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Comment by awjr | Hacker News Reader

One of the reasons I'm leaving my current role at the end of the month is due to this egocentric development approach from the team lead.

"Bzzzzzt" and "Schoolboy error" are not good peer review comments to hand out to the team.

Technically the guy is very good, but it's toxic and unpleasant.

Work for me is about doing cool stuff, learning new things, and most importantly, helping the people I work with to do their job better and grow as individuals (I feed them donuts on a daily basis ;) ).

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As an aside, if you go for an interview and notice that each person has a Fail Buzzer (I never had one) as a 'joke', you should probably not accept a role if you don't have a thick skin.

They sound like fratboy douchebags. Did they hi-five you and chug some beers after hiring you?

I should probably write it up somewhere but the concept of the team going out and having a drink/socialising was quite alien to them.

I'd love to work on a team like that to be honest, all of the places I've worked at we haven't so much as even gone to the movies because of the age differences. One married w/kids, other 20-something, other Vim warrior from the 70's, etc.

I can relate! Sure wish more teams would do things together - *despite the age differences. I'm 20 yrs older than some of my coworkers, but we still have similar interests. And a good beer is a good beer, no matter how old you are! ;-)

Age differences shouldn't be held so high. I eat lunch at work with people 3x my age, and we have plenty in common. We often learn things from each other, and they're very valuable friendships. I wouldn't hesitate to invite them to do something which we share an interest in.

I find it is easy to get along with a wide range of people of the same age, probably because of similar circumstances and concerns (get education, find a place to life, get a family etc), even if the chemistry is not that great.

With people of different ages it's far harder to work around that, and easier to notice when the chemistry is great. It's fantastic when it works out like that, but difficult or boring if it does not.

When I worked for a defense contractor (with many older employees), I really enjoyed the occasional social outing. People at different stages in their life often have different perspectives, and have access to that perspective is a gift.

But I don't understood the trend of working with people for 10 hours, and then hitting the bar/bowling alley/movie theater/beer fridge to hang out more. As an occasional event, it's great. But as a regular event, it feels like the company is just insinuating itself further into your non-work life, breaking down the boundary until you have no non-work life. No thanks.

Alcohol-centric social interaction is another form of exclusion. There are few things I find quite so unpleasant as sitting in a noisy bar with people who are getting progressively inebriated.

> Alcohol-centric social interaction is another form of exclusion.

I get that, it also happens to be a very popular form of socializing with many people.

To be fair to your point, you can replace alcohol-centric, with bowling, concerts, sporting events, lunch and every single other form of socializing and you can say its a form of exclusion as I can guarantee that no matter what form of socializing you pick I can find someone who it makes uncomfortable.

Honestly sometimes I think the pendulum has swung too far back the other way to inclusion that we are actually exuding people by trying to be all thing to all people and not offending people.

Inclusion suggests exclusion. You can't have one without the other. Thus, social interactions always do both.

I think the point is to recognize that some people, like the person you are replying to, my have an issue with drinking as a social activity. Not that you shouldn't have that as an option, but you should be aware if someone in the group is made uncomfortable by that.

Speaking to your point though, I have a friend who - no joke - hates bowling. Like, he gets violently angry when we suggested going bowling and said he'd rather sit in the car by himself if we went. Some people...

> Speaking to your point though, I have a friend who - no joke - hates bowling. Like, he gets violently angry when we

> suggested going bowling and said he'd rather sit in the car by himself if we went. Some people...

I'm one of those people.

> Speaking to your point though, I have a friend who - no joke - hates bowling. Like, he gets violently angry when we suggested going bowling and said he'd rather sit in the car by himself if we went. Some people...

What a shitlord. You should have gone bowling and let him sit in the car like an angry 5 year old. If he can't "take one for the team" and at least just have a beer and talk while everyone else bowls, fuck him.

The problem with alcohol is that it is nigh-omnipresent and in many places it is so integrated into the culture that yes, you are automatically excluded if you don't drink. This is different from bowling night because you probably don't bowl AT work, and you probably don't bowl at every single outside-of-work socialization.

Not to mention that for religious or personal reasons some people don't touch alcohol. One project I was involved in had two mormons and two muslims. Hate to exclude them from the outings, especially since the PM was one of the mormons. On the non-religious side, I grew up in a household where I never saw alcohol because my mother and father each had alcoholic parents and they never wanted to have anything to do with it. I never knew anything about alcohol and never even stepped foot into a bar until I was 25.

I don't feel this way about drinking, but I think I can nevertheless commiserate with you because I do feel this way about another pastime/group activity that seems to be becoming distressingly common in the tech circles that I find myself in: Board Game Night.

No, I don't want to play monopoly, because my strategy for monopoly can be expressed in two or three lines of pseudocode and it is therefore an incredibly dull game. And if I have to sit through another hour long lecture about a game like Catan that is prefaced with "It's actually really simple; here, let me explain how it works...", I am going to put a power drill through my skull. Don't even talk to me about Magick or pokemans.

Do you know what I do when somebody proposes a board game night? I wish them a good time, politely excuse myself, and find something else to do. Not everyone likes everything, and I should not expect others around me to abstain from activities that I do not enjoy.

You should try Pandemic. I'd almost consider it team therapy. Yes it's a board game but feels like a condensed team exercise weekend where you end up building bridges (metaphorically and physically).

Pandemic is good in the sense that it is exercise for professional communication skills in a toy environment without business consequences. After you play you should thing about what the experience teaches you about your team. Especially if someone has a very different confidence/leadership/cooperation style in the game than at work projects.

> Alcohol-centric social interaction is another form of exclusion.

And there's nothing wrong with that - people aren't obligated to accommodate everybody.

I would say that your 'team lead' is not "very good" because part of being team lead is ... leading a team.

Creating a toxic environment where people are afraid of him, alas is not in the job description.

This is where strong management can fix things, but if you are at google where tech leads often have no management oversight, you just have to change teams or leave the company.

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