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Comment by macksd | Hacker News Reader

This is therapeutic to read - I've been on the receiving end of this a lot. Once I even had someone go about 5 levels deep.

"We should have a doc for this process."

"We do - here's the link."

"I couldn't find this - it should be linked more prominently."

"It's the first link when you go to the docs page."

"It didn't warn me about this tricky part."

"There's a warning at the top."

"It should be more prominent, bold and in red."

"It is bold and in red. [sends screenshot]"

"Oh okay, thank you..."

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What's a good way to handle people like this? I generally put them on my "shit list", and actively minimize interactions, but this doesn't seem ideal. Does anyone have a more positive approach?

It could come off as a little snarkier than I would like to be, but as soon as someone says something should have been documented better I ask them where they think I should have put said document. Then I ask them if they looked there before asking me. 9 times out of 10 the answer is no, and it's then obvious to them that if I had already done exactly what they're asking of me, they still would have come and asked me.

Sometimes people have a point and something should be documented better. Especially if I've been asked twice, it's worth documenting better. And I would welcome their input on where and how that should be done. But those are the people are being constructive.

> It could come off as a little snarkier than I would like to be, but as soon as someone says something should have been documented better I ask them where they think I should have put said document.

I think the point of the article is that for these people, the answer will always be "whatever I can find that shows my opponent is wrong." So, if the doc was supposed to be in the shared drive, they will say "the shared drive." If it is in the shared drive already, they will say "It also should be linked in the Wiki." If it is linked in the Wiki, they will say "You should also have sent an E-mail to the team-announce@ list." If you did do that, they will say "It would be helpful if it were listed in this Team Resources doc." and on and on and on. And, when they finally find some thing that you didn't do, you say "OK, I will do [that thing] too." and they will come back with the passive aggressive "Well, don't do it because I told you to do it. I want you to understand why!" I worked with a manager like this and it was infuriating. Every conversation's goal was to conclude that I was wrong in some way, no matter how much prep I did.

I will often ask them to do/assist in, the thing they think is missing or needs to be done. Sometimes this actually works and you can work positively together, often not though.

Typically, asking them to do any additional work gets met with silence and a few days/weeks of being left along by this person. i.e. minimizing future interactions.

"That's a pretty good idea. Would you mind fixing it?"

Assuming you mean that in good faith you'll be okay. It's all tone, so believe it first.

That's what I love about working at startups: everyone only wants the power to fix things. If you just give them power, they will just do the thing.

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