12 ms·

Keeping Your Company Asshole-Free

48 points by andrewhyde 14y ago

lindsaydayton 14y ago
that's really great hiring advice. i love this process!
23david 14y ago
His presentation on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/flaregames/keeping-your-company-aholefree http://www.slideshare.net/flaregames/keeping-your-company-ah...
ryzawy 14y ago
Great to see this post here on Hacker News! I work at flaregames and wholeheartedly agree with Klaas, we're asshole-free and that's not an understatement. :)
digitalengineer 14y ago
I find it amazing how many people in a team don't share their insights, assets or experiences with the team. Why is that? Is it fear?
- nedwin 14y ago
  A saw a post on Twitter a couple of weeks ago from a guy who was in his last week of his job. He claimed his employer was trying to "milk him" by asking for a handover guide for the next person taking over the role. I think that people hold onto information for power, to protect their position and to give them leverage over their situation.
  - digitalengineer 14y ago
    I think you're right. Like Klaas said in the presentation, such behavior usually is a reaction to the working ethics of the company. Screwing your colleagues (and the company) is rewarded by (lousy) management or management with a hidden agenda.
- pcrh 14y ago
  Most frequently it is because they are in a competitive environment and fear that they won't be given credit for their contribution.
- lazyjones 14y ago
  It's probably the "I don't get paid for that" attitude ...
  - pc86 14y ago
    Which is a cop out anyway. Programmers don't get paid to "write code," they get paid to solve problems. Part of that is discussing options and strategies with teammates and making sure everyone is on the same page (or as close to the same page as possible when you have teammates with vastly disparate specialties and expertise).
  - ExcitedByNoise 14y ago
    That is the worst. The "That's not my job" attitude is from people who are not team players and believe that they are above doing certain work, regardless if the work needs to be done. If you work in a problem solving profession, then you just can't have this attitude, because eventually someone is going to ask you to solve a problem outside your domain, and if you can't figure it out, then it doesn't get done or they get someone who will figure it out. Although people bringing their stapler to the IT help desk is one of those times I might not be mad if the response was "That's not my job"
- martswite 14y ago
  In my experience, which, granted is limited (3.5 years programming), one or two team members I work with very rarely share their insights. In the case of these team members I think one comes down to fear of maybe looking daft in front of the rest of the team by saying something that they think might be wrong. The other can just be a sanctimonious prick and will ask people questions that they simply wont know the answer to, to show them up in front of the rest of the office. So in my experience fear is certainly a factor holding a person back. However on the flip side a person lording his knowledge over other people but not sharing it in a useful way conducive to improving the general programming knowledge of the team. They both harm the team but in different ways. I don't know how these two problems can be solved though. Maybe encouraging opinion from the people who fear sharing their points of view and being supportive of them would help. I'm at a loss though with regards to the power-bitches that like to make people look small with their own knowledge.
  - alinajaf 14y ago
    As a sanctimonious prick who asks a lot of leading questions, I find it's very difficult to communicate technical insights with other members of my team by just giving them the answers to the hard questions. What I'm guessing you'd like sanctimonious pricks like me to say: "That particular (algorithm|technology decision|doohickey) is bad for the following three reasons, this alternative is better because it's !(those three reasons), is less work, easier to maintain and also offers us the following three affordances. I've used this in a number of other installations and can vouch for its reliability and ease-of-use." This categorically does not work! Don't do it! It allows for zero shared credit, puts everyone on the defensive and leads to bickering and bike-shedding. In the best case, the person you're arguing with will disagree vehemently, go away for a few weeks, then come up with a new idea all by themselves that is exactly the same as what you were arguing for. This achieves the same result but isn't a very pleasant way to get there. Questions work marginally better. In general my lines of questioning follow one of the following formats: 1. Is there a reason we're not using <a := some no-brainer technology choice> instead of going to all the effort of rolling our own <a>? 2. Have you thought about how that's going to work when <one or more use cases that are almost definitely going to happen that you clearly haven't thought about>? 3. Is <b> something we're just doing now to get it working and then planning on refactoring later? <where b := a horrible mess they just merged into master> 4. It looks like the script is running when I enter <script>alert('bazinga!');</script> as my username. Seeing as it's your commit that caused it would you mind taking a look at that? In terms of sharing insight without offending people, that's about as polite as I can get I'm afraid.
- alinajaf 14y ago
  As hinted at in a comment a few threads down, sometimes the sheer effort of trying to impart some knowledge or technique when other developers clearly don't want to hear it takes its toll. In those situations, it is a lot less effort to allow developer B to commit whatever the hell they want into the codebase, wait until they lose interest and then go in later and clean up the mess.
brianwillis 14y ago
I was surprised to hear that they ask candidates to spend a couple of days working on a project, and then present that project to the company. That's a substantial time investment to ask someone to make on top of interviewing. If I was looking for work and every potential employer asked this of me, searching for a job could take weeks or months.
- OhArgh 14y ago
  I have heard of companies paying a contract rate for 2 or 3 days to evaluate the candidate with the team. I wish they did that were I work now. The process here is just here's the new guy. ( now I bitching about my company, does that make me an ass-hole )
  - ojbyrne 14y ago
    That's easy if you're currently not working, but not so much if you are. So you're screening out the employed.
    - OhArgh 14y ago
      Yea I know what you mean. I guess the point I was trying to make is it would be nice to have some influence from the team as we are the ones that will be working with them
    - theorique 14y ago
      Unless it's a take-home project in which case a person could do the work on the weekend. Which would also be a test of time management.
      - pc86 14y ago
        This. Give someone a project that should take no more than n hours to complete and give then n/2 days to do it, preferably including a weekend. That should be plenty of time for some folks, even employed.
Joeboy 14y ago
Re slide 20: I recall reading that it's a myth that people who use the word "I" a lot are particularly self-absorbed. I recall it being suggested that the opposite might even be the case, perhaps because people were acknowledging the subjectivity of their opinions rather than presuming to present an indisputable statement of truth. I would look for a link, but the word "I" is hard to google. Edit: I might be thinking of this, or something like it: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-your-use-of-the-word-i-say-about-you-2011-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-your-use-of-the-wor...
- alinajaf 14y ago
  It especially doesn't make sense because the usage of the word "I" in English is mostly because English is quite verbose. Specifically, in most cases it's expected that you specify the subject of a sentence, which happens to be yourself a lot of the time. There's no such expectation in Japanese for example.
- Deestan 14y ago
  > acknowledging the subjectivity of their opinions rather than presuming to present an indisputable statement of truth. I actually try hard to use I wherever possible for that particular reason. Saying "I think a message-passing style would be best for this" is more honest than "a message-passing style would be best for this".
  - coliveira 14y ago
    I don't agree with this because whenever you write something it becomes obvious that it is your opinion, even if it shared by other people. If it is somebody else's opinion and not yours, you would naturally say "somebody else's said ..." If you want to emphasize that is just not your opinion, you can also say so. It is much more cumbersome to keep adding "I think" when it is implicit in the context.
    - jt2190 14y ago
      When you're the boss, your opinions are often interpreted as decrees. Tempering your tone with qualifiers is necessary to get others to share their opinions honestly.
ojbyrne 14y ago
For some reason I took an immediate dislike towards the speaker, perhaps because I had previously read the article about programmers having a negative outlook (i.e. they're prone to being assholes) and his silly attempts to please the audience by making jabs at marketing and PR staff. How do you separate assholes from people you dislike for mostly unfair reasons?
chris_wot 14y ago
It's always hard when you think "I was being an arsehole at that time". Hard, but good to realise. I think I had that moment just now! In case you think I believe I'm always an arsehole, this isn't the case. But there have been times I believe I was. I'll have to work on it in future :(
- bjourne 14y ago
  I can't argue against you because I don't know the specifics. But to me, it seems those that are the most worried about themselves being assholes are the least assholish of people. People who do behave as genuine assholes never reflect upon their own behaviour.
markmm 14y ago
Imagine Apple was asshole free from the start? It would have failed, the reality is to succeed you need to make tough decisions and people will come across an asshole (ohherrr) at some point. Also if you worked in a place where everyone was nice all you would likely want to blow your brains out.
atirip 14y ago
I'm enormously glad that Apple board did absolutely not keep their company asshole-free. Writing this on computer that asshole created. And btw, I do not know a single Genius (with uppacase G) who is not an asshole, so go figure...
- e40 14y ago
  And btw, I do not know a single Genius (with uppacase G) who is not an asshole, so go figure... I do. That type of intelligence does not predetermine being an asshole. I think it's sad that people think that.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    I think a lot of people have some longing or desire to be an asshole, or rather to get away with being an asshole. I suspect it is some show of their position in the social order (i.e. I am so important I can treat people with contempt and it doesn't matter). I think the organizational harm done by most assholes offsets any benefit from their other contributions, by a large factor.
- michaelt 14y ago
  I've met Donald Knuth, Steve Wozniak and Tim Berners-Lee; none of them seemed like assholes to me. I can't think of anyone I've met, whom I respect but consider an asshole. By "Genius (with uppacase G)" you mean an Apple Store employee?
  - atirip 14y ago
    You are most likely correct in this. All geniuses I have briefly met are indeed nice. But usually this is a mask. Wait until you get to know them really well. Or read their bioagraphies. Oh, and I don not write this in negative way, no-no, I just have observed that that's the way it is.
    - ktizo 14y ago
      I think you are confusing genius with something else. I'm not sure what yet though. Possibly a badger.
orangethirty 14y ago
Define asshole, please.
- nacker 14y ago
  A person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/ascent_of_the_a_word_by_geoffrey_nunberg_and_assholes_a_theory_by_aaron_james_reviewed_.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/ascent_of_t...
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    Thank you. Seems I'm surrounded by assholes then with such a broad definition. My thought was that an asshole (in general sense) was someone who always put himself first. Thats why I did not understand the post as well as I'd like. Again, thanks for taking the time to explain.
    - nacker 14y ago
      The Slate link really is worth reading. Assholology is the hot topic these days, and I have frequently found that reflecting on my own asshole quotient is more worthwhile than focusing on the assholes around me, to the point where I begin to consider that assholes aren't ALL bad!
      - orangethirty 14y ago
        Your definition made me stop and think about how big of an asshole I really am. It is tough to somehow relate and try and measure it, because I reason a lot of social interactions and judge them as logical entities. Like you said not all assholes arent that bad, because not all of them realize they are assholes. Though your term used to define it is wonderful. I would major in asshology if given the chance. But it would require a minor in chraminology. :)
xentronium 14y ago
I can't help but wonder why I had such a bad taste in my mouth after watching the whole vid. These cheap attempts at jabbing PR and Marketing people (not to mention naming names and Deutsche Telekom 'joke') came off to me as cheesy and badly thought.

48 points by andrewhyde 14y ago

that's really great hiring advice. i love this process!

His presentation on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/flaregames/keeping-your-company-aholefree http://www.slideshare.net/flaregames/keeping-your-company-ah...

ryzawy 14y ago

Great to see this post here on Hacker News! I work at flaregames and wholeheartedly agree with Klaas, we're asshole-free and that's not an understatement. :)

digitalengineer 14y ago

I find it amazing how many people in a team don't share their insights, assets or experiences with the team. Why is that? Is it fear?

nedwin 14y ago
A saw a post on Twitter a couple of weeks ago from a guy who was in his last week of his job. He claimed his employer was trying to "milk him" by asking for a handover guide for the next person taking over the role. I think that people hold onto information for power, to protect their position and to give them leverage over their situation.
- digitalengineer 14y ago
  I think you're right. Like Klaas said in the presentation, such behavior usually is a reaction to the working ethics of the company. Screwing your colleagues (and the company) is rewarded by (lousy) management or management with a hidden agenda.
pcrh 14y ago
Most frequently it is because they are in a competitive environment and fear that they won't be given credit for their contribution.
lazyjones 14y ago
It's probably the "I don't get paid for that" attitude ...
- pc86 14y ago
  Which is a cop out anyway. Programmers don't get paid to "write code," they get paid to solve problems. Part of that is discussing options and strategies with teammates and making sure everyone is on the same page (or as close to the same page as possible when you have teammates with vastly disparate specialties and expertise).
- ExcitedByNoise 14y ago
  That is the worst. The "That's not my job" attitude is from people who are not team players and believe that they are above doing certain work, regardless if the work needs to be done. If you work in a problem solving profession, then you just can't have this attitude, because eventually someone is going to ask you to solve a problem outside your domain, and if you can't figure it out, then it doesn't get done or they get someone who will figure it out. Although people bringing their stapler to the IT help desk is one of those times I might not be mad if the response was "That's not my job"
martswite 14y ago
In my experience, which, granted is limited (3.5 years programming), one or two team members I work with very rarely share their insights. In the case of these team members I think one comes down to fear of maybe looking daft in front of the rest of the team by saying something that they think might be wrong. The other can just be a sanctimonious prick and will ask people questions that they simply wont know the answer to, to show them up in front of the rest of the office. So in my experience fear is certainly a factor holding a person back. However on the flip side a person lording his knowledge over other people but not sharing it in a useful way conducive to improving the general programming knowledge of the team. They both harm the team but in different ways. I don't know how these two problems can be solved though. Maybe encouraging opinion from the people who fear sharing their points of view and being supportive of them would help. I'm at a loss though with regards to the power-bitches that like to make people look small with their own knowledge.
- alinajaf 14y ago
  As a sanctimonious prick who asks a lot of leading questions, I find it's very difficult to communicate technical insights with other members of my team by just giving them the answers to the hard questions. What I'm guessing you'd like sanctimonious pricks like me to say: "That particular (algorithm|technology decision|doohickey) is bad for the following three reasons, this alternative is better because it's !(those three reasons), is less work, easier to maintain and also offers us the following three affordances. I've used this in a number of other installations and can vouch for its reliability and ease-of-use." This categorically does not work! Don't do it! It allows for zero shared credit, puts everyone on the defensive and leads to bickering and bike-shedding. In the best case, the person you're arguing with will disagree vehemently, go away for a few weeks, then come up with a new idea all by themselves that is exactly the same as what you were arguing for. This achieves the same result but isn't a very pleasant way to get there. Questions work marginally better. In general my lines of questioning follow one of the following formats: 1. Is there a reason we're not using <a := some no-brainer technology choice> instead of going to all the effort of rolling our own <a>? 2. Have you thought about how that's going to work when <one or more use cases that are almost definitely going to happen that you clearly haven't thought about>? 3. Is <b> something we're just doing now to get it working and then planning on refactoring later? <where b := a horrible mess they just merged into master> 4. It looks like the script is running when I enter <script>alert('bazinga!');</script> as my username. Seeing as it's your commit that caused it would you mind taking a look at that? In terms of sharing insight without offending people, that's about as polite as I can get I'm afraid.
alinajaf 14y ago
As hinted at in a comment a few threads down, sometimes the sheer effort of trying to impart some knowledge or technique when other developers clearly don't want to hear it takes its toll. In those situations, it is a lot less effort to allow developer B to commit whatever the hell they want into the codebase, wait until they lose interest and then go in later and clean up the mess.

brianwillis 14y ago

I was surprised to hear that they ask candidates to spend a couple of days working on a project, and then present that project to the company. That's a substantial time investment to ask someone to make on top of interviewing. If I was looking for work and every potential employer asked this of me, searching for a job could take weeks or months.

OhArgh 14y ago
I have heard of companies paying a contract rate for 2 or 3 days to evaluate the candidate with the team. I wish they did that were I work now. The process here is just here's the new guy. ( now I bitching about my company, does that make me an ass-hole )
- ojbyrne 14y ago
  That's easy if you're currently not working, but not so much if you are. So you're screening out the employed.
  - OhArgh 14y ago
    Yea I know what you mean. I guess the point I was trying to make is it would be nice to have some influence from the team as we are the ones that will be working with them
  - theorique 14y ago
    Unless it's a take-home project in which case a person could do the work on the weekend. Which would also be a test of time management.
    - pc86 14y ago
      This. Give someone a project that should take no more than n hours to complete and give then n/2 days to do it, preferably including a weekend. That should be plenty of time for some folks, even employed.

Joeboy 14y ago

Re slide 20: I recall reading that it's a myth that people who use the word "I" a lot are particularly self-absorbed. I recall it being suggested that the opposite might even be the case, perhaps because people were acknowledging the subjectivity of their opinions rather than presuming to present an indisputable statement of truth. I would look for a link, but the word "I" is hard to google. Edit: I might be thinking of this, or something like it: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-your-use-of-the-word-i-say-about-you-2011-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-your-use-of-the-wor...

alinajaf 14y ago
It especially doesn't make sense because the usage of the word "I" in English is mostly because English is quite verbose. Specifically, in most cases it's expected that you specify the subject of a sentence, which happens to be yourself a lot of the time. There's no such expectation in Japanese for example.
Deestan 14y ago
> acknowledging the subjectivity of their opinions rather than presuming to present an indisputable statement of truth. I actually try hard to use I wherever possible for that particular reason. Saying "I think a message-passing style would be best for this" is more honest than "a message-passing style would be best for this".
- coliveira 14y ago
  I don't agree with this because whenever you write something it becomes obvious that it is your opinion, even if it shared by other people. If it is somebody else's opinion and not yours, you would naturally say "somebody else's said ..." If you want to emphasize that is just not your opinion, you can also say so. It is much more cumbersome to keep adding "I think" when it is implicit in the context.
  - jt2190 14y ago
    When you're the boss, your opinions are often interpreted as decrees. Tempering your tone with qualifiers is necessary to get others to share their opinions honestly.

ojbyrne 14y ago

For some reason I took an immediate dislike towards the speaker, perhaps because I had previously read the article about programmers having a negative outlook (i.e. they're prone to being assholes) and his silly attempts to please the audience by making jabs at marketing and PR staff. How do you separate assholes from people you dislike for mostly unfair reasons?

chris_wot 14y ago

It's always hard when you think "I was being an arsehole at that time". Hard, but good to realise. I think I had that moment just now! In case you think I believe I'm always an arsehole, this isn't the case. But there have been times I believe I was. I'll have to work on it in future :(

bjourne 14y ago
I can't argue against you because I don't know the specifics. But to me, it seems those that are the most worried about themselves being assholes are the least assholish of people. People who do behave as genuine assholes never reflect upon their own behaviour.

markmm 14y ago

Imagine Apple was asshole free from the start? It would have failed, the reality is to succeed you need to make tough decisions and people will come across an asshole (ohherrr) at some point. Also if you worked in a place where everyone was nice all you would likely want to blow your brains out.

atirip 14y ago

I'm enormously glad that Apple board did absolutely not keep their company asshole-free. Writing this on computer that asshole created. And btw, I do not know a single Genius (with uppacase G) who is not an asshole, so go figure...

e40 14y ago
And btw, I do not know a single Genius (with uppacase G) who is not an asshole, so go figure... I do. That type of intelligence does not predetermine being an asshole. I think it's sad that people think that.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  I think a lot of people have some longing or desire to be an asshole, or rather to get away with being an asshole. I suspect it is some show of their position in the social order (i.e. I am so important I can treat people with contempt and it doesn't matter). I think the organizational harm done by most assholes offsets any benefit from their other contributions, by a large factor.
michaelt 14y ago
I've met Donald Knuth, Steve Wozniak and Tim Berners-Lee; none of them seemed like assholes to me. I can't think of anyone I've met, whom I respect but consider an asshole. By "Genius (with uppacase G)" you mean an Apple Store employee?
- atirip 14y ago
  You are most likely correct in this. All geniuses I have briefly met are indeed nice. But usually this is a mask. Wait until you get to know them really well. Or read their bioagraphies. Oh, and I don not write this in negative way, no-no, I just have observed that that's the way it is.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    I think you are confusing genius with something else. I'm not sure what yet though. Possibly a badger.

orangethirty 14y ago

Define asshole, please.

nacker 14y ago
A person counts as an asshole when, and only when, he systematically allows himself to enjoy special advantages in interpersonal relations out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that immunizes him against the complaints of other people. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/ascent_of_the_a_word_by_geoffrey_nunberg_and_assholes_a_theory_by_aaron_james_reviewed_.single.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/10/ascent_of_t...
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Thank you. Seems I'm surrounded by assholes then with such a broad definition. My thought was that an asshole (in general sense) was someone who always put himself first. Thats why I did not understand the post as well as I'd like. Again, thanks for taking the time to explain.
  - nacker 14y ago
    The Slate link really is worth reading. Assholology is the hot topic these days, and I have frequently found that reflecting on my own asshole quotient is more worthwhile than focusing on the assholes around me, to the point where I begin to consider that assholes aren't ALL bad!
    - orangethirty 14y ago
      Your definition made me stop and think about how big of an asshole I really am. It is tough to somehow relate and try and measure it, because I reason a lot of social interactions and judge them as logical entities. Like you said not all assholes arent that bad, because not all of them realize they are assholes. Though your term used to define it is wonderful. I would major in asshology if given the chance. But it would require a minor in chraminology. :)

xentronium 14y ago

I can't help but wonder why I had such a bad taste in my mouth after watching the whole vid. These cheap attempts at jabbing PR and Marketing people (not to mention naming names and Deutsche Telekom 'joke') came off to me as cheesy and badly thought.