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Comment by GiorgioG | Hacker News Reader

> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved.

That's a naïve way to look at it. As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do. Now, if the manager hadn't been an asshole, none of this would have been an issue. But when you're dealing with an asshole (in a position of power over you), the last thing you want to do is continue to piss him off.

I've been there, done that and when I there was mutual respect and trust between the manager and I, I would push back on things that could be done better. When the manager was an asshole, I just stayed in my lane. My job wasn't to fix the org's problems, my job was to build software and (from my perspective) my primary concern was staying employed.

If he wanted to stay at Spotify he just should have kept quiet and switched teams.

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So what you're saying is it's fine for a power tripping asshole manager to be a power tripping asshole manager because the victim is a contractor and therefore deserves to be treated worse than a regular employee?

The manager was affecting his ability to do his job.

I don't think it's fair for anyone to have to put up with shitty managers just because they're contractors. The thoughts and feelings of a contractor are just as valid. It shouldn't just be "put up or shut up". It should be Spotify ensuring their managers aren't assholes.

When you are going over the line when dealing with an asshole, the company ends up with two assholes. You are not making the situation better.

This blog post IMHO makes the author unemployable, they publicly demonstrated they are a high-friction person and even tacked their name on it. Being able to handle social conflict gracefully without escalation is a virtue and they don't have it.

> So what you're saying is it's fine for a power tripping asshole manager to be a power tripping asshole manager because…

Nobody is saying that. You’ve been misconstruing people’s responses throughout this thread.

The bottom line is that both people can be in the wrong in a situation like this. The employee is not entitled to behave poorly because they have a bad manager and the manager is not entitled to behave badly simply because they’re a manager. However, the fact that neither party could do anything other than escalate the situation and even continue fighting battles after being fired is unprofessional behavior.

The manager however, is in a position of power over the employee, especially a contractor, and as such they should be held to a much higher standard.

They should be. But a Contractor is not generally in a position to hold a manager accountable. At some point; you have to know your role.

> As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do.

or, told another way: dance monkey, dance.

If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people.

Someone who doesn't push back on giving an estimate for something they have never seen is useless in a senior role. Sure, the kanban stuff might be a little out there, but if a manager is doing a shit job of blocking tasks mid sprint, again it is better they try and suggest something to help their co workers.

> dance monkey, dance

See def. contractor.

except when you hire a senior engineer as a contractor it is a different relationship to a code monkey contractor.

If you want them to do sprint planning / estimations / train interns it is a lot closer to a traditional employee than a "we pay $XXX a day for 7.5hrs of coding" contractor

I think this is really context dependent. It sounded like the author was a senior engineer deeply embedded in the team and a part of standup, sprint planning, retros etc. Which is different to farming out a specific component to a specialist to work on in isolation.

> If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people.

Senior people should know how to read the situation and either A) figure out how to persuade management to their way of thinking and failing that (repeatedly) B) STFU and do as your told.

I'm not opposed to making suggestions/recommendations, but some people don't want to hear it, for whatever reason. As a contractor I'm not going to upset if you don't take my recommendations and it takes longer (after all, contractors are usually hourly...more money, more money). If you're unable to "STFU and do as you're told", bide your time and find another position on your own terms.

That's the lesson this person needs to take away from this.

If your "asshole" is a psychopath, find others that have been under his or her path before, collect evidence. If your "asshole" is unable to cope with stress, ask peers how they are doing, ask for advice on specific occurrences of issues in a non-confrontational way. If your "asshole" is just a mean bad-manager, just says "Yes Yes" and move on before he blows something important up.

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