3 ms·

People making lots of soft contributions like mentorship / leadership tend to be the kind of well-liked personable sorts who do well on non-objective assessment

by zachmu 3y ago

People making lots of soft contributions like mentorship / leadership tend to be the kind of well-liked personable sorts who do well on non-objective assessments, which always manage to color evaluations even when you try to make them as objective as possible.

AdrianB1 3y ago
Not in my experience. I worked in 2 occasions with some older people (~ 65) that were the guru of their departments, very respected and listened. While people learned a lot from these 2 people, they were not too agreeable, but quite grumpy, I could say. That limited their careers, even if they were by far the best experts in their departments and overall the most valuable contributors, they were never considered for promotions. On the other side, most well-liked people I met were professionally superficial at best, masters of talking and networking, but not delivering much at the end of the day. They were promoted first, so that the entire organization was full of these people promoting similar ones.
- sgarland 3y ago
  Same. The best people I ever worked with were grumpy graybeards (in spirit if not physically). Brusque is the kindest way to describe them. If you knew your shit, or at least demonstrated that you had exhausted your knowledge, they would help you. That said, it isn’t _required_ for you to be a jerk; I’ve also worked with incredibly talented people who were generally kind. But they did not go out of their way to network and schmooze. IME, people who are concerned with what others think of them are the least accomplished.
- pyuser583 3y ago
  I wonder if something about technical competence corresponds to being a jerk. I’ve seen this happen again and again. Nice people become jerks when they become good at tech. It doesn’t always happen. Plenty of compassionate tech wizards. I suspect it’s due to the fact that being a jerk gets reactions quicker. “You messed this up, fix it like I tell you or I’ll ruin your reputation” gets more effect than “Let me show you how this works.” I also suspect that programmers are often so lost in their heads, they don’t take good advice when it’s given. I’ve been guilty of this. I’ve decided a problem is from X part of the stack, that when an expert in Y says to look in Y I’m like “but that doesn’t effect X!”
  - AdrianB1 3y ago
    What I saw first hand: when someone really good is trying to help others there are usually 2 ways this can happen: - they try their best, they need help, they ask for help, they get it - they don't put any effort, they go to the expert with the most idiotic questions waiting for solutions to be served. The expert runs out of patience, becomes grumpy with these people So the experts are not jerks. They are short on patience with super-lazy, super-incompetent people that waste their time.
- zachmu 3y ago
  Being an old grumpy guru is somewhat different from being a mentor, we're talking about different things.

by zachmu 3y ago

AdrianB1 3y ago

Not in my experience. I worked in 2 occasions with some older people (~ 65) that were the guru of their departments, very respected and listened. While people learned a lot from these 2 people, they were not too agreeable, but quite grumpy, I could say. That limited their careers, even if they were by far the best experts in their departments and overall the most valuable contributors, they were never considered for promotions. On the other side, most well-liked people I met were professionally superficial at best, masters of talking and networking, but not delivering much at the end of the day. They were promoted first, so that the entire organization was full of these people promoting similar ones.

sgarland 3y ago
Same. The best people I ever worked with were grumpy graybeards (in spirit if not physically). Brusque is the kindest way to describe them. If you knew your shit, or at least demonstrated that you had exhausted your knowledge, they would help you. That said, it isn’t _required_ for you to be a jerk; I’ve also worked with incredibly talented people who were generally kind. But they did not go out of their way to network and schmooze. IME, people who are concerned with what others think of them are the least accomplished.
pyuser583 3y ago
I wonder if something about technical competence corresponds to being a jerk. I’ve seen this happen again and again. Nice people become jerks when they become good at tech. It doesn’t always happen. Plenty of compassionate tech wizards. I suspect it’s due to the fact that being a jerk gets reactions quicker. “You messed this up, fix it like I tell you or I’ll ruin your reputation” gets more effect than “Let me show you how this works.” I also suspect that programmers are often so lost in their heads, they don’t take good advice when it’s given. I’ve been guilty of this. I’ve decided a problem is from X part of the stack, that when an expert in Y says to look in Y I’m like “but that doesn’t effect X!”
- AdrianB1 3y ago
  What I saw first hand: when someone really good is trying to help others there are usually 2 ways this can happen: - they try their best, they need help, they ask for help, they get it - they don't put any effort, they go to the expert with the most idiotic questions waiting for solutions to be served. The expert runs out of patience, becomes grumpy with these people So the experts are not jerks. They are short on patience with super-lazy, super-incompetent people that waste their time.
zachmu 3y ago
Being an old grumpy guru is somewhat different from being a mentor, we're talking about different things.