4y agoThere's a lot of projection going on here, as far as I can tell. The author is about as neutral as possible in describing these traits / behaviors. None of these traits are mutually exclusive with being a jerk, and in my experience, more often than not the people that exhibit these traits tend to also be jerks to compensate for their inability to get high quality work done!
- d--b 4y agoIf you can't see the negative bias in calling anyone a "-10x engineer", I just can't discuss the matter with you...
- d23 4y agoIf it were directed at a particular person, sure. Otherwise, the author is describing negative traits and behaviors. Have you ever taken any management training? This is the quintessential way of discussing these sorts of things neutrally. Yes, you'd never want to call an individual a -10x engineer, but this is a random article on the internet. It's okay to be a bit headline-attention-grabby and stylistic so the article isn't dry and corporate.
- d--b 4y agoYou know what. I do agree with most points in the article. And I do find them funny. Yet, I also met an awful lot of terrific engineers who were brutally aggressive towards anything they felt was stupid. And in my opinion, those people cause at least just as many problems as people who perform really poorly. I think the tone of the article (cynical, exagerating bad traits, etc.) promotes that kind of toxic culture, while not bringing much to the table in terms of fighting mediocrity. That is all.
- d23 4y agoFair enough, thanks for clarifying. I haven't run into too many of those people (brutally aggressive and terrific engineers). The toxic people I've run into spent all their time trying to look smart to cover their incompetence.