In response to This*: Stop letting engineers get away with social ineptitude | Hacker News Reader

In response to This*: Stop letting engineers get away with social ineptitude

charleshooper.net

132 pointshoop111 comments

I can't agree. My professional experience involves enough interaction with extraordinarily talented engineers who have extremely abrasive personalities. Often, that abrasiveness is a side effect of their talent: the same ability which allows these talented men and women to see through the complexity and grasp the conceptually simple steps necessary to solve the problem also helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills.

You can argue that if the culture shifted such that these individuals were marginalized and forced out then they would change out of necessity. I could see this argument--idealistic to the point of fallacy though it is--presented at other venues. However, those who frequent Hacker News should know that these people will find talented others who are capable of dealing with their social immaturity and will end up co-founding their own company and, unencumbered by the enforced social niceties of this fictional society, may very well end up becoming a dominant player and returning to the status quo.

Ok, but in practical terms, the thing is I really don't want to work with immature jerks, because then I'm going to be uncomfortable all day, or they're going to end up pissing someone off and there's going to be a big hoopla about it, or a whole mess of other things which is stressing me out just to think about.

I think "talented" just means they've spent a lot with an open terminal, and the side-effect of "abrasiveness" is really that sitting down for a long-time makes you tired and grumpy. So instead of crafting really complicated excuses, just go outside for a bit and stretch or something.

I don't buy it, if they can see through the boilerplate and if they are as smart as you claim then they should have no problems at least avoiding doing and saying things that hurt and block the interaction. The problem often is not lack of social grease but unnecessary remarks.

  > My professional experience involves enough interaction 
  > with extraordinarily talented engineers who have 
  > extremely abrasive personalities.

There's a difference between "that guy's kind of a jerk, but I don't think he knows it" and deleting paid accounts and backups over some words on Twitter.

I agree, very talented engineers tend to be abrasive. I know a handful myself. But each and every one of them is capable, at the very least, of not being an intentional jerk and being basically polite and respectful in their dealings.

There's a difference between "that guy's kind of a jerk, but I don't think he knows it" and deleting paid accounts and backups over some words on Twitter.

Yeah, there's a not-so-subtle line there.

I would be concerned if an employee of mine exhibited that behavior, because I've seen it before. We had a technically brilliant, but socially ... scary ... individual working as a sysadmin. He blew up about a decision to abandon all of our 1-off mail platforms and switch purely to Exchange (rather than GroupWise, which he preferred and most in our location used).

He was the technical lead for our GroupWise deployment, so to voice his dissatisfaction with the decision that idiots in upper management made, he did us the courtesy of wiping out a swath of our employee's mailboxes contained on one of the servers. And, much like this guy but on a grander scale, began erasing the current set of tapes that had backed up most of our servers our location.

We didn't end up losing much, and I can't remember why (we had tapes stored off-site off-line, but they were only moved weekly). The thing that was most shocking was all of the profanity and yelling originating from his cube while he was packing up his things under direct supervision of a member of corporate security. He seemed genuinely surprised he was told his services were no longer necessary (they even laid him off rather than firing him for cause, allowing him severance pay and unemployment during a hiring boom). At no point did he seem like a stable guy. His boss liked him because he was very smart and the result of his cleverness was enough of an improvement to services and reduction in costs that his instabilities could be argued away ("He launched this project that's bringing in X revenue, he's just a little strange, that's all.").

Sad thing: he continued to find employment and continued to get laid off (5 places, I believe), then died at 37 of a heart attack. The guy who noticed the obit forwarded it out to our team like it was some sort of vindication "See, he DIED because he was such a jerk!". Even normally decent people have a mean streak about them, I guess.

Let me be very clear. Anger management problems do NOT correlate with sociopathic behavior. Sociopaths can be charming just as likely as they can be assholes. Equally, someone who is charming is just as likely to be a sociopath as a frustrated technical person with no social skills.

So thanks for your single data point of an angry person who was also a sociopath.

Your post is equivalent to writing: "We had a technical guy. Very polite. But he was black. When we asked him to do something he deleted all our work. Turns out he did this at the next five jobs. Be careful hiring black people".

Being black, or white, or martian, or having anger management issues, are not relevant. Being a sociopath is relevant.

I think reduxredacted was trying to explain how some people should just be fired for their behaviour, as generalk asserted, and was telling the story as an example.

I don't think social behaviour (anger management problems) can be compared to someone's race. People will anger management problems can and will react differently in certain situations based on that sole aspect of their personality, which needs to be taken into account.

If part of your "anger management issues" is destructive behavior that harms other people in your organization, I think it's prudent to say "beware hiring that guy." I don't know if I can say for certain that the individual in his example had truly sociopathic behavior, or had "anger management issues" that resulted in destructive behavior.

I don't at all understand what you're getting at. A prospective employee having anger management issues is, like race, not relevant to decisions over whether to hire them?

"Don't hire people who are black" and "Don't hire people with anger management problems" are COMPLETELY different things.

Not hiring sociopaths and not hiring people with anger management problems are both great ideas, even if they don't have particularly much to do with each other.

I still can't help but think that at least a few of those unstable BOFHs could be convinced to behave using the right logic and wording. I'm reminded of the episode of The Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon refuses to do something until he's told it's a "non-optional social convention": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127907/quotes?qt=qt0419289

You are very clear, however, I take issue with your equating being black, white or martian to having anger management issues.

It was not my intention to mislead, but it appears that I have, my apologies. You are correct in asserting that my anecdote did not equate with the known circumstances of the individuals involved. I don't know him, nor does anyone have the whole story other than him and his boss. I was looking to explain the extreme behavior that correlated.

I apologize for my second single data point: I worked with a guy who occasionally flew off the handle and liked to kick things (usually solid things at the expense of his foot, not the thing being kicked). One time it was a small garbage can with projectiles of reasonable weight in them (and it was intentional, he was very angry and wanted to launch something through the air in a place that would have been otherwise safe to do that). The problem is that while this particular storage room usually just had boxed equipment, that day it had a card for a router that was to be delivered to a customer site. The card cost over $30,000CAD, and after re-ordering its replacement, lost my company significantly more. He was let go, too, but was upset, rather than visibly angry about it (who wouldn't be?). He wasn't scary, ever. He had anger management issues (I thought everyone had those ... and it was just a matter of the degree to which they can prevent those issues from impacting those around them. I drop an occasional f-bomb under my breath when the fucking compiler thinks I'm wrong).

He wasn't black, white or martian, but the consequences of his actions were serious. It was a router card he was delivering, that he had ordered, that he had unboxed and that ultimately he had destroyed.

So, really, I don't hire people with anger management issues, because if I can see that during an interview, chances are it's a much bigger problem (I armchair quarterback as a psychologist, admittedly).

When I see anger management issues in my employees (what few employees I've had), I talk to them, explain what an outburst can cost them, and tell them to feel free to yell at me if they are angry (My employees, lately, have been remote, so I don't have to worry about being hit by a garbage can).

EDIT: replaced the word hurtle with launch, because the former made no sense at all.

I apologize. On rereading your first post, your criticism of the fellow was his "stability" not his anger management. You actually did what I was complaining people don't do.

Sociopath is a tough word because it means a lot of things and it really isn't used in clinical diagnosis. Based on the historical patterns though a sociopath was typically someone lacking any type of empathy, so they would do things hurt other people just to amuse themselves by watching the results. There is no where near enough information to diagnose sociopathy presented.

If you look at the Anti-Social Personality disorders, this may fall closer to a Cluster B - Histrionic. Which is what many people consider someone with "anger management" issues.

I agree with what I think is the intent of your post, that people with a personality disorder are suffering from something they may not have control of. However, I do think anger management issues are a disorder and are not of a kind with being "black" as there is no inherent disorder associated with being black.

I think that employers have a very real, and legitimate interest in not employing people with severe personality disorders, particularly if they are not under control or in treatment for the disorder. Even then, it doesn't make sense to put some people in a position where they can cripple your company if they are very upset over something.

>Sociopath is a tough word because it means a lot of things and it really isn't used in clinical diagnosis

When understood as a synonym for an acute case of antisocial personality disorder (this is how virtually all people educated in clinical psychology understand it), it's actually one of the primary commonalities of criminals and is an incredibly meaningful way to understand some people.

> Based on the historical patterns though a sociopath was typically someone lacking any type of empathy, so they would do things hurt other people just to amuse themselves by watching the results.

That's a pretty gross over-simplification, there are many comorbid behaviors with sociopathy and they form a whole constellation with which a clinician can diagnose/identify it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

Here's a good start, you may want to educate yourself before you pontificate on the subject. Sociopathy is a very misunderstood disorder by most of the public, although there was a recent book that covered it semi-okay.

I don't buy that argument at all. I've seen enough incredibly talented people in different fields who know at least the basic minimum of human interaction and know not to be assholes all the time. I've also seen plenty of incompetent morons who thought they were hotshots and had the worst personalities and absolute 0 people skills.

> helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills.

Seemingly-meaningless boilerplate? I disagree: (1) There's plenty of meaning to be found if you want to pick up a psychology, PR, or sociology book and actively try to learn something about people, (2) People skills are extremely important if your company needs to deal with the public or forge business relationships. You are just making your life difficult if you refuse to acknowledge or learn what most of the world takes for granted.

Regarding 1) — I very much doubt so. Some amount of social grease is needed but not in ammounts where it turns into mud where we are stuck. Believe me, I have read quite a few of the books in the fields you metioned.

2) There is a difference between refusing to learn, and learning and seeing no meaning in some of that stuff. The problem with so called people-skills is that they tend to become automated actions, some kind of cargo cult. You can execute them perfectly, and not care a bit about the people you so smoothly interact with. When you see that real thought are dilluted beyond any reconition in a sea of polite babbling you know that something is wrong.

I agree with you, requiring everyone at your company to have strong people skills would be, at the very least, wasteful.

So, it seems that it should be the company’s responsibility to make sure that they don’t talk to frustrated customers — or terminate their accounts — just like the employees without strong computer skills shouldn’t touch the servers.

> Often, that abrasiveness is a side effect of their talent

I think this is the crux of the argument. That there are people who are highly technical and good at soft skills proves that it is not a necessary side-effect.

Why would it be? What evidence is there that there is a meaningful correlation beyond pure anecdotes?

I agree with the author. Here's my take: extraordinarily talented engineers have been given carte blanche in this regard because there is an well accepted stereotype. If we stopped accepting this behavior, I believe engineers will adapt, or be replaced by those who can.

I don't expect everybody to be a social butterfly, but I do expect people not to be an outright ass (i.e. 'abrasive personalities')

[Edited to be less confrontational, I don't want the tone to obscure the message]

> ... also helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills.

'Seemingly-meaningless' being the key word. Such boilerplate exists for a reason. It would be nice if all communication were perfectly efficient and noone ever had to be anything but perfectly honest but the nature of the world is such that social skills are necessary. They can be learned, as plenty of people here have already attested. It is difficult and frightening but utterly worthwhile. Learn the rituals, play the game, fake it till you make it. Otherwise you are signalling to everyone around you that you don't value their presence enough to even bother with basic social niceties, whether or not that is actually the case.

  see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate 
  and social grease that we call people skills

For what purpose?! I mean, seeing is one thing. But blowing it up in peoples' faces is something else.

I really don't give a shit about the rest of this argument, or yours, but I want to point something out. Plenty of others have quoted this part of your speech:

helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills

but I would like to highlight a different aspect of it. Basically, my point (illustrated below, not argued) is that they aren't "seeing through" it, they are seeing it wrong.

You see, I thought exactly this way about "people skills" when I was younger. If those "extraordinarily talented engineers who have extremely abrasive personalities" are anything like me, the they see it as boilerplate and grease because they are thinking of the whole thing from the orientation of utility. Employees have a function, customers have a function, engineers have a function, and why can't just you do your goddamn function and let me do mine? This fits with what I've learned from people who match your description. I myself often fashioned my social interactions from that direction quite deliberately. A highly technical engineer doing business would be very likely to approach "people skills" as another chore with a beginning, a process, and an end that hopefully meets your goals, for example. Those who think that process is "meaningless" are less likely to care how well they do it.

Anyway, pretty soon I learned that people are people, not cogs. Now I have more friends, live a happier life, blah blah blah, buy my book and so can you, but most importantly, I've never had bad blood with an employeer, client, or... anyone, really. Nobody thinks I'm abrasive or mean any more, etc. I'm not going to weigh in on my talent, but I would like to think I started from a similar place, socially, to those engineers. I could be totally off base, but I've been thinking about this for a while. Approach interactions as interactions, from one mind to another, and try to communicate with a person.

I agree with everything you say here. I wasn't trying to claim that people skills are actually meaningless or somehow imply that these socially abrasive engineers operate on a higher plane of enlightenment where they have transcended our pointless niceties.

I also know plenty of incredibly talented engineers who have great people skills. These engineers tend to rise faster and go further than the ones who are lacking in that area. I'm sure you have found this yourself.

Indeed, I didn't want to add even more cruft to my comment, or I would have clarified that I didn't think you saw people skills that way.

>My professional experience involves enough interaction with extraordinarily talented engineers who have extremely abrasive personalities. Often, that abrasiveness is a side effect of their talent: the same ability which allows these talented men and women to see through the complexity and grasp the conceptually simple steps necessary to solve the problem also helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills.

Or they are just socially inept.

With the same approach I could propose that these talented engineers just see through the meaningless of distance running and hence are unable to run a mile under 4:10. Why, isn't it because they suck at running? Oh no, not that. They just _choose not to run a mile faster than 4:10_, right? No, not right. Why?

Why? Because! If you are a genius at A that doesn't necessarily mean you're a genius at B, C, D, E, F and all the other areas.

Let's not even talk about geniuses, most of the "oh, I can be an asshole" attitude comes from people who haven't actually accomplished anything that great for humanity.

I don't think the issue is one of social incapability, but one of failing to match a hire with his responsibilities. If you're going to have your technical guy interacting with customers, then being technically brilliant but lacking customer service skills is not a good fit.

I work for MegaCorp. We have developers here that are incredibly difficult to get along with and a few that are great. There seems to be this sense that the more capable and intelligent a person is the more frequently they're jerks to deal with. I haven't found this to be true. There are plenty of good devs that aren't "holier than thou" (and one of the best devs I worked with was clearly on the extroverted side, though most of them land on the introverted side of things).

I will say, though, that more people have ended up being let go for attitude, rather than work quality where I am employed. To put it plainly, in a large corporation where you have to work amongst imaginary and real bureaucracy, it doesn't matter how skilled you are, if you can't work with people you won't get anything done. Your fantastic project/work will not be looked at because nobody will care to see it and your manager (often non-technical) won't want to show it off because you keep aggravating him or putting him in the awkward position of defending your behavior to his superiors.

"I work for MegaCorp. We have developers here that are incredibly difficult to get along with and a few that are great. There seems to be this sense that the more capable and intelligent a person is the more frequently they're jerks to deal with. I haven't found this to be true. There are plenty of good devs that aren't "holier than thou" (and one of the best devs I worked with was clearly on the extroverted side, though most of them land on the introverted side of things)."

I agree with you here. I also find that the jerks, may seemingly be intelligent, but don't learn much from other people (which usually happens if you are smart+socially aware) because they think are right all the time

I think the 2 "skills" in question here are "tact and maturity".

No one is asking engineers to be salesmen or glad-handing PR people. But as so many others have pointed out, any mature adult, no matter their vocation, should have the basic social understanding of "this is ok to do/say" and "this is not ok to do/say" for most given situations.

i.e. tact..

And to all of you who hide behind the "that's not learnable for me, I'm awkward/nerdy/shy/neckbearded" excuses, I call bullshit. Grow up.

I was the epitome of awkward, shy and socially inept (since childhood) as a developer, and in my mid-20s I made the conscious choice to overcome these things. To become more professional and to learn how to communicate and interact properly with my co-workers, superiors, reports and YES even customers.

And I did it by just throwing myself in the fire. It was hard at first, but I figured it out. And it has opened so many doors and opportunities for me.

The combination of my technical competency as a developer and my professional communication skills has been a huge asset for me when looking for work and new opportunities.

Plus, on the lighter side, it eventually helped me with my inter-personal communication and social skills as an added bonus! (i.e. it got me laid more) :-)

> yet employers often find that people filling these roles with poor people skills are still employable. This needs to stop. I’m of the opinion that every position is customer-facing.

Well fuck me, then. I'm sorry, it's already hard enough for me to find jobs as it is.

Frankly I'm glad we live in a society that has a place for us social retards. I really do believe that social "skills" can't be learned, at least not well. I'm glad there's a place for us, just like I'm glad there's a place for people who are short, black, or ugly. Yeah, there are fewer employment opportunities, and our salaries are handicapped consequentially (tech skills + people skills = high payed manager!) but telling us we should be out on our asses for something we can't help is cruel.

Obviously the guy should have been fired though.

  > I really do believe that social "skills" can't be
  > learned, at least not well.

Well, I believe they can, but that's not the point. Being a social butterfly or socially inept doesn't matter here.

I have a customer-facing development position. I'm not the front-line of communication, but I am expected to answer the phone if I have to (esp. if it's a client), be polite, and not drive business away. That's really the all of it. I'm not expected to sell, or to cold-call anyone, but essentially the duties are: don't be a jerk.

If you survived an interview you're probably socially aware enough to handle this.

Exactly, I don't think anybody expects everyone in the company to spend a ton of effort on being something they're not, but I do think it's reasonable to expect that employees to treat customers respectfully.

Customers and other employees. My employer (which doesn't expose customers to engineering, or vice versa) has a "no assholes" policy and it works fantastically. It seems very much that we'd honestly rather not hire someone than hire a social problem, and it's one of my favorite things about working here.

The other thing is that social skills can be learned... just like tech skills can be learned. No-one is born understanding Lisp, but you can learn to use it by applying effort. For techies, effort in learning a tech skill is "fun", so they forget that they had to work for it. But yes, all skills have to be learned.

As adults I think it's pretty immature to recognize a fault and then not even attempt to change one's behavior in a positive manner.

Not if it's a fault that can't be changed, or at least not easily.

I'm short, too, and I've learned to accept that, just as I've learned to accept the fact that some of my friends have more people posting "happy birthday" on their wall than I do.

But, I don't think it's the same thing. Changing your behavior is very possible, and being short is not a fault.

Plenty of your comments on here have a polite air to them. Looks like you can be cordial with people very frequently.

Can't be changed? Are you sure you aren't making up excuses for yourself? If you didn't believe people skills were innate and unlearnable, would you have to face the fact that you may be simply lazy in that regard, or that you're clinging to an unfriendly personality because you feel it makes you more of a techy hacker archetype?

I have dozens of faults. If I spent my time trying to change them all I would have very little time to spend on my actual life.

...and my actual life takes up a lot of time...

As adults, I think its pretty mature to accept ourselves the way we are, and move on without wasting time agonizing over our many imperfections.

Faulty or not, I still have stuff I need to do.

Working towards a positive outcome doesn't always mean changing oneself. It can mean recognizing potential situations and avoiding them. For example, if you get really cranky when you haven't eaten in a while, you can always make sure to have some food with you (food bar, energy bars) or realize that skipping meals is a bad idea, etc.

That is perfectly true, but an entirely different point to the one the grand parent was making.

not even attempt to change one's behavior in a positive manner

No visible progress != not even attempt.

Actually, people skills can and are learned, but a lot occurs at an early age when you are not exactly in control of your education. Dealing with other children at <5 years is kind of important.

I had a friend in college who grew up on a farm. He was an only child, and I got the feeling his parents didn't really pay him much mind beyond rules and schedule. He did not play team sports or do team activities of any kind and really didn't mix after school with his peers. You could see his lack of comprehension he exhibited behavior and said words that caused offense. He did become a high school teacher.

I too believe not everyone needs to deal with customers. I blame the company for putting someone with that personality type in a job that has customer implications. Their response is also inadequate and should have been much more inline with "all our fault".

That being said, like you, I think he should be gone or put on leave for a while. Deleting backup data is a super no-no. That's a trust violation and has nothing to do with social skills.

> "I really do believe that social "skills" can't be learned, at least not well."

As someone who, 5 years ago, couldn't stammer out 5 words in front of a crowd without shrinking so far back into his seat that he'd disappear... I strongly disagree.

I've gone from incredibly shy and socially clueless to being able to square off with management in meetings on important issues. I've gone from being unable to hold a conversation about anything non-tech to being a half-decent conversationalist that can hold non-techies' interests for more than 20 minutes.

I've also gone from dreading social events to looking forward to them. It's a great feeling, believe me.

It didn't come magically, it took a lot of extreme self-consciousness, a lot of deliberate self training, a whole lot of beating up oneself, and forcing myself to step well outside of my comfort zone for this to happen. But these things can very well be learned.

I suppose talking is a social skill. But eliminating stuttering is a rather tangible goal to works towards.

Being well liked among your coworkers and enjoying their company instead of dreading it everyday is a little bit too ineffable to work on.

I never stuttered - it was more terrifying social anxiety. There was a time where my legs felt rubbery I literally quaked in anxiety when giving a talk.

While I'm no great orator, I'm a long way from that now.

Not trying to project on you - but one of the big realization I made throughout this is that the things that I despised and dreaded most were also the things I was bad at. I convinced myself that parties were stupid for a variety of reasons - but at the end of the day I hated them because I didn't know how to handle them. Once I learned some of the basics there I started enjoying myself, and hey, now I look forward to house parties.

It absolutely is something you can work on. It takes a lot of time and very close attention, but it can be done.

I was the kid that nobody liked in middle school. I got beat up on a regular basis, everybody made fun of me, I had only a couple of friends and sometimes it seemed more like they tolerated me more than they enjoyed me, and I was basically in social hell. I was probably vaguely Aspergian - I fit basically all the symptoms - though the disease really wasn't all that well known back then.

When I switched to a new school, I decided that my only goal was to not be hated. I didn't care about being smart, I didn't care about passing my classes (we didn't have grades anyway), I didn't care about being popular...I just wanted the pain to stop. And so I basically shut up and observed. I watched how the other kids interacted with each other. I took note of what they were interested in, what got them excited. I purposefully tried to hide my intelligence, though my teachers basically shot that plan to hell when they pulled me out of algebra and told my classmates that the reason was because I scored a perfect score on the placement test.

When I did start interacting again, it was with "little" social interactions. Words of encouragement when they were struggling with a math problems. Questions about their favorite bands. Accepting their offers to come and hang out. In middle school, I had this hyper-competitive desire to be cool, and it resulted in a fair bit of self-aggrandizement that didn't exactly make me cool. In high school - at least early high school - I talked a lot less and listened a lot more.

And over time, it worked. I remember, about a month into high school, a classmate started making fun of me on the bus. Immediately, one of my other classmates piped up and said "Don't pick on Jon, he's cool." Problem solved, and I never really faced teasing after that.

I could try to put together a cribsheet of various social interaction rules I've learned if you're interested, but it may end up being rather long, so I'm not going to do it unless you think it'll help. Ask me for it if you want.

I would love to see such a cribsheet. I'm sure there are still gaps in my understanding.

Seriously. Companies retain these people because they provide value despite their poor social skills. Why shouldn't they keep them, if that's the case? If only those with good social skills were employable, the workforce would be cut in half.

Overall value of one person to a company is hard to measure. Yes, they might write great code, but if their abrasive and asshole personality bring down the productivity of the other five developers on the team, is it worth it?

Probably not in that scenario, but plenty of anti-social types manage not to bring down the productivity of everyone around them.

If someone's social problems are destroying their value to the company then by all means they should not be employed there. I simply strenuously object to the blanket statement that all anti-social people should be completely unemployable regardless of circumstance or value.

> "social "skills" can't be learned, at least not well"

Yes they can. I grew up missing a bunch of key social skills (something akin to Asperger Syndrome). After I was married, my wife taught me to make eye contact when I spoke to her. I was a teaching assistant in grad school, and later an educator with a museum, and developed several skills through that. By the time I left to pursue full-time parenting, teachers would regularly compliment me on my people skills.

If somebody like me (who didn't even learn eye contact as a child) can learn decent "people skills", there's no excuse for any but the most extreme cases (and some of them even manage to make serious progress with the right training.)

This all involves someone that's willing to put up with you enough to teach you how to be a social person. Some people just don't like being around others, some fear others, and some are simply shunned by society and never had a chance. Few people can have a wife plop down on their lap and those that lack social skills fear getting a job that involves talking to people, and for good reason.

There'll always be exceptions that go on to become president and whatever, but it's a lot of work and a lot of luck.

It had a lot to do with my choosing to put myself in an uncomfortable position, and choosing to learn the necessary skills. It wasn't all "someone willing to teach me"; a lot of it was me being willing to figure stuff out.

If you do need someone to teach you, that suggests you have a significant condition -- in which case you very likely qualify for help from a specialist. For example, if you have an Autism spectrum disorder, you can find resources in the US via http://www.autismspeaks.org/community/fsdb/search.php .

It's easy to make excuses, but it's better to make progress.

> I'm glad there's a place for us, just like I'm glad there's a place for people who are short, black, or ugly

Am I reading this correctly? Do you believe you have as little control over your behavior towards other people as a person has over their race, height, or facial structure? Even then, your analogy fails because short, black, or ugly people do not harm those around them merely by having those attributes, whereas if you behave like an asshole . . . ahem, a social retard . . . you do. I'm afraid that most people around you will feel differently about this issue than you do.

Wrong problem. This whole issue was just typical assholery, it's not a failure of introverts or antisocial behavior. By all means, stop hiring assholes, but don't blame it on people who just hate smalltalk and never bothered to learn.

This guy is mistaking "poor people skills" with "being an asshole". I'm not sure whether the two are so clearly related : there are a few different manifestations of lack of social skills, and there are jerks who don't have much social skills issues.

"All it takes for someone to be good at customer service is: [...]".

This sounds so simple. And it misses quite the point. Lacking "social skills", is precisely this : not knowing how to behave completely "normally" (whatever that means) with other people. Like, not grasping the effect of your words, or not being able to think them through fast enough before saying them. Of course, I want to be helpful, and to answer the person in front of me (or on the phone). That doesn't mean that it is what the person will see or hear.

There seems to be a convention amongst the techie crowd that social rules are a silly bit of nonsense that dumber people engage in. This is not at all the case.

When I handle a project from beginning to end, it goes smoother. I find any mistakes I've made myself; I know what assumptions I made at every step; I don't have to get my head around the job over and over again; it's all-round easier.

When a team does projects, it requires rules, with some rigidity. Each person has to act somewhat like an object-oriented sub-routine, with guaranteed input, guaranteed output. This does add some overhead, but it allows each person to function with relative freedom in his own space.

Social rules and conventions are the rules for the team comprised of a culture doing the project of living. They allow us to get through the day using hundreds of social shortcuts; assumptions about each other's behavior, needs, wants, expectations.

Assuming that people show up on time, do what they have agreed to, etc obviously isn't stupid social rules. They have practical utility.

Sugar-coating peoples screw-ups, pretending they aren't wrong when they are or have a point when they don't, playing politics or favorites, etc however tends to make smart people look with distain on all social rules.

wait, what? There is a difference between being socially inept and destroying data because you think someone is a jerk. This difference is similar, I think, to the difference between honking or flipping someone off in traffic and, say, ramming them.

I mean, one of those things is just being rude. The other is going out of your way to damage someone else.

Personally, I would put up with a lot of the first. Rude people, of course, shouldn't be in customer service, but on the back end, eh, if they are good enough, I think they are worth keeping around. Especially if they are the extremely direct, blunt and honest kind of rude, I think they can actually be better back end people, sometimes, than people who try to twist things to look better than they are.

But people who destroy things when they are angry or insulted? yeah, those people should not be let anywhere near a root prompt.

I believe that what many are quick to refer to as social ineptitude is a keener sense of bullshit detection, combined with the inability to take it with a smile.

Imo, most socially-inept tech people are simply individuals that are more sensitive to the hypocrisy and nonsense one is exposed to when dealing with the public.

I don't know if being a tech person is a cause or an effect of that bullshit sensitivity, but as a programmer who used to be a bouncer in a bar a few years ago, I can tell you that some of my non-tech colleagues were by far very quick at losing their temper than I was.

Now, there's a difference between being bullshit intolerant and being malicious. I am of the firm opinion that the actions of that Tech support guy (deleting data out of pure spite) are certainly not characteristic of the tech-guy stereotype as we know it.

Good engineers' poor personal skill is often a manifestation of traits that allow them to be good engineers in the first place (though not a necessary condition). The same way Steve Jobs and James Cameron are horrible bosses to work for, the same way CEOs often suffer from ADD and bi-polar disorder, and the same way so many amazing Nobel Laureate have autism problems. If you appear ordinary in your personalities and traits, then chances are that you aren't the outstanding leader of your field.

I would disagree with your characterization of Steve Jobs and James Cameron as horrible bosses to work for, but I certainly see why you say it.

Many, many people I'm certain have asked themselves "why, oh why can't Steve (or Jim) be nicer" (and still be the same in every other way). People just don't work like that.

Great post!

500 - Internal Server Error

Stop letting writers get away with technical ineptitude!

Yep, sorry about this, my Linode is buckling under the pressure. I'm increasing caching as I type!

Hey, cut the guy some slack, that's a proper error page instead of a debugging message. :)

Edit: added a smiley

I just couldn't pass up the obvious joke. He had it back up a few minutes after I posted that, which makes him a winner compared to some. I posted a real comment as well.

That's not social ineptitude. That's malicious behavior and destruction of property. There is a difference. Please don't conflate the two.

What's so hard about kindness that engineers can't figure out? I really don't buy that excuse.

Here's the problem with poor social skills: you put a low ceiling over your head. If you can't interact well with your co-workers, managers, and others, you won't get very far in your company.

You are free to be an asshole. But don't complain about the corners you put yourself into because of the choices you made.

"Kindness" is a pretty vague term. I think "empathy" might better suit your question.

It's rather difficult for some types of people to learn, especially if they're not exactly wired for that or their cultural or familial background didn't put much emphasis on it.

In the programming profession, it's not particularly useful when you primarily deal with computers (computers just don't care).

No programmer in any company of any reasonable size deals primarily with computers.

Based on some digging around I have a very strong suspicion that Jules is the founder and only employee of This*. I think the "new employee" will likely just be a new email account with a different name.

"The understanding that they represent their employer and that people are relying on them" - Most developers have huge, inflated egos.

"A compassionate, helpful, and courteous attitude" - See above.

"The knowledge of whatever their supporting" - An understanding of the technical side of a product is vastly different from the functional side as its easy for a developer to say "This is sample. You hit X, then Y then select Z and find Q" which does not translate in any way to a client understanding a product and the frustration of dealing with "simpletons" shines through - thus leading to outbursts like we've seen.

This is of course the standard. I would imagine entrepreneurs and such do not follow this guideline, but for a generic programmer these traits are not something that are a typical side-effect of the craft unless you start moving up in rank.

The fact that the author would be offended by the statements mentioned really reiterates the point that most developers take things entirely too personally. I know I did for the better part of 10 years.

> Most developers have huge, inflated egos.

I think that stereotype is about as likely to be true as the "typical" developer's stereotype of designers and managers being the ones with inflated egos. The "typical" programming company seems to be quite the ego contest, if you listen to what everyone secretly thinks about everyone else!

I know a few universities that are pushing programs to "fix" this problem in engineers by encouraging them to do more presentations and group projects.

It seems like there will always parts of "geek culture" that just don't care. Perhaps they're even proud of social ineptitude? But those aren't engineers I would want to work with.

Yeah, although the ones that are less capable in group dynamics usually just bail, making the others do the work.

Where I saw the most exercising of social skills, involved cheating.

Offence: Engineer is offended by customer and flushes the customers livelihood (website)

Cure: Management should be offended by engineers and flush THEIR livelihood (job)

Seems symmetrical, but perhaps over-simplifying the problem? Of course I realize that the article above doesn't directly advocate firing the engineer, but many high-functioning technical people just cannot realistically be trained to be social animals too. Those abrasive nerds are really productive outside of a customer service role, so wouldn't a better solution be to fix the mis-allocation of tech staffing resources to customer facing roles?

edit: and yeah, maybe the problem is that this particular engineer was just a dick, and we shouldn't use him as an example in the discussion of technical vs social roles in our companies.

Yeah, I don't believe for a second that this is a trait that belongs exclusively to engineers.

Here's a thought: anyone in a position of "power" is susceptible to this dynamic; if "social" relationships were described as an equation, then power (P) would be inversely proportional to the effort or energy (E) you need to expend to maintain any given social relationship (R),

P = R/E

The more power/authority you wield, the more of a jerk you can be (not should be or are), because the value of the relationship is lopsided - you don't need to spend as much energy on it.

The power an engineer holds is that they are often quite valuable within an organization, and tend to have an easily transferable skill set.

I'd put the blame on whoever hired the guy and put him out front as the customer support guy, without monitoring him. Some of it's attributable to the support guy, but most of the blame should fall on his bosses.

I think the author needs to display a little bit of that compassion he's talking about and realize that learning social skills is not as easy for everyone as it might have been for him. The world is full of different kinds of people, and it takes all kinds to run a company. If Jules is truly great at the technical side of his job, I see no problem with freeing him to get on with it.

This is not about social skills. The ability to function in a crowd of strangers doesn't matter here.

Not being an asshole to paying customers is what matters here. That's not a social skill, that's a matter of maturity and respect.

It is about social skills. What do you think "maturity and respect" means in the context of interacting with other humans? These are cultural norms, and different people conform to culture in different ways. Place "respectful, mature" American employees in a Japanese zaibatsu, and I think you'll discover respect is more a convention than a universal standard. ;-)

Pedantry aside, that engineer still comes off as a dick in this context.

  > What do you think "maturity and respect" means in the 
  > context of interacting with other humans?

We're not talking cross-cultural divides here, we're talking about engineers not being allowed to hide behind the excuse that they're "not good with people" to allow them to be jerks.

One could argue a certain kind of engineering personality tends to comprise its own distinct culture. As an INTJ, a cross-cultural divide is precisely how I look at it.

I'm speaking more in general, though. To reiterate, this guy acted as a jerk, and I agree with you.

In the specific case cited, yes, but the article is talking about the general case of engineers and social ineptitude. That doesn't need to change any more than we need to stop letting everyone else get away with technical ineptitude.

No, I think the author's point stands. He isn't saying that engineers should all go to cocktail parties and mingle, he's saying specifically that you should be able to not be an asshole.

Personally I'm not great at socializing either, but I make every effort to be polite and courteous when speaking on behalf of the company.

I don't believe this is something special to engineers. Hey, back home, in "less civilized" part of the world, you can be beaten up by waiters if you are complaining (being asshole) about meals at a restaurant.

In order words, "tact" is something you need to learn. Especially in internet world where doing something stupid is just a click away.

The last line of the article really just sums it up for me. If you don't have basic every day people skills, you'd better be damn good at what you do, otherwise, it's probably not worth it as you alienate your coworkers and make life difficult for those around you.

And that's before you get a customer-facing role.

The vast majority of web hosting shops are not "companies" with "employees" and "management." They are one or a few guys with some dedicated servers and most tier-1 support outsourced to huge web hosting support shops.

This seems like a whole lot of attention over what seems like one guy who is an asshole.

Web hosting tech-support people are NOT "Engineers". Or for that matter tech.

I kinda wish there were ways to add URLs to an extant thread rather than starting new threads with URLs. Because, for fuck's sake, this is like the fourth link on this boring topic.

500 - Internal Server Error.

Can anyone post up a copy? Seems like a sensational title - would love to see the argument.

500 - Internal Server Error

Someone needs a socially inept engineer to fix their website.

Hi there, you must have caught me right before I increased the level of caching in place on my very-undersized Linode. You should be able to access the site now. Thank you!

I think one problem here is that they non-chalantly made "poor people skills" equal to "abusive behavior towards costumers" and used the "awesome tech with poor people skills" image as a euphemism in their PR to comb over a VERY ugly situation where they were getting a shit storm of bad PR - it was probably the only way out of that situation short of publishing "welp, sorry, he was a total jerk-off asshole and we fired him".

I do think the (stereo-)typical techs can be said to prefer focusing on interesting problems and on their computers rather than having to deal with people all day long - possibly angry or even downright abusive customers demanding support. I don't see the (stereo-)typical techs as slimy and very skilled at playing the political game and manipulating people and advancing the career ladder through it. (which is something I would see as very specific but definitely STRONG people skills, no matter how repulsive.)

But that doesn't mean all techs don't have any manners or empathy.

"As a technical person who has worked many customer-facing support roles"

Stopped reading right there.

"I am a technical person who also has ability Y, therefore all technical people should have ability Y."

This is the thinking that would sit Magic Johnson down and say "Your ball game is pretty good, but your golf game is awful. Stop working on your basketball skills and start golf training."

Bottom line: customer support requires ability, certain personality traits, and training. Do not let anyone (technical, non-technical, CFO, anyone) handle customer support if they are not qualified. It will end badly.

Social skills are not comparable to golf, they're comparable to being able to move around physically without tripping or falling into everybody within a 5 meter radius of you. It's not a sport, it is a critical skill that everyone who expects to participate in modern society needs to have.

Bullshit. Steven Hawking can't even move his arms yet he produce more value than most people.

What we need is the social equivalent of a wheelchair and then get back to more important matters.

Social skills have nothing to do with paralysis. Steven Hawking is permitted to lack mobility all he wants so long as he has some social skills.

It's not that we can't put up with people with no social skills, it's that we shouldn't have to. If I can avoid dealing with your lack of social skills by simply not hiring you, you can be damned sure that's what I'm going to do.

As soon as people stop letting non-engineers get away with total, utter technical incompetence and stupidity.

I suppose some of it is attributable to Asperger's -- some of it. In many cases, though, I can't help but suspect laziness and a holier-than-thou attitude.

Laziness? He went and deleted the customer's backups.

He did not. Someone's being lazy here not finding out the full facts.

True, he did. I was talking about something slightly different -- laziness in terms of learning to interact well with other humans.

> laziness and a holier-than-thou attitude

A short explanation might be, socially skilled people are slow (lazy) to understand anything technical and are impatient (holier-than-thou) with unskilled people. Technically skilled people are slow (lazy) to understand anything social/political and are impatient (holier-than-thou) with unskilled people. I think it's possible, though slow, to teach any skill to anyone. To really fix the problem, maybe start by convincing companies that teaching skills outside your area of expertise is worthwhile. I can get technical training paid for by my company. Social/managerial training, not so much. Likewise project managers can't get reimbursed for technical training. The assumption seems to be "Oh well they don't really need it and what they do need they'll pick up on the job or on their own time."

I think he's reading too much into it. I have seen waitresses get moody and piss off customers, MBAs that have had violent disagreements and stomped out or quit on the spot. A Tmobile once hung up on me when I complained loudly about not getting cell service and being stuck in the office unable to call a cab.

There are tons of geeks who are really personable.

Taking one example of an engineer who may have had a bad day because of people being rude/confrontational and extrapolating them to social ineptitude of engineers is missing the forest for the trees.

Or the infamous flight attendant grabbing a beer and pulling the escape chute...

I'm an engineer with "people skills" who has worked large and small organizations including a hosting company and many freelance jobs. No one should be really surprised when a hosting company employee goes off, because it is one of the shittiest customer service jobs you can have in terms of the entitlement factor and low margins. That's not to say the guy should be excused, but just pointing out that it doesn't necessarily means he lacks people skills, it may just have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

As far as engineers talking to customers goes, I think that depends heavily on the company. Obviously engineers can provide better customer support than someone with little technical knowledge, but if there are many customers then there's most likely more bang for the buck solving technical problems that affect many people. Personally I've often felt visceral frustration with taking the time to provide quality support when I know full well that I'm sacrificing potential productivity to help one person when there are issues affecting hundreds or thousands that are still unresolved. I justify it by chalking it up to the (perhaps) intangible benefit of providing truly exceptional customer service.

  > Taking one example of an engineer who may have had a bad day [...]

Well wait a second.

Look, if I get moody and pissed off and start cursing to myself at my desk, hey, just another Tuesday.

But if I then decide to terminate paid accounts and backups? Engage in a flamewar in a public forum with paying customers? Wow, that's beyond "may have had a bad day" and into "destroying shareholder value" and "employment terminated immediately."

I clicked on the link and got a "500 Server Error". I cal that pretty damned rude and socially inept.

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