How to Work Effectively with Someone You Don't Like
forbes.com
forbes.com
I have a coworker who is difficult to work with because he insists on political conversations. "Don't engage" is working well there. Every time he tries to talk politics, I immediately shift the conversation to a work topic. I keep hoping that he'll catch the hint, but even if he never does, doing that still avoids unnecessary workplace strife.
Getting along great doesn’t always mean two people will agree on every topic. And obviously people do not need to agree on every topic to have a fantastic time working together.
Also, depending on the context, other people might overhear part of the conversation and disagree, get offended, etc.
There is a blurry line with things that are indirectly work related (ex: opinions on cloud vs self hosting, etc). Those are for friday afternoons :)
It's like all those bar leagues where people play softball for 90mins and then hang out at the bar afterwards for the rest of the day.
Sex, Politics, Religion were the traditional ones to avoid. I'd also add 'childcare/how to raise children' as another one that can easily escalate/some people have very strong opinions on.
Best stay silent and let people assume you're a killer than open your mouth and prove them right.
> There's been a push where everyone is somehow required to voice their opinion.
It's a trap. McCarthy's Inquisition never ended. You don't need to go find those pesky ___ when you can pressure everyone into confessing their beliefs.
So where do you stand on Israel?
> [Bystanders] included those, for example, who did not speak out when they witnessed the persecution of individuals targeted simply because they were Jewish, or during the phase of mass murder, did not offer shelter to Jews seeking hiding places.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bystanders
The Jews hold Fraulein Jeanine personally responsible for not speaking out against genocide when it was committed against them, and for not aiding in the concealment and escape of refugees. It's fair.
SIV was part of MLK's agenda in the 60s.
In the 90s, neighboring Jeanines were supposed to look out for abused women and children who couldn't advocate for themselves.
Then in the 2000s, it's once again the Jeanines of the world who were supposed to say something if they saw something.
The Jeanines were marching for BLM in the 2020s.
Policing has fallen out of fashion so now Jeanines are deputized in mandatory DEI "ally" programs at work.
A guard shot in the direction of my grandma when she stopped at the railway station. She stopped because she heard people begging for water from the wagons.
What she could have done? And this is also very relevant for judging, let's say, Biden, or every head of state in general. People demanding action are usually completely ignorant of the actual agency of the targets of their screed. (And if they are in fact aware, then they are just demanding empty gestures, which is probably even worse, as it just makes more people mad.)
In general the biggest bang for the buck is voting.
Speaking up on Twitter is somewhere at the end of the list. Who knows where's speaking up when someone tells a joke with a punchline that is based some xenophobic/racist/bigoted stereotype. (Not to mention the complexity that comes from context, comes from the fun in safe transgressions against truly shared values, and so on.)
Of course there's an upside and downside to affirmative actions. Corporate mandated DEI bullshit is ... no surprise bullshit (eg. mandatory DEI training for everyone for no reason, just makes people fed up with the whole thing), but giving on the job training opportunities to disadvantaged people is not bullshit. (Plus also not without downsides and implementation challenges.)
Nothing! The expectation is not that she succeeds, only that she tries. She tried, was shot at, and couldn't complete the task. That's not on her. The ask was that she try.
The most anybody can ever do is act when and where it is safe to do so, and remain alive enough to help as often as possible. Resistance and terrorism use the same playbook.
> Speaking up on Twitter is somewhere at the end of the list.
You say that, and it's true, but you miss the big picture. If it doesn't matter, so much effort wouldn't be expended on cancelling and censoring everybody who speaks out against Israel. Why does Israel give so much of a shit what people are saying?
(Answer: even if it changes nothing, it influences public perception. Capturing hearts and minds is usually necessary for a successful campaign.)
Seems to work well. If they insist on continuing, I like to go down the path of "Please stop. As stated, I'm not comfortable discussing personal matters when I'm on the clock being paid to do something else. If you'd like me to listen to your diatribe, I'd be more than happy to do provided it's at a 5-star restaurant of my choosing, where you'll be footing the entire bill for myself and my whole extended family in exchange for us hearing your opinions". Most have gotten the hint the first time, only used the second once.
My grandmother was one of those people. She wanted to "win debates", in her words. I'm not sure the winning ever happened, but she tried for decades.
Not engage on any topic outside the strictly necessary for work: a passive-aggressive way to keep the animosity forever
I once was hired as a type of consultant for an internal matter. The company had a lot of in-house developed software from various internal departments situated in different countries.
A whole bunch of representatives traveled to a single location focusing on one such important application. We had 10 local versions of it. Plan is to get rid of all of them and align on what should go into a single new one that was to be built.
The sessions were a total disaster. A tragedy of the commons situation where each representative did not cooperate or align, instead they all tried to "win" each and every little detail. Frustration grew, there was shouting, petty revenge behavior, toddler-like silence (I refuse to further speak), people simply leaving, and even people crying from stress.
In the debrief with the session leader, she was still traumatized. She watched me dutifully make notes and then asked: how do you do this?
During the sessions, which lasted 2 days, I was at perfect peace amidst a bunch of screaming pseudo-adults. Completely unbothered. I'm not talking about controlling my frustration, I had none at all.
Because I don't care. It's a super power. Which obviously needs to be applied responsibly.
I used to have a lot of trouble when trying to not care about stuff. I didn't care about most stuff, but it used to be impossible to not care about stuff I was naturally interested in.
Now after almost three years raising a toddler I can see clearly when people are behaving like babies. And I'm used to handle a stressed baby who is not cooperating for God knows why. It happens quite frequently and I just play along. I got used to being there, offering support without any expectations (because he usually doesn't want any at that point), trying things out just to give him a chance to take the bait, etc. Now it just feels like life is finally making sense to me. I catch myself applying this to my relationship with my wife, to my work, etc. I feel like I would probably not make these realizations nor develop this mindset if it wasn't for my kid.
I think I "don't care" because I'm very analytical. Already at a very young age did I realize that this world doesn't make much sense in that it's not very logical, consistent or fair. It's more like a game to play.
So you develop a kind of "humans going to human" attitude where you detach from drama. Or at least pick your battles.
I like that. Hope you don't mind me stealing it :)
Point is to control emotion (negative side at least) and get stuff done. Perform like a "professional killer" who kills problems (I remember there is a manga with this topic).
There are always too many people losing their control of themselves (or don't have enough from the beginning). If possible, help them. If not, help yourself and don't bother.
We are entities with limits. Spending time on things we cannot/will not do is a waste (I value my will almost as important as my capability, we are humans not slaves/machines).
This is like disassociating your sense of identity or ego from your opinions/thoughts according to Eckhart Tolle.
This is something like being "aware" or "being an observer" of yourself according to Zens.
This is something like "stillness" according to stoics.
Congratulations! You've unlocked your "deeper self" :D
Oh Star Trek played a vital role in both our formative years? That’s nice, but let’s get back to solving the matter at hand.
That said, there are some times that even Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans can actually get along.
I'm bistellar: I love both Star Trek AND Star Wars!
I like holodeck episodes, as long as they're not overdone. I have no strong feelings about Gowron, seems like a canonical distillation of a Klingon. Maybe we won't get along.
> I'm bistellar: I love both Star Trek AND Star Wars!
Me too! Can we get along now?
If you disagree with this I hope you get pipd /s
In The Pale Moonlight is the maximum scenery-chewing by Avery Brooks I can take.
(AKA "Hard Time", S4E19)
...Did you know Battlestar Galactica was based on the Book of Mormon?
I also love Dark Star! But it is time for Sgt. Pinback to feed the alien.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQK98HbKBY
Some people hustle pool. Some people hustle cars. But have you ever heard about the man who hustles stars? Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkJheh1XcAQ
Due to unfortunate confusions by the cosmos and misunderstandings by the search engines at the outset of the internet era, he had to make a trans-steller switch to Star Gazer!
People and worldviews are totally inconsistent, even when two people watched the exact same thing religiously and can quote it back to you in context.
That it was made by immoral or amoral people is secondary to that usefulness.
The way to get things done with difficult people is:
1. Work out (for yourself) what you really want*
2. Work out (for yourself) what they really want*
3. Accept that they want that
4. Work maturely and fairly within that context.
No cookie cutter management fluff is going to get you anywhere useful with intelligent people.
* Usually people want their situation to either be more rewarding (read: recognition or control) or less taxing.
Edit: Acknowledging this here, because it does apply to this comment:
5. Draw the rest of the owl
They want, more than anything, approval and recognition - to an embarrassing extent.
It's not fun and I'd have it almost any other way given the choice, but we've achieved a lot despite that and observers so far have been astute enough to see things for what they are.
bollocks. intelligent people are just as susceptible to advertising, charisma, good looks, "presence", flattery, threats, and other manipulation as anyone. The bar may be a little higher, but everyone has intrinsic biases regardless of IQ, and it's not hard to flesh those out through interactions, then pander to them.
These are all part and parcel of the management toolkit and if you don't think they are then chances are they're working on you right now. "Advertising works, even when you know how advertising works".
Intelligent wasn't some nod to the learned class or a differentiator, I meant it in a very general and generous way.
People quickly see through things like, "I understand that you feel that way, and I'll definitely take your comments on board.
Moving forward let's see how we can collaborate in a manner in which we can all feel heard and empowered."
Or rote-learned manufactured smalltalk.
It's not an argument against generally finding things in common with people either, of course, just a recommendation to avoid the scripted stuff and get to the meat of it sooner.
I do think that a lot of management advice would suffer from a replication crisis if it had a strong enough base for that to be coherent.
Again, It's half your life in your most active years so Idk how I'd tolerate a lonely workplace in top of an increasingly lonely world. Does everyone just suffice using online dating and posting here for other socialization?
> There's no reason to feel like this is a negative thing.
disagree or not, I already gave my POV. you spend half your waking hours of the best years of your life there, I want to try and at least be open to the idea of people who hopefully are passionate in the same kind of work as me would have something to connect over.
But hey, if you have friends in town or are fine focusing on family, that's fine.
>I can certainly get all my friendship needs met outside of work and love from my family at home. The only time I'd be desperate to make friends at work is if I'm single in a new city with no attachments to anyone around me.
welcome to most college grads that don't all go work at a FAANG together after college. First job sucked but met some great friends, still talk to this day. Didn't force myself at all; some people asked to go out to lunch and I was simply willing enough to go out instead of keep my head at my desk. Some meshed well, some not so much.
2nd job was amazing from a career perspective, but I clearly wasn't going to closely bond with everyone else being 15+ years older than me with kids/family as a single 26YO dude (at the time). Wouldn't change it for the world, but it was always a lingering feeling there where I felt I had to try and act 10 years older in career and maturity compared to just being myself in the first role.
At work? They are not my friends. Over almost a decade working for the same company there's one person I can consider a friend and I'm pretty sure I'll continue to talk once we are working at other places. Everyone else? Not friends. Friendly, sure.
Work is really the wrong place to be looking for friends. Hopefully one has a life outside of work.
I've had to jump jobs every 3 years (not because I wanted to. just laid off) and I try to make at least 2-3 people I keep in contact with at every place. Made a few close friends but not at every job.
>Work is really the wrong place to be looking for friends.
Third place is dying, so it's becoming more and more of the only place to meet friends. It's not uncommon advice to try and find friends at the place you work. But like people anything, YMMV.
>Hopefully one has a life outside of work.
3 years of pandemic and looming recession don't help much with that, unfortunately. feel so bad for those that graduate in 2019, or worse, in college as the pandemic hit.
How do you make friends with the equivalent of someone's customer service voice?
Not everyone is or even wants to. You just have to earn enough trust for them to drop the mask, and sometimes that involves not wearing one yourself.
I'll admit it's usually easier (or harder) for my industry to do this. I work in games, many people like and play games Obvious icebreaker: what kind of games do you play? Granted, games are super varied and it can lead nowhere if you play MMOs and the recipient plays FPSs, but it's more than what most can try to start out with. It also means there's a lot more non-devs on the floor to talk with too if you don't care to breath tech in and out of work.
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I do also need to echo the other reply that there are also, simply more and more people who aren't willing to try to socialize at work. You can't do much about that so don't spend your time talking to a wall if you can identify one.
I can't see how making people more comfortable talking to and collaborating with you could really be a negative, but everyone has different priorities I suppose.
I prefer the Columbo method. No matter emotional the other person gets, remain calm, polite, and respectful in ALL of your responses. Remember that an angry person's only goal is to get you angry as well in an effort to blind you to the facts. Then when you trip up, they point at you and say, "Ha! See? You were wrong!" A professional manipulator can be very, VERY good at this. The most important thing to remember is: just don't get angry no matter what. You can't control THEM, but you CAN control YOU.
If they are the type who can _eventually_ be reasoned with, then relentlessly question their facts, poke holes in their logic, and eventually they will likely shut up or go away. Or, possibly, you might learn something you didn't know and they weren't good at articulating it well, and you can both move forward with a better understanding. It sucks that some people can't put forth a rational argument without making it a flame war first, but that is sometimes the way it goes.
But if they just want to argue, then a simple, "sorry, but I really have to focus on X right now," followed by the silent treatment always works as a last resort.
Really taught me a lot about my perspectives and what real humility looks like.
If your goal is specifically to learn how to work with people you don't like then it makes sense to try work with them. If your goal is anything but that then you're better off avoiding that situation.
You have two choices here.
You can be fight for what you think is right but go into that battle understanding you have a high chance of losing. It is a noble endeavor and society needs people willing to pay the personal price to make forward progress. Only you can decide if this is the hill you want to die on.
The second choice is to put yourself and/or your family first and move on. It's just a job. This second choice will almost always result in more happiness and possibly even wealth for you.
Which is more important to you? Fighting for some form of "justice" here or being happy?
And while I get job hopping because of money (bigger pay bumps, company loyalty is dead), I still wouldn't want to hop Too often. That will also make it harder to jump later on when a really good opportunity comes up.
It also brings up an old adage: "when everything around you smells, look under your shoe". Of every job has "someone" that annoys you in different ways, you may need more than a change of environment to address that.
"If you're gonna keep talkin I'm gonna put you in the trunk" - also Raylan Givens
Either way, the quote to me reflects a need to either change yourself or your environment.
Is there a way you can help find some work for them to do? Like, hitting the pavement hard to wrangle up customers?
I dunno, just spitballing!
It is also possible that you just don’t understand their competency or value. It isn’t a given that high skill in rational discourse is necessary for everyone.
I'm in a related situation. I've been working for a company for years, and the owner is incompetent in most areas except sales. His original company is over a decade old but now almost dead. Somehow he's still getting investor money and for the past 5 years has been trying to start a new business, but keeps pivoting before anything is actually released to the public. I'm the main dev and it's getting frustrating, but I know without me he definitely won't get anywhere. And the pay vs time invested is pretty good at the moment.
Are they bad at contributing technically? Are they lazy? Are they bullish on bad decisions? Do they not listen to input? Are they reckless? Are they overly optimistic? Are they morally dubious? I've yet to meet a founder-type that didn't exhibit at least one (often two) of those traits.
You might balk at this, but since you’re at the cofounder/lead level, you already have the power to make real change. Lead this other person, support them, don’t do their job for them. You likely need to “teach them to fish” so to speak.
There are some tough conversations and boundary setting you likely need to do. It’s going to be hard, because the other party is used to the way things are. If you hang in there, stay patient, and focus on maintaining a positive, growing relationship, to have a good chance of succeeding though.
This weakness you perceive in your peer is an opportunity for growth if you look at it the right way.
Most things in life are about relationship management. Without it, the overall endeavour fails.
Basically set boundaries, those types set very clear boundaries around the money so that's a great place to look when considering what your time boundary is.
I know someone in a similar situation. My advice at the time: get a big white board and a keep running score on who was right on any particular decision. I don't think they took me up on that suggestion.
I've worked in a startup that had funding, and a good idea, but the CEO couldn't run a business. He also wouldn't let any of the reigns go to people who COULD run the business, so it was miserable. We'd change directions at least once a week, we'd have him promising customers things that we obviously couldn't deliver, and he'd sign contracts we couldn't honour. He was also abusive to the staff, with the exception of one, who was also incompetent but brown-nosed relentlessly.
If the idea has promise, leave, wait out any non-compete and start again without them. Heck, they may even close down and you'd be free to do as you wish. Or move on if there's no way to do that without being sued into the ground. Life is too short to be miserable at work.
It still feels foolish to walk away, I could probably will this business into some level of revenue. Question is if it’s worth it to me, a liquidity event would be so far away.
sounds like the solution is to not work 7 day weeks, or pay them more in some way (more vacation after shipping, more money). But I get it, that's unheard of for 90's game industry.
I'll do my best to make you look good, if you do the same for me and everyone else.[1]
Sometimes it works well. Sometimes it doesn't. It's not that I don't like the person per se. It's that that person typically likes themselves too much, and the rest of stand in that shadow (read: blind spot).
People talk about being nice and being kind, etc. at work. Sure, that helps. But first and foremost...Do. Your. Job. And don't neglect the team either.
[1] This work "agreement" is a more optimistic riff on another heuristic I have: When you expect more of me than you do of yourself, we have a problem.
In the end, the situation became so untenable that I felt compelled to resign from the Japanese MNC. As for my colleague, I hear he's planning to retire with his wife in China, where he can hopefully enjoy an affordable living standard.
I would say that he has an interesting work attitude.
In other workplaces, I was surprised that the company hired a male colleague who had the habit of touching or molesting other male colleagues.
According to the video below, it's Data's one and only!
0. Focus on facts in any conversation with or about the person. Keep anything that is not obviously related to work products out of it.
Yes, especially when you both don't like each other but there is willingness on both sides to achieve same or at least similar goal and have productive relationship, keeping emotions and opinions out of it and focusing on just the facts is, in my opinion, the best way to deal with the situation.
Also, don't comment, spread rumors of any kind about the person you don't like. I tell other people "I may not like the person but I don't find it a problem as long as we both want to achieve the same positive goal for the organisation."
77% issues in business are really just people who dislike you personally.
After becoming a manager I realized that not only do I need to continue handling occasional personal disagreements with colleagues, but I'm also now responsible for coaching my reportees on how to effectively navigate their own conflicts and occasionally stepping in to mediate. It's been an interesting challenge managing people and helping them become more happy, productive and achieve our business goals as a team.
Shameless plug: In a related matter, I recently wrote simple guidelines and examples on how to communicate better when receiving requests from colleagues, which I noticed is one of the many ways people start developing a negative opinion of their counterpart, fostering conflicts:
- https://thomasvilhena.com/2023/10/guideliness-for-requests-f...
If they are that obviously disagreeable, others likely also have problems with them and they are just a difficult person to work with. Leadership that allows such a person to run unabated (ie: no corrective action nor termination) is ineffective and weak in my opinion, either purposefully or accidentally.
If you find someone that is strongly disagreeable indefinitely and others in the company voice the same sentiment for long periods, you should leave as soon as possible because somewhere in the chain, there are problems no one is addressing and it will only get worse especially if it is a young company. People like this are a cancer and it will never result in anything good.
If you find someone that is strongly disagreeable and others don't say the same (or even worse, the opposite!), there is a good chance _you_ are the problem and should check-in with yourself why.
People don't rampage through life unchecked for no reason. There is a reason and both you can near immediately fix. Kow-towing to others and just dealing with it isn't solving the problem, it could even be making the situation worse.
I engage my colleague with an initial friendly tone via Teams, full of my characteristic smiley emojis. My messages are seen, however ignored.
Several hours later, I notice that my colleague is joining a non-priority, non-mandatory meeting. I send a new message, stating that I am aware of his presence on the meeting. I beg for any feedback, as by now my inbox has 2 frustrated emails from our client. My words are conveying desperation, as I only intend to obtain any significant status update.
My colleague replies that his agenda is none of my business, then proceeds to report my "invasive" approach to my manager.
Our client got understandably upset, as we missed the deadline. We later lost the contract that month.
I still do not go along with this coworker, as earlier this month we have had another disagreement, which, I am afraid, has only worsened the relationship, maybe up to an unsalvageable state.
This article does not seem to have suitable advice for my scenario, as I have no interest in working with unresponsive and irresponsible individuals. I do wish the article could provide more insights on how to deal with lack of ownership as well.
Tests passing, screenshots/gif of build fix in action, etc
Otherwise asking them questions can help. Come from the place that you must be missing something and ask them why you can't get XYZ to work as expected. Make them figure out what the problem is. Really get in the mindset that you're missing something though, or it can come off as patronizing.
Since it sounds like he's doing it on purpose (malicious compliance), if it's happening several times already and you've already explained to him what the correct process is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving people second and third chances, have a talk with them and see what the problem is, maybe they have issues with their health or their personal life, but people who engage in malicious compliance because they can't be bothered to follow a simple process need to be shown the door pronto as that attitude negatively affect the whole team.
How many bosses have those polled had? (What's the likelihood that any given boss is toxic?)
The best way to deal with it is to vote with your feet.
If you must work with someone, or consider yourself to have an ethical obligation to follow this, this is good advice.
If you don't...
Just slowwwly remove your touchpoints with them. Freeze them out. Go through other channels. If you do this right, the person will feel like you have just gradually drifted apart, but won't be able to pinpoint a clear cause.
You don't have to try and get them fired, or anything (and that may backfire on you, so I don't recommend doing it.) But if enough people do this, then they will gradually be the most replaceable person on the team, and they may be let go regardless.
Doesn't work if they're leading the project. This is also a very childish way of dealing with problems. Part of your job is to be an adult and learn how to work with people you don't like. Not how to avoid them. It's a critical skill to success in this industry.
Eh, I disagree that it's childish advice! It works out pretty well for everyone except the person being frozen out - no matter if you're a child or an adult.
then that person posts on hacker news why no one seems to want to "be an adult" , how they are blocked on tasks due to slow communication, and overall feel the workplace is hostile.
And the chain of apathy continues. And people wonder why work is so miserable. PAy can be a factor, but it usually isn't in tech.
Always resorting to that isn't mature or professional, but neither is not recognizing when that's the best option.
I finally left, comically after this person left - the company now dangling and struggling. I joined a new company, and I found it refreshing to see people take things seriously again. Huge difference.
So yes, you should GTFO if this happens to you.
given the responses here, it sounds like it should help a few people's problems.
Maybe I should use this as a handout.
1. you have to work with remotely, and
2. never reads your entire e-mails, only the first sentence or (if you're lucky) the first paragraph.
Any ideas?
I think the nature of your dependency on them and their dependency on you figures heavily into your viable options to address the overall communication problem. In my experience this kind of issue is often unique to the specific pair of people.
Alternatively, write multiple one sentence emails... :D
Seriously? Ask him to read better an/or do more calls, if they work better?
If nothing helps, fire/report/escalate whatever option you have, as simple as that, or run for yourself ;)
“I’m having trouble figuring out this piece of the critical path”
[1] https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/
[2] https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...
Don't mix topics for these people. Send multiple E-mails. Chances are, they use their Inbox as a TODO list, and if they have an E-mail with multiple topics it could get lost.
That’s basically every executive, or most managers, so only lead with the most important bullets and put details way at the bottom
I know, I know, as a millenial I hate to do it too. But it does get things done much smoother and much quicker when someone isn't that great of a text-based communicator in my experience.
Maybe include extra detail below, but reduce it to one sentence. You need something, ask for it.
Honestly, it's the biggest part of business communication. That first sentence.
The very first sentence of any work email I send is the action I want them to perform -- the sentence that most people would put at the end. I also write the subject line so it functions as a todo bullet point for them.
The next paragraph is a summary of why I need them to do whatever it is that I am asking them to do.
The rest of the email is the details.
The last paragraph of the email restates the first.
If I'm dealing with a person like that, and the thing they want to "win" isn't something important for work, then I just let them "win". It's no skin off my nose. Let them have their meaningless victory.
If it is something important for work, then I just make the best factual case I can to whoever matters and roll with the results.
What's more, the results:
* turns out it's a delaying tactic to avoid doing work
* feature creep
* added complexity, which is brittle (feature has to be reworked, nobody is happy)
* constant nitpicking + the assumption that you will adopt their higher standards
Is this better? For some projects maybe. At least we have alerts that go off every day and nobody pays attention to them and multi-tiered shared libraries that result in esoteric problems (mostly from package upgrades) that affects projects X, but not Y and Z.
Not to say these engineers don't add value, but they are daily problems that everyone has to work around. This includes product stakeholders.
Seems right up Forbes' alley tho.
Are you a man? It's a pretty common action for a man to want to "solve a problem" when hearing a conversation based around problems. Even with modern conversation we don't really have much language to codify when we "just want to rant". It should be felt by body language and my autistic mind never catches that. It just feels even lazier to sit there and listen to someone dump with no recourse, I feel helpless.
So I get it. I don't have an answer and I ironically did it right here, but just some consideration from the other side of the fence.
>it really only applies if someone is being kind of annoying rather than weapons grade incompetent or manipulative.
sounds like half the problems being vented out here.
Also, as someone who works in male dominated profession, men rant all the time, complain all the time and do not want to hear solutions when that goes on.
Just assume they just want to rant. I tend to give advice too, but I try to hold up unless I am really sure, cause most of the time people just want to rant.
>Also, as someone who works in male dominated profession, men rant all the time, complain all the time and do not want to hear solutions when that goes on.
sure. Doesnt mean men who are listening don't try. Or interject with their own rant instead. Those tend to be the two most common responses.
>I tend to give advice too, but I try to hold up unless I am really sure, cause most of the time people just want to rant.
I'm more of the "dang, that sucks" kind of person personally. So I guess I'm the ideal subject for that. Not because I'm not listening, I just genuinely have nothing else to say in response. I don't like ranting much IRL period (work, family, friends).
Nice and incompetent (assuming the person really is incompetent) is usually a lot harder. The business decision should be the same: fire them. But for most non-sociopaths, nobody wants to fire nice people, and their incompetence usually lingers much longer.
On the flip side you see much of the same dynamic. Everyone loves brilliant nice people, so you keep them around. When it comes to brilliant jerks, I've found that most of the time , if they really are brilliant, they can be coached to understand their jerkiness is an impediment to their business/career goals, and will at least acknowledge it and try to keep it under wraps. But if they don't, at this stage of my life I just don't think it's worth it. They can go be super successful somewhere else, but my life is too short to be around someone a considerable portion of the day who is just toxic.
I also think it's important to clarify what being "a jerk" means - there's a difference between being brash and short and being a toxic jerk. I mean, I think most people would classify Steve Jobs as a jerk by the dictionary definition, but he obviously wasn't a jerk that was toxic to the organization. On the contrary, he was a giant motivating force, and many people have said they did the best work of their lives working for him and are grateful for the opportunity.
The problem with "kind of jerks" at the helm is that people further down the totem pole look up to their leaders as examples of how to behave, and it is a lot easier to adopt "jerkness" into your behavior than it is to adopt the more subtle, effective parts of Jobs's personality and behavior that enabled Apple to succeed. So as they say, the fish rots from the head. The leader's SVPs take on a mildly "jerk" persona because that's the example set, their VPs look at their SVPs and become mostly jerks, their Directors become raging assholes, and before you know it, the whole management chain is toxic.
YMMV and it can really depend on the pedigree of work. But personally I've never ran into a truly incompetent nice person. Very few incompotent jerks who were fortunately let go quickly, but the closest I can recall is a really nice lead who clearly wasn't lead material. But they were an absolutely brilliant IC and clearly had knowledge to spread to others. You can tell why they made him a lead; he was more or less a "guru" of sorts who constantly got people unstuck from some sticky situations. Being a helpful IC isn't the same as being a lead, though.
But otherwise, I don't know. At least, I've never run into those "can't do fizzbuzz" levels of programmers who somehow got hired.
And I don't think this is just my bias, but as much as people love to crap on leetcode-style engineering interviews, they do ensure an objective bar of programming ability: I have never seen someone do great at programming problem interviews who then struggled to program on the job (but they certainly may have had other issues). But the interviews I've sat in on for roles like product management and marketing had less of an objective bar, so it was generally easier for someone with a great personality to get hired in those roles.
sure, but the further past junior you go, the less programming ability really matters to your day to day job. There's stuff I'm doing on a technical level now that I woulda done just fine 7 years ago in college, but lacking the ability to properly integrate it into a proper PR, communicate with systems/product owners on requirements, iterate on based on customer feedback, and overall maintain with other legacy code in mind. That's gained from experience working on a large codebase, not by hacking away at your ability to find the longest palindrome substring on a whiteboard.
It's inevitable to ask those questions to a junior who lacks work experience, but it's really annoying that I have to study trivia like that some 7+ years into industry. Or that some companies are so paranoid about me answering their trivia quiz offline that they want to compromise my machine's privacy to check on me siting at my computer in thought. I'm gonna be googling documentation on the job anyway, so at least ask me about concepts if you need to probe.
>But the interviews I've sat in on for roles like product management and marketing had less of an objective bar, so it was generally easier for someone with a great personality to get hired in those roles.
I agree, it's hard to gauge those skills, harder to build those skills without having a job first (catch 22) and nearly impossible to assess in any technical test. These are parts of business that can fail even if you do nothing wrong on a technical level, and since society is so blame-first, we never truly assess how much of that is on the market, the individual, or the product.
I do agree it's nice to have something more objective for a technical role. I just think it's a shame that I'm still being asked to implement atoi for a graphics programmer interview. What does that have to do my ability to send data to a GPU?
Toxic jerks are not just autistic-like unaware of social situations. They are fully aware when they can and can not afford it.
1. No one is being an asshole, it's a real misunderstanding or difference of opinion. The article basically helps you in this circumstance. It's rare.
2. The other party is an asshole. They should be fired. If no one gets along with them this is probably true.
3. You are an asshole. You should be fired. If you find yourself always working with people you think are assholes this is probably true.
Figure out if it's 1,2, or 3 first
3 people sit around at a table during happy hour discussing ideas for an offsite.
Person A suggests that they have it in Atlanta and provides good justification.
Later, Person B follows up with their contact in finance to see if they can extend the budget, and gets it approved.
Person C, who's job it was to plan the offsite, coordinates with the travel coordinators, gets invitations sent out, and other various
Who's idea was this? Who deserves the credit?
I think all 3 have claims and it'd be easy for each one of them to accuse the other 2 of idea theft or taking credit for things they didn't do. A contrived example, yes, but I think misunderstandings due to a lack of seeing all the information/data happens more often than people realize.
Examples situations close friends of mine have experienced:
1. You are a PhD student and he (and it usually is a he) is your professor.
2. You are in a profession with limited opportunity (say, HR) and he is your boss.
3. You are an immigrant, and losing your job means leaving the country.
4. All of the above.
I feel articles like these are written by people that have never been in above situations. If you are in a dependency situation, you are fucked. Pro lifetip: Avoid dependency situations whenever you can. And sometimes you can't and just have to hope for the best.
(edit: add styling)
My 'way out' was to stay on and keep building good terms with his boss's equivalent in another part of the company, one of the owners. Worked out ok. Had she not been there, I'd have left.
About a year of my enlistment in the Marine Corps was under a platoon sergeant who was one of the worst people I have ever met. Petty, cruel, and genuinely sadistic. He had authority over virtually every aspect of our lives, to include things like random barracks inspections in the middle of the night (that was definitely not the worst of it). It was a nightmare.
It was a defining period and I got out vowing to never put myself in a position where someone had that much control over my life again.
My friend and I were recruited for a counterintelligence spot that paid a $35,000 re-enlistment bonus at the time. I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger and stay in.
My friend stayed for another two enlistments before getting out. His stories convinced me I made the right decision. He now has a very lucrative related job in the private sector while I shifted gears entirely.
Especially with supervising professors.... The dumbest people... And Hr... Shit people..
The thing I find so amusing about your comment is that, in a thread about dealing with toxic people, you have written off "supervising professors" as "the dumbest people", and all of HR as "Shit people", and you fail to see the irony.
Why is your example HR? Literally every company has an HR function and they're often quite large organizations. There's tons of opportunity to move away from a bad boss in HR.
A better example would be some company-specific niche role [1], where the only similar roles would be at a competitor located on the other side of the country.
[1] I could give examples, except those would give away more personal info that I want to
The most important lesson programming has ever taught me.
Some people are inherently toxic. You should not assume good will, because they're motivated by antagonism and hierarchy, not a genuine need to solve problems together.
Worse, they're incapable of empathy. And they gravitate to positions of power. So the higher you go, the more likely you are to meet them.
Obviously it's wildly and unhelpfully wrong to suggest everyone you have friction with is like this.
But it's also unrealistic to ignore the existence of a personality type that can be incredibly destructive, professionally and personally.
I’ve been in the situation #3. The rule is that you put your best game face on and try to either fly under the radar or not give them reasons to dislike you. Create a network of acquaintances on your own level and get as much intelligence as you can.
Brave Soldier Švejk is practically required reading for getting the right kind of attitude.
The only reason they become issues is if they don't like you. Otherwise, these are still valid. The post isn't about working with someone who dislikes you. It's about working with someone you dislike.
My toxic boss (she) was a diversity hire (women in tech) with limited experience (fast tracked for management) but unlimited support from the top (diversity quotas). I ended up bullied out of the company with damaged mental health (anxiety attacks).
This has not been true for some years now: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=61
He was very difficult to work with, but also inarguably one of the smartest people I have ever met. I learned so much from him that I still use today. We were even relatively friendly outside of work topics, talked about our mutual interest in minimalist music pretty often.
When he was let go for obvious reasons, I was the strangest combination of upset and relieved I have ever experienced.
Not in my experience - I've met a few spectacular examples in my career - but I am in my 50s.
When in practice some optimization or other gains that might be taken by his expertise are offset by just making everybody worse at their jobs
The "bitter old timer" doesn't happen as often anymore either, as people generally leave a job before they get too bitter due to the opportunities available.
In my professional life I've been called a genius, and I've been called an asshole. I've never intentionally gone out of my way to be either, but it is what it is. A decade or so of struggling to get my points across without being an asshat about it I discovered I have ADHD.
Job security has always come with the ability to really deep dive into the things everyone else had trouble figuring out. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria seems to have been a likely culprit for the asshat side of things - I spent all this time figuring out the answer, and they aren't listening to me, these people are idiots!
With a bit of medication, a lot of self-help reading, and a healthy dose of cognitive behavioural therapy I'm so much better at interacting with people, and as a bonus I no longer have to bulldoze them into realising my ideas/fixes/etc are the better option (when they are, of course!). I've noticed people are no longer starting off on the defensive with their shields up to full whenever I pipe up now.
Just throwing a thought into the ether. I do acknowledge there's probably a lot of wise old timers retiring out of the system causing the decrease, as well as the points you made, but you'd think there'd be a few more new and upcoming greybeards taking their place.
I'm not saying it is for sure related, just wondering if anyone else can see a similar connection in their experiences?
Not trying to diagnose every bitter genius in a one-shot or anything either, just thinking if there is a correlation to former bitters becoming easier to work with after mental health treatments it feels like it should definitely be explored further. In my anecdotal experience the difference has been absolute night and day, work life is so much easier now.
I was... maybe not brilliant, but pretty good. I also was at least a borderline jerk - arrogant and not very nice. It took me at least a decade out of college to get better.
My wife and kids think I'm on the autism spectrum, though I have never been diagnosed. Whether or not it's true, "people" is a language that it took me a long time to learn.
Autistic people still are not given all of the opportunities to succeed, and training is uneven at best, but it's certainly on the right trajectory.
That said, please consider looking at confirming a diagnosis. If you are indeed on the spectrum, you may benefit from knowing and learning adaptive strategies.
Of the set of emotionally immature people, only those with excellent technical skills will remain in employment.
That's ignoring other broken parts of the system, such as nepotism.
That doesn't appear to happen for other unhelpful behavior. Plenty of brilliant people with severe issues with all sorts of other criminal or self-destructive habits.
Yes, there are newgrad "rockstars" that can't play nice, and end up not being very productive. But there are also veteran engineers who have stayed at companies through 3 years of 100% attrition and are not super interested in listening to the opinion of the 4th junior backfill on some minor improvement to a system they architected and have been given 0 time to pay down technical debt on. Or maybe they are going through a messy divorce and the stress of it bleeds into their professional life.
I've gotten a lot of good out of finding such individuals, assuming they're reasonable people, and doing what I can to make their lives a little better.
Most people are not bad, and most of the time when two people don't get along, it's not because either of them are bad people. It's usually just a chemistry thing.
Whenever people have to work together as a team, social skills become at least as important as technical ones.
That's why whenever I've interviewed job applicants, my main concern is "how well will they function on the team", not "do they have all the necessary skills". Assuming that someone is smart and likes to learn, skills can be taught. Fitting in on a team, though, cannot.
wish you can tell that to the current job market. Tons of jobs I wasn't even given time to talk to a technical reviewer for because it seems people right now just want the perfect candidate who will be productive from day zero.
Being intelligent does not mean someone is good at self-awareness.
Aptitude with a technology certainly correlates with intelligence, but it doesn't necessarily imply above-average intelligence.
Some people attain their skills through Herculean levels of hard work, rather than reading about it once and the information just clicking because of their excellent brains. (Though, in my experience, they tend to also be less arrogant than techno-prodigies, but YMMV.)
Self-awareness is, similarly, orthogonal to intelligence (as you correctly state).
I find it interesting that an assumption of equivalence (or, at least, strong correlation) is so prevalent among tech workers and their friends.
sure, he could probably have been a bit more diplomatic instead of blowing his stack every time, but there's only so much a person can take.
I'd say half get filtered out somehow from the work force (be it in interviews or because they choose to focus on Acedemia) but a lot will still get through given the bar of a graduate junior.
1) there are Savant syndrome people out there who cannot catch and correct their problems
2) they seem disproportionately attracted to tech
So you're right that it's rare, but Tech does tend to be a very odd outlier for that kind of person.
How is it always the DBAs.
His emotions didn't bother me at all, and pretty quickly he came to like me exactly because I wasn't afraid of him and was always honest with him about my professional opinions.
Eventually, though, I became his de facto "contact point", and everyone else who needed to interact with him would come to me and have me do it instead. That ended up being a huge downside.
I'm opinionated and willing to stand up for what I believe is correct, but I'm soft spoken. I think the difference between the DBA and myself is that I am very open to other people's opinions and ideas. A fair number of my coworkers followed me here from a previous job.
For a while, I was being a little harsh and short with people on code reviews. I could sense how people were reacting though and actively sought to be better. I worked with a friend who is a software mentorship advocate on how to better communicate effectively.
As much as I hate the term, I think a little emotional intelligence and self reflection goes a long way.
It let me fix major bottlenecks in our system long before it affected other customers, and we could just shut him off for a while (it was in his contract after a while) until I fixed the problem.
I was a little sad when they finally banned him for good, but the rest of the company was rather relieved.
For me, the best hackaround for friction is a demo. If I want to prove a controversial idea to the team, I build it first in my own time and then show it. Talking about and planning to do big scary things is 99% of the drama source in my life. Sometimes the demo goes off rails too, but it has a much better chance.
After doing this for a while, I still believe the most potent off-hand mastery that a genius technologist could obtain is the sales pitch. Treating your team members just like your customers and hacking their brains into wanting what you propose is the ultimate skill - if you can pull it off. If you can't convince your team regarding your idea, it may not matter how brilliant it is. Dragging 10-20 horses to water is mostly infeasible for one person to accomplish without reaching for cartoon villain tactics (which would ultimately kill the whole business).
I've done the sales pitch a few times. My go-to trick is to present 3-4 options, one of which is the option I want the team to really go with. The other options are framed in such a way that everyone feels super smart picking the one I wanted all along. Carefully-crafted options can move mountains.
I'd previously had someone talk smack to me on the phone when I needed something, so I hung up and went over to their desk and chewed them out loudly.
This was the same place where one day after work I was at the pub with my workmates and I was profanely bad mouthing the head of IT as an incompetent boob (with just cause) and everyone was kicking me under the table trying to get me to shut up because his offsider was at the table listening. Two days later I look up to see him being marched past my desk and off the premises by security. He'd been fired.
So maybe I was the bad person in that office, but these people just refused to do their job for no explicable reason. I remember everyone told me they've never heard anyone swear at work as much as I did, but they named a server after me after I left so they seemed to appreciate me.
If I'm blocked, that's a lead's or manager's problem to solve or escalate. As a bonus, it leaves a paper trail that I don't need to lay out most of to begin with (just get it rolling).
In every other job I did not have this experience. Everyone was fine and polite and did their jobs, and so was I. The above job was in a merchant bank in London and very high pressure, yet people were slack and useless. I just called them out on their behavior. I was never reprimanded for any of my behaviour. My manager's manager invited me to return when I left (I had to leave due to an illness in my family) because of my work.
Some workplaces are just dysfunctional, like this one, the fact that the head of department was sacked gives you an idea. I was one of the few people who stood up to this culture and plowed through and fixed things. I sorted out several system breaking bugs while I was there, that has festered for years.
in my eyes, cool. Its their job to be annoyed and solve the people issues. If they don't want to do their job, why should I do it for them? They are probably paid more than me precisely to solve the annoying problems.
That's just my view of things. I've tried to be loyal and put the best intentions of the company first and everytime they lay me off without a second thought. I'm not on nor am interested in management track so I'm not going to "rise up to the occasion" and do more communication and leadership than I'm expected to. I was never rewarded for trying to fix dysfunctional behavior so I don't see the benefit for me.
But hey, if it worked out for you that's good. We all have different experiences. You mentioning London implies you probably have the exact opposite problem with terminating employees than I do (in the US), so I can start to see your POV on the issue.
While these aren't bad tips per se, the article is sorely incomplete. Where are the tips on how to escalate? Having conversations with management (and/or peers) on why bad behavior is being enabled? Where's the tip on leaving?
My last job had a brilliant asshole. Within a year it was clear the management knew and did not want to do anything about it. Every person in the team was tolerating the poor behavior. So as soon as I wrapped up the project I was working on, I switched teams.
He continued to be a headache in that team. Finally, about 2 years later I found out that one person who had suffered significantly was thinking of quitting. I let him know that if he wanted to escalate to HR (specifically for harassment - it was getting that far out of hand), that I had kept notes of his behavior (with dates, etc) during my time there. He decided he would escalate and informed his manager. The manager said "Give me a bit of time and let me deal with this." Soon after, the asshole went on vacation and soon after that it was announced that he had decided not to return. Whether he was fired or convinced to quit - I don't know.
The real question is: Why do things have to reach the point of harassment before action is taken? If you're in that sort of org, don't stay there. It will be a magnet for such folks.
I do feel sorry for the guy. We had lots of points of connection (as per this article). I did empathize with him on many things. He actually campaigned to get me that job! He could have been a great employee if he changed his world view and behaviors a bit. But social proof was against him and there was no one he looked up to who could mentor him on his behavior.
That's true. I've been at a job where people routinely talked badly about people in other teams but also a colleague I closely worked with was constantly accusing me of breaking agreements, going behind management's back. At first I didn't take all of this very seriously and thought trying to say as little as possible will be the best strategy. Eventually though my manager asked me directly and I mentioned these things. He said he'll take action and eventually also HR got in the loop. Some things happened but the general issues persisted. FWIW I heard colleagues even saying really insulting things about HR.
What does this actually mean? Can you give any examples?
Social Proof is a concept in the book Influence by Cialdini. I strongly recommend the book - fairly entertaining.
The idea is that your brain relies on people you consider to be your peers/in-group for many things: customs, social norms, and even truth. Your brain usually looks to them for guidance on the above, and often ignores others.
This is why the Bystander Effect is particularly pernicious. When something horrible is going on, and you see your friends observing it and doing it, your brain is primed to say things "My friends accept this, so there's probably nothing wrong with this" or "My friends are not interfering. I probably shouldn't either" When someone does interject and help, it's often by someone who does not consider the other bystanders as part of his peer group. This is expanded on here: https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2017/May/social-proof-and-the-b...
I often deal with this at work. I've had fellow coworkers make a claim, and I show a (simple) mathematical proof disproving their claim. The outcome is usually one of the following:
1. They accept they were wrong, but it doesn't stick in their mind. A week later they're parroting the same wrong thing.
2. They look at their peers in the room, and ask "Have any of you heard of this?" If no one has, they outright reject my proof without finding any flaws. This was shocking to me, but it's happened so often at the workplace I find it normal now.
I once got a bad rating at work because a particular circuit simulation wasn't behaving the way they expected it, and they insisted I was either running it wrong or had messed up the circuit file. I hadn't. I asked why they expected it to behave differently. The answer was always "We've been doing this for over a decade and the capacitance is never sensitive to the following inputs." This was tribal knowledge and I was the lone person questioning it.
The circuits expert was on vacation. The work stalled for 2 weeks where I pretended to find the flaw, and had to answer daily that I hadn't found it. Upon the expert's return, I go to him and he sends out an email to all of them saying "Your beliefs are wrong. The capacitance can change with those inputs. There's nothing wrong with the simulation."
But the damage was done. I was still viewed negatively. And I'm sure if I ask them now, they'll go back to "the capacitance never changes with those inputs" - it's what everyone else believes around them.
I've seen this in the SW world as well. Actually, much more often. Avoid a quicksort injection attack by randomizing the list (O(N) operation) first, and a room full of programmers laughed at me saying "That's silly! We're trying to sort a list and you're jumbling it up first. That's just going to make sorting harder!" (And no, they did not have an alternate solution to the attack).
I thought I was immune to such behavior. Surely, if someone comes to me with objective advice/evidence, I'll listen to him! But after I read that book, and as I got older, I encountered a number of situations where I was in the wrong, and realized that at some point in the past I had been advised on the correct path, but did not take it. Why did I not take it? The answer was always social proof: The person was not in my peer group, and so my brain always had an excuse. That person doesn't understand my perspective. Or That person lives a very different life. I don't want to live his life.
Random example from HN: Go search for Sarno and his treatment for back pain. Read up on Sarno's views on what caused back pain (and some other pains). For someone like me, his theory and solution is very much nonsensical pseudoscience. Had most people come to me with it, I would have dismissed it. But here I was on HN, with a significant number of folks stating how their back pain was gone for good - at times after years of suffering - by following Sarno's advice.
This is my crowd[1], so suddenly I did consider reading up on it and applying it.[2]
Getting back to my ex-coworker. He came from a culture of extreme competence. Very good at math, physics, and programming. Knew the low level details really well. This was considered a bare minimum to graduate from his elite university (not in the US). He felt all universities should have those minimum requirements, and since they didn't, someone had to protect teams at the company from them. He couldn't control hiring, but could control quality within the team.
By having that world view, he had automatically made all his teammates be part of the out-group. They were not his peers, and so he would ignore any advice they could give. Hence, no one was in a situation to gently steer him to better behavior.
[1] A tell tale sign of social proof in action is when someone says "I know it sounds crazy, but you should listen to this guy. He's one of us.
[2] Sorry for the non-spoiler. His advice didn't help me with my pain. But I totally accept it did for others, and do suggest it to others.
Blurry lines are hard, but harassment has very clear lines. I imagine that's the reason. At the same time, people don't want to be narks and report every little infraction. Being annoying doesn't necessarily mean you deserve to lose your job, but that's where the blurry lines come up, yet again.
>If you're in that sort of org, don't stay there. It will be a magnet for such folks.
It's not always easy to change teams nor jobs, sadly. And people need the money. Lot of things you wouldn't put up with if you had "fuck you" money. But very few do, fewer so in this economy.
I don't try hard to be someone others don't like. But I try with every inch to ask why at things I don't understand, and quite frankly I demand answers.
I very rarely believe in anybody professionally, because people has a tendency to nurse their subjective opinions and thought more than commit to long reasonings of why and find evidens for their claims.
I don't make friends at work. In my almost 25 years in software engineering and management of teams I go to work for getting things done and backed by as sound proof as possible. I keep track of this, write everything down and hate verbal communication because it blurs agreements and is subject to lie from other parts.
I am actually a cool guy at night. I have a rich family life and a big social network. I am mentally fit and in good shape. But don't fuck around when you work with me because I go hard on being absolute surgical on point.
Call it what you want. I call it being professional.
The real problems are the expert beginners who think they know everything because they read 3 books or something.
If someone came in with vastly more experience than me, I am not going toe-to-toe with them unless I know for a fact they are wrong because I trust they know what they are doing. As long as they aren't yelling at me or demeaning, I am on the train of helping them do what they want.
There's a difference between authority and being an asshole in my opinion.
I've tried to do this in the games industry and I just end up being called "slow". Because games have historically been "break fast, ship buggy". There's not a lot of value in a well-architectures codebase here. It's getting better due to some high profile buggy disasters, but change is slow.
> very rarely believe in anybody professionally, because people has a tendency to nurse their subjective opinions and thought more than commit to long reasonings of why and find evidens for their claims.
Most peope don't want to hear long reasonings unless they are the ones directly solving the problem. There's no point making an articulate proposal if the readers skim and pass on feedback I already addressed.
I imagine it's the same for many ambitious juniors. They get dismissed and they change their language as they adapt to the industry. Things aren't as eglitarian as the marketing shows, and those who see the sausage being made adapt.
I don't know. It sounds like you either had some very quality work history to come to these conclusions, you had the funds/connections to found/co-found work where you shape the culture, or you have an extremely strong sense of duty. I'm proud of my experiences, but I can't say I relate, and I'm already broken. No point correcting corporate, better to suck off their funds and prepare to be my own boss.