Hacker News Reader

Comment by matt321 | Hacker News Reader

If I have a team member that is being a jerk then I will give them feedback on their personality, regardless of protected characteristics. The option is: Give feed back and they fix behavior, or they get fired. Toxic people have no place on my team.

EDIT: Unless they are doing so much more of the work then the others that they cant realistically be replaced, then I will allow them to be toxic but only so much they others people aren't quitting. OK there's is a little bit of hyperbole there but sometimes the best workers are not very socially palatable. I will still give them regular feedback on their poor attitude.

View on HN

This is a common theme in sports teams. One guy is toxic but contributes a lot, should we keep him?

Luckily most teams are not sports teams, and most people are replaceable.

The thing about toxicity is it's contagious. People will start to use it as signalling: "I say toxic things because I'm valuable". It's like that cartoon of The Internet Commentator's Fallacy.

My wife's company had a toxic person that was really hard to replace. Took most everyone complaining and losing 2 other key personal before management finally decided to act. IMO there is nobody so valuable that you need to put up with toxicity.

I know what you mean. It's a thin line to walk. Sometimes you really have to keep them for business reasons. But I found that sometimes the shock of losing the skills and/or knowledge of that one key person is just what's needed for the rest of the team to pick them up.

Then it's ultimately not about personality or productivity, but ultimately whether person is of value to the company, org, team, or those in power, financially, politically.

It's about both, if you are nice but a mediocre consistent worker you are likely not going to get fired because there are not enough 10x programmers to go around

Good story. What does it have to do with the linked article, which is about how women and people of color disproportionately receive personality-based feedback?

It has to do with the title of this thread though.

So perhaps this is an indication that the title should be updated to more accurately reflect the original one. (Not everyone reads the linked articles.)

> Women are … 11 times more likely to report being labeled as abrasive

> Specific and constructive feedback about someone’s work performance offers them more opportunities to grow.

If “abrasive“ is not constructive and the person is at risk of losing her job because she is abrasive, are you suggesting she not be told she is abrasive?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com