Very well said! In my experience the toxic/diva personalities in IT arise because of the “can’t be fired” attitude some managers have towards certain developers. And that attitude arises because the manager really is afraid of trying to replace that person. That fear of being able to not replace a key technical person arises from lack of ability to attract talent because that employer is not paying competitive salaries or offering good working conditions.
TLDR Toxic developers arise only in companies that don’t treat employees well in terms of working conditions or compensation.
vyshka
2937
The guy whose other company has software that keeps crashing cars talking shit about other programmers is something.
I think we might be talking about different things. I don’t think anyone is advocating deference to senior management. They aren’t aristocrats, though they share some traits such as un-deserved wealth/power and inflated opinions of their own worth. They deserve no deference at all.
My objections to people publicly correcting their CEO are based purely to professional standards of behavior which I would expect any employee to respect. And to be clear, I do realize that Musk is not following the professional standards I’d expect when trash talking his team in public. I don’t approve of that and sincerely hope Twitter falls apart and Musk crashes and burns on this. I wouldn’t hire Musk for any role in the future if his resume crossed my desk. But I’d also be skeptical about hiring any employee that didn’t stand in solidarity with their management in public-facing communications.
As I said earlier, two wrongs don’t make a right.
LeeAbe
2939
I have no idea how prevalent this belief is, but the couple of engineers I know are quite insistent that software engineers are not actually engineers. So I have found the use of the word humorous in this thread. (This could just be the people I know, I am not saying they are not.)
I guess I’m a corpo boot-licker, but I feel “I’ve been doing this for six years and you’re wrong” would be a bad response to the owner of the company even during an internal all-hands meeting. If that were my team member I’d pull that person aside later and advise them that there are better ways to handle that sentiment.
I’m in complete agreement with everything you’ve said in this issue, since plenty of people are jumping in to disagree.
If the engineer was planning/expecting to be fired, that explains why they did it, but in any other scenario that wasn’t the appropriate way to respond.
Thrag
2942
This is the best thing I’ve seen regarding “twitter 2.0”
Look guys, I was tired when I wrote that because I work 12 hour days. In other news you all need to work 12 hour days.
“I’m sorry. I get angry and snappish when I work 12 hours days. In other news, you all all have to work 12 hours days with me.”
12 is a rookie number. I’m pretty sure “hardcore” means 16.
Hehe. I’d agree with that. Though mostly because I think Engineering is a poor match for (many) software development problems. But that’s another debate.
I would find that argument quite hard to swallow. I’m not saying it isn’t ever true, but the graveyards of industry are filled with ambitious leaders who fucked around and found out.
I’ll give him credit for giving everyone a heads-up that “long hours at high intensity” (basically, fuck your work/life balance) will be required going forward. I’ve worked at places where no one said anything, but it just turned into that over a slow grind until people bailed on their own.
Musk is an asshole.
Would be depressing to get this message directly before the holidays. What a horrible year for these remaining employees
Yay for American employment laws? How is that even allowed?
Menzo
2954
How is what allowed? CEOs are allowed to ask their exempt employees to work long hours. Musk is an asshole, but at least he’s giving them the option of taking 3 month’s pay and walking out the door if they’re not OK with it.
This is why jesus invented quiet quitting.
