What am I supposed to do with people who won’t learn from their mistakes (in the workplace)?
I’m directly affected by them as they increase my workload, so I can’t just ignore them.
What am I supposed to do with people who won’t learn from their mistakes (in the workplace)?
I’m directly affected by them as they increase my workload, so I can’t just ignore them.
I recently pointed out to a different coworker some whitespace inconsistency in a pull request in a similar fashion as I had pointed out a while back.
In digging deeper into both situations where I was the reporter or the reportee, the issue came down to legitimate lack of agreement on whether it was indeed a mistake.
For example, I sometimes write "too be honest…". I've known it is wrong for decades, but occasionally am still not able to see it. Still happens about one out of every fifth time.
Just use transformers :)
If that doesn't help, ask the manager the same - emphasizing you are not attacking the person but looking for a way to stop wasting time on correcting the same repeating mistake which adds to costs and decreases productivity. That may generate some resentment (so trying to resolve it directly first is prudent) but if you avoid framing it as a personal fault it would usually help.
You might start by directly asking, "Why do you keep making this mistake?" It might be because they're careless, or lazy, or maybe they really don't believe it's a mistake (they just acknowledged the mistake to get you to go away). Or maybe they just need a little help, such as automated reminders to get them to check for those mistakes.
Sadly, there are people who will not learn from either kindness and teaching, or harshness and harrassment. In the workplace, you can make an appeal to the manager, but perhaps only after discussion with coworker has failed to produce the desired results.