Is it necessary to be mean to succeed at work?

油井緋色

油井緋色

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Topic question, and a serious one. I'm honestly asking here to sanity check.

I am certain everyone that's worked a job has encountered the ******* archetype. The key traits are:
  • Lack of patience
  • Poor mentorship abilities
    • Dead give away is repeating the same instructions when someone doesn't get it, then insulting them instead of switching angles
  • Poor leadership abilities (this does not mean they can't be in management)
  • Berates and demeans others with different opinions
  • Dismisses suggestions, even when they are valid, and does not have enough confidence to admit when they are blatantly wrong
The above traits when applied to an bad worker results in termination very quickly. But these traits can occur with someone who is highly driven and competent. A highly driven and competent ******* is the archetype I'm referring to. These stereotypes sometimes know others are scared of them and get a powertrip.

Despite my dislike for ********, I tend to get to know these characters very well. There is often something very wrong with their lives. Examples I've found:
  • Guy cheated on wife. Wife knows. Popped a kid after. Guy had to take a pic with me to prove to his wife we were out at dinner.
  • Dude is high 24/7. Dude takes multiple bong hits during work. Dude has never had a girl friend and is nearing 30. Something something have to support parents, something something
How have you guys dealt with these?

I find being nice doesn't work. Allowing the repeated blows (either direct insults like "are you retarded?" or inflection of voice) sends an "it's okay, keep doing it" message. Instead, I've had to justify and guilt trip with a very cold inflection (aka "I just want all the information now so I do not bother you later; I am being respectful of your time.") This usually works, worst case scenario has forced me to say "listen, I had an odd childhood where I was berated 24/7. What you are doing is triggering flash backs. I know you're not trying to incite rage in me, so lets stop."

With either tactic, the hidden message behind either response is actually "I'm ready to throw down, **** off."

So with that said, what are your tactics? I'm genuinely curious if anyone has actually thrown psychoanalyses at their colleagues (even if it leads to a mental breakdown from the ******* lol)

TL;DR: The best way I've found to deal with ******** is to be an ******* myself. Are there better ways? We become what we do after all.
 
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Working in the construction industry. From what I've seen, it largely depends on company culture.

There are some companies that are tolerant of that kind of character because that person is competent, able to get things done and bring in good cash flow, albeit at the expense of team harmony and employee retention.

On the other hand, I've seen companies that are not interested in this kind of person because of the disruption to team harmony. This is especially true on larger joint-venture projects, where teamwork and collaboration are important. The type of person you describe does not last very long on these projects - either fired or relocated to a smaller job.

Personally, I just focus on the job. As long as I can demonstrate competence to a wider audience, that one person doesn't matter. If that person were my direct manager, I would probably look elsewhere. Better to work with someone you can learn from, and who acts as a mentor, than one that is playing mind games for personal gain.
 
What happened man

Did something go wrong at the new job?

My boss has explosive tendencies. All boomers here and he's scrambling to hire people but nobody wants to work with him lol

I used it as leverage to get a pay raise and some flexibility on when my shift ends so I can work two jobs

Is this unethical? I don't know


At my crap part-time job, there are tons of those people the OP mentioned. I just remind myself they dug themselves into that hole through their work ethic and just let them be. If stuff doesn't get done, I'm not picking up their slack.

Now.. If the supervisor threatens to write me up for not picking up the slack then I get angry. I let them do it and explain to the boss the supervisor is incompetent and unable to properly motivate and manage their team
 
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george__ said:
What happened man

Did something go wrong at the new job?

My boss has explosive tendencies. All boomers here and he's scrambling to hire people but nobody wants to work with him lol
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Nothing new tbh lol

I know you're looking for software dev jobs. There's a common senior engineer ******* stereotype where your questions will get shut down, you'll be insulted for asking for clarification of piss poor documentation (a senior engineer at a company will know the code base very well, whereas a new hire won't, so you want to ask the seniors. And documentation is often bad than good.)

This thread below contains stories about both engineers and incompetent not-tech savvy managers. We don't care about the incompetent not-tech savvy managers because they dig their own grave and bury themselves. The "toxic" competent senior engineers, on the other hand, have information you'll often want.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/kuknhj
 
^
Yeah so many autistic personality spectrum people in the field of engineering / cs

It is what it is :)

Soon more of these autistic personality spectrum people will be born (successful people breed more) and introverts will rule the planet
 
george__ said:
^
Yeah so many autistic personality spectrum people in the field of engineering / cs

It is what it is :)

Soon more of these autistic personality spectrum people will be born (successful people breed more) and introverts will rule the planet
Click to expand...

I honestly don't blame some of these senior devs for developing this kind of personality. I've worked with some really f'ing stupid "software devs" and was "that senior dev" that I'm talking about because I wanted them fired.

This is the other side of the coin: idiots get hired, they make mistakes you have to fix, and you do their work for them because they want to "pair program" for 6 months straight. At that point: gtfo and give me their salary for doing two jobs lol

When you figure this out you'll probably get some cognitive dissonance, hence why I'm sanity checking here.
 
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No, it is absolutely not necessary to be mean to succeed at work. But what you can actually do to deal with ******** depends highly on the workplace.

Do you have a dedicated management structure? Like, real people whose core job responsibility is managing other people, giving them performance reviews, giving raises, promotions, and firing people? Bigger places are going to have a hierarchy of management. Smaller places are going to just have "the boss". In either case, can you identify the person who has both the responsibility and the power to wield both the carrot (raises) and the stick (termination)? It is possible that the people with the responsibility for these roles either do not see it as their responsibility, or do not have the power to actually follow through on them. Both are cases of weak management. Can you identify the next person up the chain that does fit the criteria? In small places, there may be no chain.

If there is someone who meets the criteria of responsibility + ability to act, then lay it out to them as simply and dispassionately as possible. Use this actual phrase: "Bob's behaviour is unacceptable". Give specific examples. I personally think that starting with examples involving the offender and other people (not yourself) may help stave off the impression that this is a problem with you. In any case, you've stated your position and it's now the manager's responsibility to act. There's a pretty good chance that the manager is aware of the behaviour and either didn't think it was unacceptable, or was willing to let it slide, but your firm, unemotional stance may force them to re-evaluate. Or not, don't get your hopes up. Send the same dispassionate statement of facts to the manager in an email so that you have a record if it is needed later. You may wish to lay out what you anticipate the consequences of the behaviour will be (employees leaving, harassment lawsuits).

If you don't have a management structure that can/will do anything about it, then use the same dispassionate approach with the offender. Avoid what may be interpreted as attacks (eg: talk about "this behaviour", rather than "your behaviour"). Phrase it as a logical cause/effect of what will happen as a result of the behaviour. For highly driven, frustrated but otherwise competent people it can work to say "This behaviour is not effective. To acheive the result you want, try this other behaviour (with me) instead".
 
Ash said:
No, it is absolutely not necessary to be mean to succeed at work. But what you can actually do to deal with ******** depends highly on the workplace.

Do you have a dedicated management structure? Like, real people whose core job responsibility is managing other people, giving them performance reviews, giving raises, promotions, and firing people? Bigger places are going to have a hierarchy of management. Smaller places are going to just have "the boss". In either case, can you identify the person who has both the responsibility and the power to wield both the carrot (raises) and the stick (termination)? It is possible that the people with the responsibility for these roles either do not see it as their responsibility, or do not have the power to actually follow through on them. Both are cases of weak management. Can you identify the next person up the chain that does fit the criteria? In small places, there may be no chain.

If there is someone who meets the criteria of responsibility + ability to act, then lay it out to them as simply and dispassionately as possible. Use this actual phrase: "Bob's behaviour is unacceptable". Give specific examples. I personally think that starting with examples involving the offender and other people (not yourself) may help stave off the impression that this is a problem with you. In any case, you've stated your position and it's now the manager's responsibility to act. There's a pretty good chance that the manager is aware of the behaviour and either didn't think it was unacceptable, or was willing to let it slide, but your firm, unemotional stance may force them to re-evaluate. Or not, don't get your hopes up. Send the same dispassionate statement of facts to the manager in an email so that you have a record if it is needed later. You may wish to lay out what you anticipate the consequences of the behaviour will be (employees leaving, harassment lawsuits).

If you don't have a management structure that can/will do anything about it, then use the same dispassionate approach with the offender. Avoid what may be interpreted as attacks (eg: talk about "this behaviour", rather than "your behaviour"). Phrase it as a logical cause/effect of what will happen as a result of the behaviour. For highly driven, frustrated but otherwise competent people it can work to say "This behaviour is not effective. To acheive the result you want, try this other behaviour (with me) instead".
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Thank you for all of this.

I've avoided involving managers for this kind of stuff because it's "one more thing" on their super stacked plate (I like my current managers lol.)

Do you have any personal stories using this tactic if you don't mind sharing? I'm predicting broken synergy and loss of productivity if going this route at smaller/medium sized companies where the 'snitch" would easily be identified (or worse, falsely identified.)
 
Do you feel better when you’re an as**ole? Personally I don’t. I’m not saying it never happens but in my day to day I try to do what I think is right and makes me a better person. Maybe it won’t get me that raise or promotion but there is more to life than that IMO and thankfully I’m not struggling. To each their own I guess.


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com
 
Why do so many software engineers have such HUGE egos?

Some of them, I feel like I can’t even ask a basic question without them trying to look down on you

or

they say OH I could have whipped this up in a month but it's taking you XZY months :mad::mad:
 
I do have personal experience with this, and it was with someone who perfectly fits your stereotype. Senior guy, perhaps the most technically competent I've ever met, incredibly productive, innovative and driven. Even likeable, in a lot of aspects. But he was highly abrasive, particularly towards low-performers. His particular social failure mode was shaming others in team meetings. Multiple people quit the team. And worse, but I shouldn't get into details.

Honestly, I have to pause and think how to objectively describe his negative behaviours, because it's basically Stockholm Syndrome. I've replaced the memory of his specific negative behaviours with an understanding of why he performed them. He had extremely high expectations of himself and of everyone around him, and meeting those expectations involved working like a madman. He actually cared about what we were working on, and he identified himself very highly with the work. The work itself was interesting and innovative, but it was doomed by unrealistic goals and schedules. You could see him getting more and more frustrated, and more and more abrasive, as a result.

The result he wanted by shaming others was to get them to be productive, but what it actually caused to happen was to make them doubt themselves, become less willing to ask him for help, and ultimately become even less productive. When dealing with the offender, this is the cause/effect relationship that had to be laid out.

My (our) manager obviously had an idea something was wrong, because he's the one that brought me in to replace him as team lead to deal with the dysfunctional team and project. But at that point, he thought the issues were from the low performers. It wasn't until I made the statement "Bob's behaviour is unacceptable" that he really got it.

Things clearly didn't magically resolve themselves overnight. That project, and the next one, were both train-wrecks. People continued to leave the team, but the behaviours did start to improve. And a couple of years later when he spontaneously pointed out something had something to do with Emotional Intelligence I just smiled and agreed.
 
george__ said:
Why do so many software engineers have such HUGE egos?

Some of them, I feel like I can’t even ask a basic question without them trying to look down on you

or

they say OH I could have whipped this up in a month but it's taking you XZY months :mad::mad:
Click to expand...

This field is heavily IQ based. When you work more, you'll see the "skill gap" between a low IQ individual and higher is ridiculous and quantifiable (pattern recognition and learning speed, you know our field evolves very fast so being a slow learner means drowning.) This builds massive ego for those on the higher end and applies to all of us.

Now add a bunch of bullying and childhood trauma that a lot of devs had (think nerd vs jock stereotype), and you now have super smart insecure software devs bullying others lol. Self awareness is also often lacking.

Also, those with too much ego often assume they know more than others. So in your example of "I could do this faster", it's often said because the accusing/bullying dev made assumptions that you made yourself, and you found said assumptions were wrong. However, I've had situations where I literally took a person's work and did it for them because we would miss deadlines otherwise. So it's not black and white =/

SVeezy said:
Do you feel better when you’re an as**ole? Personally I don’t. I’m not saying it never happens but in my day to day I try to do what I think is right and makes me a better person. Maybe it won’t get me that raise or promotion but there is more to life than that IMO and thankfully I’m not struggling. To each their own I guess.


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com
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Absolutely not. In the ideal world, everyone gets along, and is relatively competent. I try to live the way you do, hence why I've never full blown thrown a psychoanalyses at an *******: I'm not trying to destroy them, I'm trying to create a more positive environment knowing that most people can't change.

@Ash thanks for the happy ending story =) Not sure if I'm appalled or happy that I can relate to your exact story (had that experience 3 jobs ago.)
 
You are an adult. You screw up I'm not gonna be fluffy about your lack of ability or aptitude.

Asked you to do a job knob. Qualified and competent? Then tell me why you didn't do it.

Don't mind me if I think you are an idiot for not doing your job. You work for me and suck it up princes

I'm not mean I tell you that you sucked at that task. You took the job so do it!
 
meme said:
You are an adult. You screw up I'm not gonna be fluffy about your lack of ability or aptitude.

Asked you to do a job knob. Qualified and competent? Then tell me why you didn't do it.

Don't mind me if I think you are an idiot for not doing your job. You work for me and suck it up princes

I'm not mean I tell you that you sucked at that task. You took the job so do it!
Click to expand...

Lol if you say this a recent grad I think they will cry
 
Ash said:
I do have personal experience with this, and it was with someone who perfectly fits your stereotype. Senior guy, perhaps the most technically competent I've ever met, incredibly productive, innovative and driven. Even likeable, in a lot of aspects. But he was highly abrasive, particularly towards low-performers. His particular social failure mode was shaming others in team meetings. Multiple people quit the team. And worse, but I shouldn't get into details.

Honestly, I have to pause and think how to objectively describe his negative behaviours, because it's basically Stockholm Syndrome. I've replaced the memory of his specific negative behaviours with an understanding of why he performed them. He had extremely high expectations of himself and of everyone around him, and meeting those expectations involved working like a madman. He actually cared about what we were working on, and he identified himself very highly with the work. The work itself was interesting and innovative, but it was doomed by unrealistic goals and schedules. You could see him getting more and more frustrated, and more and more abrasive, as a result.

The result he wanted by shaming others was to get them to be productive, but what it actually caused to happen was to make them doubt themselves, become less willing to ask him for help, and ultimately become even less productive. When dealing with the offender, this is the cause/effect relationship that had to be laid out.

My (our) manager obviously had an idea something was wrong, because he's the one that brought me in to replace him as team lead to deal with the dysfunctional team and project. But at that point, he thought the issues were from the low performers. It wasn't until I made the statement "Bob's behaviour is unacceptable" that he really got it.

Things clearly didn't magically resolve themselves overnight. That project, and the next one, were both train-wrecks. People continued to leave the team, but the behaviours did start to improve. And a couple of years later when he spontaneously pointed out something had something to do with Emotional Intelligence I just smiled and agreed.
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Wow.

This is so accurate
 
My opinion and based on my career interactions in not-so-friendly environments...

Mean? not specifically. But in order to get to the top of some organizations, you are going to need to step on some toes and make enemies. Also, you have to have high risk tolerance and be able to accept losses as they come.

It's been my experience that even as en entrepeneur or business owner, you have to have a certain ability to act in a cutthroat fashion. It's inevitable.
 
While I’m not a religious person, I find the words of wisdom of the serenity prayer to be applicable in these cases. And evaluating how the interactions with a toxic coworker/manager etc vs my time doing other things helps with maintaining my patience or deciding to move on.

Rarely if ever you can say or do anything to make them change their ways for the better. Likely ends up worse.

I have found it beneficial to try to get to know and understand said person’s motives and identifying with them.

If you understand the why, you can develop some empathy that helps tolerate the behaviour at times.

HR can be helpful depending on the organization. With enough feedback, HR can get involved and sometimes it helps them to the door or modify their behaviour to some degree.


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