How timely. My boss just crucified a co-worker today in our meeting and I think something like this could help mend things.
Yes, my boss never heard of "praise in public criticize in private". Welcome to working with a hot-blooded eastern european
Yes, my boss never heard of "praise in public criticize in private". Welcome to working with a hot-blooded eastern european
(I mean, I was still relieved to avoid it! Just thought it was funny to feel disrespected because I got gentle treatment :)
Create a culture where nothing is a personal attack and performance is just what it is, instead of something to be ashamed of.
In school all the kids get all their grades publicly, you don't get public grades if you do good and private grades if you do bad on the exam. And somehow we're all here and understood that it was what it was. The problem is that it was done as a "crucification".
Shouting and blaming and being an ass to someone are wrong to do either in private or in public.
Serious reprimands need to happen in private. We can use euphemisms or severe language, but sometimes people need to be told, "You fouled up, you were careless, you were indiscriminate, and your reckless mistake cost the company more money than you make in a year, which may cost someone ELSE their job because of budget cuts."
Always remember that your foul-ups could cost someone their life or their livelihood. This isn't kindergarten. Adults need to be told honestly about the damage they caused.
An engineer on my team once merged a change that created a security vulnerability, without review. We didn't have any real users on prod yet, and the potential impact was small. But I was still angry because I had given explicit instructions (speaking as the tech lead and the one with the most security experience) that all changes had to go through code review for security issues.
I responded with an email message that was visible to the whole team (about 5 people). I knew it would sting, but I also wanted everyone to know that this was an important line not to cross, because at some point in the near future we did hope to have real users. I wrote, approximately, "You merged this change without review, and that's not okay. I explicitly told you not to do that. As a result, we now have a security vulnerability. Don't ever do that again."
I am paraphrasing from memory, but the tone was not too far off from this: stern, direct criticism without personal attack. At the time, I held myself to a simple standard of communication: stating facts and criticising actions (even bluntly) was acceptable; any criticism of personal attributes was unacceptable. The engineer in question was very hurt and angry with me, and our working relationship was difficult for many weeks after that.
Was I the asshole here? What's your standard of communication, and what would you do, from the point of view of the tech lead or as the engineer?
In general I'd write a similar thing, just speaking of the team, and not overplaying the impact. If you had no users it was no problem, that's the truth. But it would be a problem in the future so you want the team to know and practice safety. People tend to be upset if you hype it more than it is, even an little, and it comes across as you just wanting to be right for rights sake. And generally we/team/process focused language is better than "you fucked up". Why did you even have merges enabled without reviews? It's more your process failure than that guy.
That being said I work in full remote with many different cultures so I have an "international average". If this was a fully Russian team or some such even what you wrote was too soft in my experience and you actually need to be very clear or they think it's nothing.
It's funny, one other commenter pointed out how you won't get far in Eastern Europe without saying "please" and "thank you" a lot. I'm from there and it's true - we have both rude and polite people!
Czechs (wholly western to Poland) are always called "Eastern Europeans" in contemporary media and or any place I have ever worked before.
Historically, “Eastern Europe” has been used as more of a derogatory signifier in places where it’s culturally acceptable to make jokes at the expense of Slavs, like in Germany or USA.
Let’s not forget that Vienna is actually geographically further East than Prague, though I doubt many Austrians would be comfortable considering themselves Eastern European.
Poland is pretty squarely in the middle of Europe by a number of metrics.
If we’re talking about time zone, Poland uses Central European [Summer] Time.
If we’re talking geographically, most of the claimants to the geographical midpoint of Europe are actually East of Poland.
If we’re talking politically, then the midpoint of the European Union is said to be in Würzburg, which is only 470km South-West from the border with Poland. And we can hardly say that anything East of Würzburg is Eastern Europe, since that would include all of Austria.
I am calling bullshit. It simply referenced the Soviet zone. Eastern Europe was everything behind the iron curtain, including Eastern Germany. Everything else was Western Europe, including countries in the North and South of Europe.
edit: Its also worth mentioning that framing that geopolitical conflict as racist is highly oversimplistic and counterproductive. The only upside i can think of is signaling and the stakes are far too high for such selfish endeavors. Stuff is just complicated and geopolitical conflicts even more so.
I would however be happy to hear your qualification on this.
I for one wouldn't describe myself as an idiot.
As you are a person who has previously shared Kremlin propaganda on this website, I have nothing more to say to you.
Good day.
That might be the problem and the reason for your unsupported overconfidence. And its no wonder given your unwillingness to consider different perspectives.
You are welcome.
edit: I would hope nobody sees that as a confirmation for the stereotype of Poles being racist. I see no reason to not suspect a Russian sock puppet and neither should you.
Classifying Czechs as closer to Russians than to Austrians does not have basis in today's economy, culture, geography, politics. It fits when you're considering a specific historical period or linguistics.
I learned this the hard way!
I don’t think the historical Iron Curtain is a useful means by which to make that distinction today.
Unless you’re willing to proclaim to Berliners that you love being in Berlin despite it being in Eastern Europe. I think you would raise some eyebrows. Or fists.
My boss has several positive attributes, but emotional intelligence is not one of them.