4 ms·

> The boss was giving someone else a favor, making them the lead of this now-important project, some up-and-coming hotshot. He made up an excuse about "bad atti

> The boss was giving someone else a favor, making them the lead of this now-important project, some up-and-coming hotshot. He made up an excuse about "bad attitude", while just using it as cover for backstabbing him. so, basically someone who was competent and agreeable was favored by his boss to get a promotion, and the person who acted like a know-it-all dickhead 24/7 got sent to the basement. that's a real shocker.

fsk 11y ago
You're confused about how the dickhead non-dickhead spectrum works. From the viewpoint of a dickhead, an honest and intelligent person is a dickhead. The honest and intelligent person has the potential to expose the dickhead as a dickhead, so the dickhead will do everything he can to convince everyone else that the honest and intelligent person is a dickhead. A dickhead would see an honest and intelligent person as a dickhead, and be able to lie convincingly enough to establish it as fact in the eyes of others. In fact, a highly skilled dickhead can convince an honest person that "standing up for yourself" is a dickhead behavior. I have no way of telling if the OP is a dickhead or not, because I haven't met him. My guess is "not a dickhead, he was just convinced by dickheads the he actually was the dickhead". So, he learned to act in a manner least likely to offend dickheads. I don't want to work with dickheads, so I don't bother with that skill.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  seeing as how there are, in this very thead, people that consider OP to have been a dickhead, i think i'm going to go with the primary source on this one.
  - fsk 11y ago
    Considering how the OP is the mythical 10x-100x programmer, I'd lean towards him not being a dickhead. He singlehandedly implemented several key features for FaceBook. If FaceBook had an average employee instead of the OP, they might not have been as successful.
    - acdha 11y ago
      It's possible to be highly skilled in one area and very weak in another, and the median is almost always more important to the long-term success of a business. Look at it from the perspective of a CEO: is a hot-shot programmer nobody wants to work with more or less likely to be productive than a well-integrated team with a dozen people? Would you want to bet your company on that one person staying healthy, employed by you, never making a mistake, etc. or do you want to bet on a long-term model more sustainable than “Make sure this person never leaves”? This is why the 10x mythologizing is so annoying. There are a few people who are 10x in specific areas or who might have periods of intense productivity but it's never true across the board for significant periods of time, and it's used to excuse a lot of bad behaviour by 1.2x programmers — not to mention the larger mistake of assuming that the limiting factor on projects is rarely absolute programming ability. In most cases, you see far better results from someone who might be maligned as a .8x programmer who communicates well with the team & users and relies on solid tools and practice rather than assuming sheer skill will save the day.
- RockyMcNuts 11y ago
  On the one hand, I've been in situations where dickheads would undermine me behind my back to management, tell me other people were undermining me, act like I was I a dickhead if I responded to a direct question from management directly instead of clearing it through them. On the other hand, the dickhead always thinks he's a non-dickhead. If everyone you meet is a dickhead, you're the dickhead. So be kind to everybody, dickhead or non-dickhead.
cookiecaper 11y ago
Indeed. We should be under no illusion -- employment is a popularity contest. In non-startups, the only thing that matters is how much the people around you, especially the high-ranking people, like you. Other things matter only in the most extreme circumstances -- every normal value can be hand-waved away if the boss likes you enough. If you want to be a successful employee, view yourself as a politician and run a successful campaign: minimize anything that will be viewed negatively, blatantly exploit peoples' biases to emphasize a positive image. Don't talk about divisive subjects, regardless of their relevance to your job. Anyone smart enough to see what's going on but naive enough to call you out will immediately be viewed badly, the only real threat to your power is someone who is smart enough to see the manipulation and experienced enough to respond to it through his own counter-manipulations.
- fsk 11y ago
  Why bother learning how to write software? I should have focused on sales if that's the only skill that matters.
  - eclipxe 11y ago
    Welcome to Life 101. It's all about sales + skill. Skill is one part of the equation, necessary but not sufficient. Sales is the other part - unfortunately a great salesman can go very far without hard skills (to be fair, a great salesman has unique skills). This is a hard fact about life and something a lot of talented people realize way too late. Now you know. Focus on your pitch - ABC - always be closing. Every interaction in life is a transaction of some sort - your sales strategy will determine if you get a good deal or a raw deal.
    - YTc0YjY4MzBl 11y ago
      "Every interaction in life is a transaction of some sort." What about when a mother kisses her baby's head? What about when a friend offers a hug to someone who has just lost a loved one? What about when a kid gives a friendly smile to the kid who always gets bullied? Are those transactions? Did those people get "good deals"? Now I'm just some hyperbole-prone kid who isn't qualified to give advice to a Life Veteran like yourself, but I find myself wondering what you might learn if you stopped keeping score for awhile. In my experience, treating every interaction as a little game to maximize profit is a great way to scare away anyone who is interested in anything more worthwhile than profiting off of you.

fsk 11y ago

You're confused about how the dickhead non-dickhead spectrum works. From the viewpoint of a dickhead, an honest and intelligent person is a dickhead. The honest and intelligent person has the potential to expose the dickhead as a dickhead, so the dickhead will do everything he can to convince everyone else that the honest and intelligent person is a dickhead. A dickhead would see an honest and intelligent person as a dickhead, and be able to lie convincingly enough to establish it as fact in the eyes of others. In fact, a highly skilled dickhead can convince an honest person that "standing up for yourself" is a dickhead behavior. I have no way of telling if the OP is a dickhead or not, because I haven't met him. My guess is "not a dickhead, he was just convinced by dickheads the he actually was the dickhead". So, he learned to act in a manner least likely to offend dickheads. I don't want to work with dickheads, so I don't bother with that skill.

beachstartup 11y ago
seeing as how there are, in this very thead, people that consider OP to have been a dickhead, i think i'm going to go with the primary source on this one.
- fsk 11y ago
  Considering how the OP is the mythical 10x-100x programmer, I'd lean towards him not being a dickhead. He singlehandedly implemented several key features for FaceBook. If FaceBook had an average employee instead of the OP, they might not have been as successful.
  - acdha 11y ago
    It's possible to be highly skilled in one area and very weak in another, and the median is almost always more important to the long-term success of a business. Look at it from the perspective of a CEO: is a hot-shot programmer nobody wants to work with more or less likely to be productive than a well-integrated team with a dozen people? Would you want to bet your company on that one person staying healthy, employed by you, never making a mistake, etc. or do you want to bet on a long-term model more sustainable than “Make sure this person never leaves”? This is why the 10x mythologizing is so annoying. There are a few people who are 10x in specific areas or who might have periods of intense productivity but it's never true across the board for significant periods of time, and it's used to excuse a lot of bad behaviour by 1.2x programmers — not to mention the larger mistake of assuming that the limiting factor on projects is rarely absolute programming ability. In most cases, you see far better results from someone who might be maligned as a .8x programmer who communicates well with the team & users and relies on solid tools and practice rather than assuming sheer skill will save the day.
RockyMcNuts 11y ago
On the one hand, I've been in situations where dickheads would undermine me behind my back to management, tell me other people were undermining me, act like I was I a dickhead if I responded to a direct question from management directly instead of clearing it through them. On the other hand, the dickhead always thinks he's a non-dickhead. If everyone you meet is a dickhead, you're the dickhead. So be kind to everybody, dickhead or non-dickhead.

cookiecaper 11y ago

Indeed. We should be under no illusion -- employment is a popularity contest. In non-startups, the only thing that matters is how much the people around you, especially the high-ranking people, like you. Other things matter only in the most extreme circumstances -- every normal value can be hand-waved away if the boss likes you enough. If you want to be a successful employee, view yourself as a politician and run a successful campaign: minimize anything that will be viewed negatively, blatantly exploit peoples' biases to emphasize a positive image. Don't talk about divisive subjects, regardless of their relevance to your job. Anyone smart enough to see what's going on but naive enough to call you out will immediately be viewed badly, the only real threat to your power is someone who is smart enough to see the manipulation and experienced enough to respond to it through his own counter-manipulations.

fsk 11y ago
Why bother learning how to write software? I should have focused on sales if that's the only skill that matters.
- eclipxe 11y ago
  Welcome to Life 101. It's all about sales + skill. Skill is one part of the equation, necessary but not sufficient. Sales is the other part - unfortunately a great salesman can go very far without hard skills (to be fair, a great salesman has unique skills). This is a hard fact about life and something a lot of talented people realize way too late. Now you know. Focus on your pitch - ABC - always be closing. Every interaction in life is a transaction of some sort - your sales strategy will determine if you get a good deal or a raw deal.
  - YTc0YjY4MzBl 11y ago
    "Every interaction in life is a transaction of some sort." What about when a mother kisses her baby's head? What about when a friend offers a hug to someone who has just lost a loved one? What about when a kid gives a friendly smile to the kid who always gets bullied? Are those transactions? Did those people get "good deals"? Now I'm just some hyperbole-prone kid who isn't qualified to give advice to a Life Veteran like yourself, but I find myself wondering what you might learn if you stopped keeping score for awhile. In my experience, treating every interaction as a little game to maximize profit is a great way to scare away anyone who is interested in anything more worthwhile than profiting off of you.