You fired the most talented employee. I hope you are happy now
Recently I had a chance to read an article entitled “ We fired the most talented employee. This is the best solution we have ever made . ” [A very popular article that received a lot of positive ratings on Medium - approx. trans.]
Let's sit down, you and me. Need to talk. If you have not read the article on the link, then take 10-15 minutes and read, absorb it entirely.
Ready? Fine. Now we will analyze this text, because it means much more than what is written there. If you read the article, you understand that the author describes the problem employee under the assumed name "Rick." Rick is a local genius with a huge amount of knowledge in the subject area, he is part of the key product developers.
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At first glance, this is a story about a techie who imagines himself to be a gift from God for the company. He decided that the leaders should worship the land on which he walks and be grateful for his presence alone, and the management kicked him out the door because his reputation cashed out checks for which the talent could not pay.
TL; DR - a summary of that article.
Star Disease occurs in almost any work that you can imagine. If you are not familiar with such a phenomenon, then a star disease sufferer is a character who is confident that his shit does not stink, that he is the best and that he is below his dignity to cooperate and / or deal with others normally. Sometimes he does a good job and admires his colleagues, but in reality they are hard to control, hard to control and fit into the dynamics of a group workflow. Like real rock stars.
In information security, there is an unbearable problem with rock stars, but this problem is not only infobuse.
Personally, I think that if you find such a person and have an interview with him, regardless of his level of talent, you should not waste time on him, due to the loss of morale and the decline of teamwork that he will bring to the team. This is exactly what the article said - how Rick ignored the meetings and degraded his colleagues. And as labor productivity took off when Rick was fired - all together made efforts to save the day! The author tells all this so that you hate Rick and say, “Yes! Down with this guy! Looks like the leadership finally grew the eggs and sent this rock star away! I would work with such guys! ”
Look at my story! I will use the names of pop culture characters, memes, and all kinds of crap to hook the audience! Uiii!
But if you carefully read the article, then pay attention to several problem areas along the way:
That is, from the very beginning we can say that the company developed a culture of dependence on Rick. Here is our superstar, who solves all problems, and all is well.
Where is the documentation?
Where are the meetings to discuss these problems and how to solve them?
Oh, they don't tell us anything about this, probably because the management was too short-sighted. After all, if there is a superstar in the staff who solves all problems, then why worry about documentation and / or continuing work, if he dies, or is he hit by a bus or is swallowed by an earthworm, or does he find a better job somewhere else?
If you read between the lines, you can understand that the management complacently put all the problems on Rick’s shoulders and didn’t worry that Rick and / or the whole team didn’t take the time to document problems and / or solutions.
Here Rick is more like Tirion Lannister. Very smart and able to solve any problem. We hope so far without problems with alcoholism.
Where was the management during all this? Where are metrics / metrics? In fact, what I found out for all the time I work in IT and information security is that the authorities need indicators.
Didn't anyone care if Rick missed the scoop?
No one measured open / closed tickets?
Nobody documented the problems and their solutions?
Nobody noticed that Rick is being driven, picking up more and more work?
Of course, they did not notice this, like most bosses who do not care about such things. Everything works, progress is evident, and our little rock star saves us money so as not to hire third-party outsourcing contractors, so go ahead at full speed!
What none of the Rick company's executives did - it wondered what the hell was going on.
So, Rick took a much larger load than he could manage, and in addition to this, he worked on a 12x7 schedule.
Nobody said anything when he noticed that Rick stayed in the office or remotely connected during off-hours and on weekends?
The management did not intervene and did not demand that Rick retreat and begin to document his actions?
None of the chiefs or managers did not check Rick’s boot with tickets and decided that it should be distributed among other employees?
And among other things, the leadership allowed this garbage to continue for two years ?
What clouds are vital management in?
Where were the Timlides?
In such a situation, you always want to ask where the leadership was. But if this is a start-up of a stupid Silicon Valley [in the original Silly Valley - approx. lane.], they must have been puffing with Juicero sachets, or something like that.
Imagine that for months, or maybe years, you are considered the main and reliable developer of the company. Maybe even responsible for the key product. It is unknown for how long you are working on a 12x7 schedule. It is hardly reflected in your salary. No one appreciates this, and the load continues to grow and grow until the grotesque monster of horrible hacks and undocumented code threatens to stand up and strangle you like a Frankenstein monster.
However, you are coping.
You keep the situation under control. You can then go back and fix these hacks. You can remove these patches, improvisational patches - and replace them with a strong quality code that you will be truly proud of. After all, already some parts of the code that you once wrote become incomprehensible to yourself. We'll come back later, disassemble it and document it correctly. All you need now is to issue the product in RTM / GA, and then you can return to it and how it should be recycled. They need me. My work is important. I have to finish it. I have no margin for error. We are running out of funding. I can't lose this job. Living in $ BigCity is too expensive for me to fail at work.
What if it doesn't work out?
How can I get up?
Will I be able to?
You do not know the answers to these questions, but now you are invited to meet with the leadership and say that all your work is scrapped, and everything starts from scratch. What will your reaction be? And do not fool my head that you would accept the offer with composure and courtesy. What you have nothing against the fact that all your work is thrown into the trash, all these days of continuous hacking with 12-hour shifts are thrown out in a couple of hours. That all was in vain.
The inscription on the illustration: "The guard looks at you with a worried, worrisome look, like the man who has to explain to her paralyzed daughter that her dream of becoming a ballerina will never be fulfilled."
I can not say for you, but personally I would have exploded with the fury of thousands of supernovae. I could say what I do not mean. Could lead comparisons and use epithets that ... are not entirely accurate. Working for wear and tear can become unbearable for a person’s mental and physical health, and instead of solving problems as adults and Rick can hint that he should not be the only carrier of the organization, you immediately announce his dismissal because it’s easier than company .
How many days and weeks did he work in 12-hour shifts?
How many he missed family dinners, birthdays, weekends and so on?
Does he have a family?
Are there friends outside of work?
Beloved?
Children?
A start-up culture does not involve asking such questions, because a start-up culture (and most IT cultures in this regard) do not care about your well-being. Only about the results of your work and about the limitation of your responsibility in case you have to dismiss.
I was fired earlier in situations that I consider not entirely fair. And although escaping from the environment that does not like your work and / or where people do not do what you think is right is a wonderful feeling, but there is also a not so pleasant feeling of non-compliance and a terrible stigma - the need to explain at interviews why you left their previous job on such unfavorable conditions.
The feeling of freedom begins to fade as the balance of your savings account diminishes (considering that the author and his company are in California, where the cost of living is absurdly high, the balance in the account decreases much faster than we would like) and quickly turns into fear, while you begin to pursue those questions that arose while working in the company:
Can you find a job in time?
These are the events that will break you?
Why did they fire you if you gave them everything?
Why no one fought to save you?
They describe what happened with Rick as the story of the transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde , his gradual degradation. Obviously, colleagues have noticed. Maybe they even reported to management about his statements and unwillingness to work with others. Those could nip it in the bud. They could tell Rick to retreat and share tasks with others.
The article does not specify what the management did or did not do after the onset of difficulties, but judging by the tone, it continued to hang problems on Rick. This led to an increase in pressure. At the same time, they did not allow or advise Rick to take time off to recover and / or redistribute the load.
Instead, they pounded Rick like a horse, squeezing out all his talent and abilities, and when his work was considered harmful, they kicked him in the ass for the benefit of the company's performance. How bold! How heroic!
The original article states that Rick’s dismissal was the best decision they had ever made, but the company eventually lost a person with a lot of specific subject knowledge who worked with clients to prototype their requirements. As a result, they will have to produce a product of inferior quality with even greater efforts, because you need to reinvent Rick's work again, complaining about the crappy code. All this time, they completely ignored the burden that the person was carrying to keep it all together.
And this instead of an article about how they prevented an employee from falling into irreversible burnout with timely intervention, outstanding teamwork and competent management — that IT employees, infobase specialists and developers REALLY wanted to hear, they decided to concentrate on the toxic environment and problems that seem to stem from Rick. Instead of searching for the root cause (hey, man, what worries you?), They chose a quick and simple method (hey, Rick, get the fuck out of here!). The usual thing, as far as I can tell.
Let's sit down, you and me. Need to talk. If you have not read the article on the link, then take 10-15 minutes and read, absorb it entirely.
Ready? Fine. Now we will analyze this text, because it means much more than what is written there. If you read the article, you understand that the author describes the problem employee under the assumed name "Rick." Rick is a local genius with a huge amount of knowledge in the subject area, he is part of the key product developers.
')
At first glance, this is a story about a techie who imagines himself to be a gift from God for the company. He decided that the leaders should worship the land on which he walks and be grateful for his presence alone, and the management kicked him out the door because his reputation cashed out checks for which the talent could not pay.
TL; DR - a summary of that article.
Star Disease occurs in almost any work that you can imagine. If you are not familiar with such a phenomenon, then a star disease sufferer is a character who is confident that his shit does not stink, that he is the best and that he is below his dignity to cooperate and / or deal with others normally. Sometimes he does a good job and admires his colleagues, but in reality they are hard to control, hard to control and fit into the dynamics of a group workflow. Like real rock stars.
In information security, there is an unbearable problem with rock stars, but this problem is not only infobuse.
Personally, I think that if you find such a person and have an interview with him, regardless of his level of talent, you should not waste time on him, due to the loss of morale and the decline of teamwork that he will bring to the team. This is exactly what the article said - how Rick ignored the meetings and degraded his colleagues. And as labor productivity took off when Rick was fired - all together made efforts to save the day! The author tells all this so that you hate Rick and say, “Yes! Down with this guy! Looks like the leadership finally grew the eggs and sent this rock star away! I would work with such guys! ”
Look at my story! I will use the names of pop culture characters, memes, and all kinds of crap to hook the audience! Uiii!
But if you carefully read the article, then pay attention to several problem areas along the way:
“Every time someone had questions about the code or needed help with solving a problem, they went to Rick. Rick had a huge whiteboard in his office specially for this purpose alone, always spotted with not completely erased remains of old discussions.
Every time a particularly difficult problem arose, Rick dealt with it. ”
That is, from the very beginning we can say that the company developed a culture of dependence on Rick. Here is our superstar, who solves all problems, and all is well.
Where is the documentation?
Where are the meetings to discuss these problems and how to solve them?
Oh, they don't tell us anything about this, probably because the management was too short-sighted. After all, if there is a superstar in the staff who solves all problems, then why worry about documentation and / or continuing work, if he dies, or is he hit by a bus or is swallowed by an earthworm, or does he find a better job somewhere else?
If you read between the lines, you can understand that the management complacently put all the problems on Rick’s shoulders and didn’t worry that Rick and / or the whole team didn’t take the time to document problems and / or solutions.
Here Rick is more like Tirion Lannister. Very smart and able to solve any problem. We hope so far without problems with alcoholism.
“Soon Rick stopped attending the meetings. He didn't have time for them because he had to write too much code.
Rick closed his door. No one else came up to the board. Rick no longer had time to train someone, so he himself had to solve too many problems. ”
Where was the management during all this? Where are metrics / metrics? In fact, what I found out for all the time I work in IT and information security is that the authorities need indicators.
Didn't anyone care if Rick missed the scoop?
No one measured open / closed tickets?
Nobody documented the problems and their solutions?
Nobody noticed that Rick is being driven, picking up more and more work?
Of course, they did not notice this, like most bosses who do not care about such things. Everything works, progress is evident, and our little rock star saves us money so as not to hire third-party outsourcing contractors, so go ahead at full speed!
What none of the Rick company's executives did - it wondered what the hell was going on.
“On the project dashboard, the green flags changed to yellow. Yellow changed to red. Red lights began to flash. One by one, task statuses changed to “Difficult”. Everyone was waiting for Rick. ”
“Rick stamped the code faster than ever. He worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day. ”
So, Rick took a much larger load than he could manage, and in addition to this, he worked on a 12x7 schedule.
Nobody said anything when he noticed that Rick stayed in the office or remotely connected during off-hours and on weekends?
The management did not intervene and did not demand that Rick retreat and begin to document his actions?
None of the chiefs or managers did not check Rick’s boot with tickets and decided that it should be distributed among other employees?
And among other things, the leadership allowed this garbage to continue for two years ?
What clouds are vital management in?
Where were the Timlides?
In such a situation, you always want to ask where the leadership was. But if this is a start-up of a stupid Silicon Valley [in the original Silly Valley - approx. lane.], they must have been puffing with Juicero sachets, or something like that.
"We sat down and talked with Rick about his role in the company ..."
“How did he react?
The only possible way: Rick exploded.
Rick did not want to participate in this farce. If we do not appreciate his genius, then these are our problems, not his. Rick suggested that a few months would not pass as we crawled to him on our knees, begging us to go back and save us. ”
Imagine that for months, or maybe years, you are considered the main and reliable developer of the company. Maybe even responsible for the key product. It is unknown for how long you are working on a 12x7 schedule. It is hardly reflected in your salary. No one appreciates this, and the load continues to grow and grow until the grotesque monster of horrible hacks and undocumented code threatens to stand up and strangle you like a Frankenstein monster.
However, you are coping.
You keep the situation under control. You can then go back and fix these hacks. You can remove these patches, improvisational patches - and replace them with a strong quality code that you will be truly proud of. After all, already some parts of the code that you once wrote become incomprehensible to yourself. We'll come back later, disassemble it and document it correctly. All you need now is to issue the product in RTM / GA, and then you can return to it and how it should be recycled. They need me. My work is important. I have to finish it. I have no margin for error. We are running out of funding. I can't lose this job. Living in $ BigCity is too expensive for me to fail at work.
What if it doesn't work out?
How can I get up?
Will I be able to?
You do not know the answers to these questions, but now you are invited to meet with the leadership and say that all your work is scrapped, and everything starts from scratch. What will your reaction be? And do not fool my head that you would accept the offer with composure and courtesy. What you have nothing against the fact that all your work is thrown into the trash, all these days of continuous hacking with 12-hour shifts are thrown out in a couple of hours. That all was in vain.
The inscription on the illustration: "The guard looks at you with a worried, worrisome look, like the man who has to explain to her paralyzed daughter that her dream of becoming a ballerina will never be fulfilled."
I can not say for you, but personally I would have exploded with the fury of thousands of supernovae. I could say what I do not mean. Could lead comparisons and use epithets that ... are not entirely accurate. Working for wear and tear can become unbearable for a person’s mental and physical health, and instead of solving problems as adults and Rick can hint that he should not be the only carrier of the organization, you immediately announce his dismissal because it’s easier than company .
How many days and weeks did he work in 12-hour shifts?
How many he missed family dinners, birthdays, weekends and so on?
Does he have a family?
Are there friends outside of work?
Beloved?
Children?
A start-up culture does not involve asking such questions, because a start-up culture (and most IT cultures in this regard) do not care about your well-being. Only about the results of your work and about the limitation of your responsibility in case you have to dismiss.
I was fired earlier in situations that I consider not entirely fair. And although escaping from the environment that does not like your work and / or where people do not do what you think is right is a wonderful feeling, but there is also a not so pleasant feeling of non-compliance and a terrible stigma - the need to explain at interviews why you left their previous job on such unfavorable conditions.
The feeling of freedom begins to fade as the balance of your savings account diminishes (considering that the author and his company are in California, where the cost of living is absurdly high, the balance in the account decreases much faster than we would like) and quickly turns into fear, while you begin to pursue those questions that arose while working in the company:
Can you find a job in time?
These are the events that will break you?
Why did they fire you if you gave them everything?
Why no one fought to save you?
They describe what happened with Rick as the story of the transformation from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde , his gradual degradation. Obviously, colleagues have noticed. Maybe they even reported to management about his statements and unwillingness to work with others. Those could nip it in the bud. They could tell Rick to retreat and share tasks with others.
The article does not specify what the management did or did not do after the onset of difficulties, but judging by the tone, it continued to hang problems on Rick. This led to an increase in pressure. At the same time, they did not allow or advise Rick to take time off to recover and / or redistribute the load.
Instead, they pounded Rick like a horse, squeezing out all his talent and abilities, and when his work was considered harmful, they kicked him in the ass for the benefit of the company's performance. How bold! How heroic!
The original article states that Rick’s dismissal was the best decision they had ever made, but the company eventually lost a person with a lot of specific subject knowledge who worked with clients to prototype their requirements. As a result, they will have to produce a product of inferior quality with even greater efforts, because you need to reinvent Rick's work again, complaining about the crappy code. All this time, they completely ignored the burden that the person was carrying to keep it all together.
And this instead of an article about how they prevented an employee from falling into irreversible burnout with timely intervention, outstanding teamwork and competent management — that IT employees, infobase specialists and developers REALLY wanted to hear, they decided to concentrate on the toxic environment and problems that seem to stem from Rick. Instead of searching for the root cause (hey, man, what worries you?), They chose a quick and simple method (hey, Rick, get the fuck out of here!). The usual thing, as far as I can tell.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/340370/
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