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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

> Beyond that, it's just plain none of your business

What if someone was embezzling money from the firm? Where do you draw the line?

> You also don't know what, if anything, the manager is doing to address the problem nor are you entitled to. If you want to be in the business of dealing with that kind of issue, become a manager yourself.

Most managers would expect junior team members to speak out. If it's being addressed, the manager will likely tell you that he or she is aware and its being addressed.

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> Where do you draw the line?

Embezzling money.

And no, this is not an opening for some roundabout logic implying slacking off is the same as embezzling wages... you can't come up for a non-harmful explanation for embezzling money: the word literally means "steal or misappropriate".

You can effortlessly do the same for someone slacking, as the comment you replied to did.

> Most managers would expect junior team members to speak out. If it's being addressed, the manager will likely tell you that he or she is aware and its being addressed.

Most managers would expect you to share in terms of how it affects you, not some vague air of "they don't do anything":

So not: "I feel like they always have excuses for doing nothing"

Instead: "I needed X, Y and Z on separate instances from this coworker and was unable to get that"

(Or specific to excuses: "I expected X, didn't get X and they gave excuse Y")

It a good practice to do that anyways since it protects you from potential alienation and/or embarrassment if it turns out your idea of "them doing nothing" is dead wrong.

> And no, this is not an opening for some roundabout logic implying slacking off is the same as embezzling wages... you can't come up for a non-harmful explanation for embezzling money: the word literally means "steal or misappropriate".

If I pay someone $100 to come clean my house and they take my money and don't clean my house, its no different than if they came into my house and stole $100. It's legally different, but there's harm being done and I consider it theft. It's not complicated.

In regards to slacking, there's no expectation that someone is working 100% of the time and no reasonable person would expect that someone is working 100% of the time. But a reasonable person would expect that they work some of the time, perhaps a reasonable amount based on the work of their peers.

> Most managers would expect you to share in terms of how it affects you, not some vague air of "they don't do anything":

I've been a manager and worked with lots of managers. I strongly disagree and this is not what I've seen. They want to have more information about efficiency and happiness on the team that they're managing. And they certainly want to know if someone is not working... at all... for over a year...

You can tell them and if they say "don't care", so be it. But a reasonable manager would want to know. I don't know if you've ever been in a managerial role, but I suggest you have a talk with superiors about this hypothetical and get their opinion on it.

> If I pay someone $100 to come clean my house and they take my money and don't clean my house

The difference is it's your house and the scope of work is completely defined by you. It's not complicated.

- If they don't clean because they're sick, you're the one they tell.

- If they didn't clean because they were busy unclogging the toilet, you're the one who should know.

- If they didn't clean because they're waiting on a mold removal treatment, you're the one who should know.

You rarely have the whole picture in a work environment between HR, layers of supervisors, differing titles with differing scope of work....

And to the rest of your comment, I'm a tech lead with direct reports. I cannot imagine what kind of manager you have to be dealing with for them to take exception with quality insights such as "I keep getting blocked on X by Y" vs vague claims of "doing nothing and obfuscating".

After all, the end result is strictly better for everyone involved:

- you now have something actionable to bring to the "slacking" coworker, HR, and/or their skip level

- the blocked coworker has now communicated the fact they were blocked and you can work on recovery from that

- you can better establish patterns if this is an intermittent problem...

Sometimes bringing form to intangibles is a big part of your job, but if we're saying someone is literally doing nothing for a year... in any half-functional organization that should result in tangible, actionable blockages.

> And to the rest of your comment, I'm a tech lead with direct reports.

Oof, so you'd be cool with people on your team not working?

> I cannot imagine what kind of manager you have to be dealing with for them to take exception with quality insights such as "I keep getting blocked on X by Y" vs vague claims of "doing nothing and obfuscating".

I like to work on teams that are effective where things get done. It is incredibly demoralizing working with sub-par team members, not even to mention people that go out of their way to not do work. I wouldn't want to work on such a team and I wouldn't want to manage such a team. It builds a toxic environment. My worst times in my career where was when I was on a team that was not really doing anything and no one was working.

I guess I'm just more communicative. I would want junior people on my team to feel comfortable to bring up any issues or things that they notice. Because I know if you have even one toxic member on your team, one that doesn't pull their weight or put in any effort, it can ruin the whole team and eventually the organization if those people are allowed to stay.

> Oof, so you'd be cool with people on your team not working?

Oof, so you work at places where people have 0 deliverables for a year?

Because on my teams people have deliverables. Is that what's hanging you up? Where I work they'll block things if they're doing 0 work.

If the deliverable is overseen by me I'll do my job and look into why it's not happening, and if the deliverable is due to a team member and never materializes, I'm saying that's something to bubble up.

> I like to work on teams that are effective where things get done.

If you say so... doesn't

> I guess I'm just more communicative.

I'm about effective communication.

If someone misses a single deliverable their first thought (hopefully) isn't going to be "this person has been slacking!". By the time someone has that thought damage is being done.

If instead they bring the deliverable up to me and I know they also missed a deliverable due to someone else... or they tend to miss deliverables related to X feature... or they missed the deliverable because of Y obligation...

Now we can have _effective conversations_.

I can find out if the person needs help learning how to work on X feature.

I can communicate there was a prior obligation so that we're not getting to the "this person is slacking!" conclusion

I can communicate a forming pattern before any one person comes to that conclusion too.

People should feel comfortable bringing up opinions. I wouldn't berate someone for saying someone else is slacking.

But this is HN and someone is asking for advice: I gave advice that keeps OP from alienating themselves for no reason and still doesn't hurt their manager's ability to be an effective manager.

It's important they don't sandbag their manager to avoid possible embarrassment, but 3 comments deep here I think I've stablished how any competent manager would have as good or better outcomes with this form of feedback...

> If I pay someone $100 to come clean my house and they take my money and don't clean my house, its no different than if they came into my house and stole $100.

It is not OP's house though. He is just another employee, so it's none of his business to worry about this. Your argument sounds just like an excuse to morally justify snitching on co-workers.

If someone paid me to clean their house and the person I'm with starts stealing, I I would not be okay with it either. I would say something if I saw someone getting pick-pocketed or call the police if someone is being mugged. Theft is theft and its wrong. If I have a chance to easily address an injustice I will certainly consider it. This moral relativism has really gone overboard.

You're selling your work. If what you sell doesn't cost as much as you asked for it, then you will lose ability to sell it, eventually. It's not a theft, it's how market works and it doesn't work in any other way.

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