Comment by kamranjon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kamranjon | Hacker News Reader

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I had a teammate who shouted me down in a meeting, said my opinions were invalid and he didn’t need to explain anything to me. (I had asked why we were building an entire in memory implementation of a sql database engine just to run tests and prototypes)

Anyhow, he continued being incredibly abrasive and angry until our supervisor called a meeting and he claimed that he had aspergers - which may have been true but it effectively tied the hands of my manager. They explained to me that they could not let him go even though it would be best for the team, because he had made this statement and there could be legal troubles if they did.

So he continued on being toxic, until he blew up in a PR review (basically left an insane set of GitHub comments) and they decided this was too much and they moved him to another project/team where he would have very little interaction with people.

Anyway just wanted to leave this as an anecdote for a situation where the solution was very difficult to solve and eventually it was sort of solved but it definitely required managers giving feedback about someone’s personality.

id go see a doctor, let them give you some diagnosis too, and yell back next time he raises his voice

Your allegations of the "wrongs" he did:

- shouted at you in a meeting claiming that your opinions are invalid and that he didn't need to explain matters to you.

- being abrasive.

- blew up a PR review ("insane set of Github comments")

While I empathize with you and understand that such behavior shouldn't be normalized, it remains murky which of these are performance related. (What happened to the in-mem sql DB thing, what was his rationale for commenting in the PR review?)

Pardon me, but this reads like a one-sided take of the events that transpired.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that arguments happens and it's important to understand the rationale behind the friction rather than determining the eventual loser as the one being in the wrong; for the loser could be the one wronged.

In a team it is generally good to be able to discuss approaches without becoming angry, shouting and leaving the meeting. Performance does not just encapsulate the code you produce, especially as a senior engineer.

After he left the team, the in-mem implementation was removed being widely recognized as a roadblock to building new features (needing to implement an in-memory version of sql WHERE clause or ORDER BY just to add new features to a web app that was backed by an actual SQL DB was error prone and there are many better solutions to testing your DB code)

The PR review was another explosion from people questioning his further development of this crazy complex in-men SQL implementation, and the questions were well founded but he was getting very irate at having to constantly defend this thing he was building that others on the team found to be a time suck.

This is definitely one sided, it was one of the most difficult situations for me to traverse as I’d never been in a situation where a coworker was what I would characterize as abusive to me and others on the team, so I still can’t really approach it fully objectively.

It's a very interesting recollection. Thanks for sharing it here.

I'm always interested in what motivates some people in our line of work. There are so many with such strong drives to work hard in ways that don't make any sense to me.

Apologies, but regardless of being one sided, there is no acceptable professional reason to shout at someone in a meeting.

I’m not sure why you are writing this take, but I’m not sure how this is constructive.

And.

- and you're not sure... "but" would imply a contrary statement following. Two statements predicated on the same exposition, "I'm not sure", are in agreement.

If someone is a pedantic little prick and uses open forums, like meetings, to undermine your efforts then you might find it hard to keep your demeanor.

I'd like to site the first paragraph of this comment as an example. While it is accurate and relevant, it is also unnecessary and reduces the value of the statements you have made, diminishing them in the eyes of others, but to no greater benefit.

There an example; the correct use of "but".

Uhm.. It certainly affects MY performance if I have colleagues who act like that towards me or others.

I absolutely believe in understanding and practice forgiveness towards colleagues who have aspergers, going through personal issues or whatever. But there is a limit to what one should tolerate, for ones own mental health.

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