I’ve been working on a big web-based application pretty much full-time since January. In March, my client decided to hire another developer and made an offer to someone who I’d recommended, a person who was highly thought of by his former boss and who seemed a good “fit” in terms of skills and personality.
While the Bush administration wants us to believe otherwise, the job market at that time was pretty bad, especially for tech people, and particularly here on Cape Cod. Having an opportunity to work in your profession is rare, and while a certain amount of good-natured complaining is to be expected, most people are simply grateful to be working.
Unfortunately, the individual who I in effect brought in to the project has had some major issues with communication and self-absorption: one of the most profound cases of solipsism I’ve ever seen.
The symptoms have included a stubborn refusal to regularly check emails or to respond to IMs; an careless misuse of the terms of our trade, resulting in unnecessary confusion; an almost arrogant refusal to conform to coding standards already in place; an inability (or unwillingness) to follow clear directions; an unwillingness to seek information when clarity was needed with a subsequent placing of blame on others; and an unbelievable thick-headedness, requiring explanation as much as 5 or 6 times for the same requirement or system feature (I was fired from a job once for too often asking the same question twice).
I should mention that I’ve given this colleague, who is bright and very knowledgeable, lots of public praise and support.
In fact, in the category of “money talks”, when he commented that the project budget was inadequate to pay him for the hours worked, I went to the mat and through the efforts of the PM and the president of the firm, the end user/customer was persuaded to loosen the purse strings and increase our billable hours.
Having respect for this person’s technical ability, I’ve been dealing patiently with his foibles for the last 3 months, but I hit a wall yesterday. The precipitating factor was yet another left-field comment made in a meeting with the Project Manager that seemed a deliberate undermining of MY work and my role in the project. This is not the first time this has happened, and it’s something I’ve discussed with this colleague before.
Lord knows, in the course of my business career, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, no doubt clumsily putting the people I worked for “on the spot” without ever meaning to.
On the other hand, there are some realities that even the most immature and inexperienced person simply knows. One of these is the double standard for women in business and especially in tech. Ignoring this reality, even in the most enlightened firm, is to exploit it, and that is not only naive, it is actually malevolent.
Even without this reality, to attempt to make yourself look good at a colleague’s expense is absolutely unacceptable. Especially when it’s a colleague who got you the job in the first place!
There have been many times over the last weeks that I’ve “called” this person on what I’ve seen as a deteriorating working relationship, asking him for his advice on how we can improve. I’ve gotten nowhere.
Yesterday was the last straw. I was in a rage so profound that I was incapable of speech, and it’s only because the Project Manager is an amazingly gifted “people” communicator that I was able, after some minutes, to articulate a list of specific incidents and issues which were making a difficult project even more difficult.
The PM backed me up, magnificently, and came up with a list of suggestions that made a lot of sense. He understands that cooperation and compliance is a matter of gentlemanly self-regulation, and he has asked for feedback on how while the new arrangement is working.
It will be interesting to see if the colleague “comes around”, or if his working habits are so ingrained that the remainder of the project will be more of the same. I’m immeasureably grateful for the PM’s support and hope we can get through the next month with a good product at the end.
The PM said that his priority is to keep us focused on the task, and at the end of it, as far as he’s concerned, I can beat this little s*t up in the parking lot if I want to.
And even though the little s*t is 30 years younger than me and a good half a foot taller, I’m thinking about it.