I don't like you very much

http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/10/i-dont-like-you.php

by DanielBMarkham • 17 years ago

63 45 17 years ago

gdp5• 17 years ago

Wow. I don't know if it's just a literary device being employed here, but this article comes off as the work of somebody with a lack of empathy.

Through the description of the actions of each of the people with whom he disagrees, I immediately found myself sympathising with the "other side". I mean, there are the usual dailywtf-style "this guy is really dumb/awful to work with/whatever" stories, and we all get a bit of a laugh out of them, but this just comes across as a situation where the author is unable to grasp why other people might behave towards him in these ways, or feel particular feelings towards him.

> I honestly don't know what interests me more, why Bob doesn't want to recommend me or why I thought Bob would recommend me when he won't. I think the second question has a lot more potential than the first!

Sure, the second question is more interesting, but I don't think this article goes any distance towards attempting to answer it.

People behave in particular ways for reasons that seem apparent to them. The tone of this article annoys me because it appears to suggest that people who behave according to motivations that are hidden from the author are somehow at fault.

I just think this is symptomatic of so many of my experiences within the IT industry - people always assume that their own motives are pure and good, and that everyone else is acting dishonestly (to screw the client, or to avoid doing work, or to advance their own career). I much prefer to assume that if I don't understand somebody's motivations, the burden is on me to try to understand, rather than just writing them off as bad/lazy/dishonest/whatever.

DanielBMarkham7• 17 years ago

As the author, I've done a poor job of communicating. For that, I apologize.

Nobody is at fault here. Let me be perfectly clear about this. The question is what types of lessons to learn from interactions with other people. You're never, ever going to learn the exact motives of everybody you interact with. In each of these cases, multiple attempts were made to understand and communicate motives, paradigms, and worldviews. These attempts failed.

In the first case, the conversation is unfinished. It's the preface to the article. In the second case, teams can't live in chaos. "Rusty" wasn't wrong, it's just we needed to communicate about things and were both unable to do it for various reasons. In the third case, "Jim" was just an amazing piece of work. If it was just me then that's one thing, but everybody had the same opinion of him. So I don't think it's anything I'm bringing to the table. I could tell you stories of several other people who had the same experience with Jim, but that's just beating up on Jim. From Jim's point of view, the rest of the world was wrong. Here he was, obviously with the answer to the problems we had, and we weren't reasonable enough to let him solve everything. (I know this because he said as much to me on a couple of occasions)

In the fourth case, I screwed up. I took liberties with my language and reaction that I hadn't earned yet. No amount of communication is going to fix an initial bad impression.

The purpose of this article isn't to slam other people or to say that people with hidden motives are somehow bad. If that's all you got out of it I really did a poor job. The purpose is to review various people that didn't like me and explore why.

You can monday-morning quarterback this thing to death -- I know, because I have. But at the end of the day, conditions are always imperfect, everybody is always acting the best way they know how, and still you end up not getting along with some people. That's just life.

Of course I'll never know the entire story -- and all you have is my side of things. But I don't blame these people, look down on them, or anything like that. Sometimes, as the article concludes, shit happens. It's impossible to get along with everybody you meet.

You can say "forget it, I'm not worrying about it" or you can obsess over it. The best thing to do, in my opinion, is try to find some kind of narrative to put over it that teaches you a valuable lesson. It's not a perfect solution, but it allows growth without demonizing others or putting yourself down. It's a certainty that the narrative is going to be incomplete and trivializing of certain things, but that's also unavoidable.

gdp5• 17 years ago

OK, perhaps I didn't phrase my objection very well.

> The purpose is to review various people that didn't like me and explore why.

I guess my problem with the article was that the tone implied that most of these people weren't justified in not liking you, or that it was some natural effect of a bad situation, rather than something caused by your own actions.

Tichy• 17 years ago

Just curious, did you mirror this comment on whattofix, or is it some feature of that blog to include HN comments?

gdp5• 17 years ago

I didn't do anything except post here, so I assume it's a feature of that blog.

jpcx01• 17 years ago

Seems boneheaded for someone to even respond to an invite like that. If you don't like someone much, and they invite you to connect with them or something, just ignore the request. Simple and easy.

I would never see the gain of explicitly telling someone "no".

sirrocco• 17 years ago

Well, if you're not answering I'm sending the invite again. And if still nothing I'm calling you :).

Anyhow, I think it's polite to answer to a request - even if it is - "dude , I never did like you, sorry"

gdp5• 17 years ago

Somebody who repeatedly sends invites and then calls is not going to get a recommendation from me. If you are actually worthy of recommendation, people will probably do them with very little encouragement.

Hounding people for recommendations will either lead to refusal (which will inspire you to write a blog post about people who don't like you), or people will write you a mildly insincere recommendation to avoid causing offence. At that point, you should be grateful that your acquaintance has considerably more social graces than you do.

ahoyhere• 17 years ago

Overly wordy and self-indulgent, and for all the navel-gazing, doesn't come to a satisfying conclusion.

It's hard to say that communication problems are "a little bit of me, and a little bit of them" if you go and say things like "Wow, you're a tall fucker!" to new clients when you meet them. Y'know?

I can see how that might lead to a long dark night of the soul, but who wants to read about it -- when it's written so hamfistedly?

mhb• 17 years ago

but who wants to read about it

And why here?

alexgartrell• 17 years ago

I'd argue some fraction of HN readers are, despite their brilliance, not incredibly good with people. It's just more "It's not me, it's them" thinking, and sort of masturbatory.

People love to upvote things that make them right, but I guess that's kind of the idea.

Confusion• 17 years ago

As I've said over there, but will repeat here:

I don't understand how someone declining a request to write a recommendation gets you to assume he dislikes you. He just doesn't want to recommend you.

I know plenty of people that I like and work with, but that I wouldn't want to write a recommendation for. This is largely because I do not believe in lauding someone's good sides without also addressing their shortcomings. The latter will not be looked kindly upon in a recommendation. In short: I can not honestly write a recommendation.

jacquesm• 17 years ago

I've done it for two ex employees that were really very good. I would do it for most of the others with a couple of exceptions, and I doubt those would ask me for a recommendation anyway.

One of the guys I wrote a recommendation for wanted to interview at google, the other at vmware. The vmware guy got the job, the other didn't.

Whether my recommendations were the deciding factor or not I'll never know, but I did do just what you would do, I addressed their good sides and their shortcomings both, which I think is only fair.

But it still was a recommendation, from the heart, I'd hire both of these guys myself in a heartbeat if the situation would allow it, which is my criterion for whether or not I would write one.

lsc• 17 years ago

yeah. I dono. I mean, a lot of my verbal recommendations are "S/he is really good at X, but has problem Y, and Would probably work well for the position you have." I dono how that would always translate in 'on your permanent record' type things. It's probably not even the best in person, sometimes.

I remember a few years back I was vacating a position as a contractor, and I was asked for recommendations. So, at the time my business was contracting, and I didn't really need as much help as I had. I recommended they hire one of the guys who was working for me but it was a "well, he can do the job, but here are what's wrong with him. I recommend you hire him"

The client didn't bite. later the body shop/recruiter who had gotten me the gig asked for recommendations, and I said the same thing. Apparently he talked the client into hiring my guy, and the client was pretty happy with the guy for a year or so. (the client hired me again when the guy left.)

Would it have been better for the client if I was good at sales and able to directly sell the guy? maybe.

(my other minor nit was that nobody gave me a kickback. Eh, I did get the guy to work for me at way below market wages for a year or two, so I got something out of it.)

But the upshot is when I give a recommendation, I see it as doing a favor to the company or person that has the open position more than a favor to the person I'm recommending. I mean, if I didn't think you were qualified, I wouldn't have recommended you for the gig, right? sometimes my recommendations are in the format "person X is perfect for the job, but you are unlikely to catch his interest"

On LinkedIn, though, it is different. the recommendations are setup as if you were doing a favor to the person you are recommending, which makes it much harder for me. I mean, how much of the negative stuff do you put in? hell, change the situation and a massive flaw becomes a massive advantage.

carbon8• 17 years ago

My understanding is that you need to be very careful about saying anything negative at all in a reference since it opens you up to a potential defamation lawsuit, and that it's therefore prudent to either give a positive reference or none at all.

edw519• 17 years ago

...most people could care less about me one way or the other -- but some folks actively dislike me.

You never really know if you're pushing hard enough until you ruffle a few feathers along the way.

I'd rather have a few folks "actively dislike me" than worry if I compromised too many times over the years. I haven't and it sounds like you haven't either. I think we're both doing fine.

Once I started getting glowing reviews from the clueless, then I'd start to worry.

DanielBMarkham7• 17 years ago

You never really know if you're pushing hard enough until you ruffle a few feathers along the way.

I used to think if I worked hard enough, I could get anybody to like me. When people didn't, I viewed it as some sort of personal mistake.

Now I'm thinking that random chance has a lot to do with it. The more people you interact with, the more who are not going to like you -- there is always going to be that 1-5%.

Oddly enough from this position I am beginning to see the logic of your point, although I have never taken it to heart. The more real work you are doing, the more people you interact with, the more change you make -- of course is going to ruffle feathers. You can't help it.

cousin_it• 17 years ago

I want to know, but do not know, what other people think of me; which of my traits matter to them and which don't; what determines their reactions to my words and deeds; and how a person can learn such things in general ("just asking" obviously doesn't work). For looks we have sites like hotornot with anonymous reviews and ratings, but what to do about personality?

Quarrelsome• 17 years ago

This question keeps me up some nights wondering where I have been a git in my recent history. I tend to heavily err on the side of caution and then apologise ASAP to people if I think I might have used the wrong words in a scenario (been mis-interpreted), have made a mistake or potentially some other social faux pas.

In most cases they laugh it off and say it was nothing but maybe in some cases it does help, I dunno.

gdp5• 17 years ago

I think it's actually relatively easy to figure out what people think about you. If you do something, and a number of people react, you can generally start to draw a "trend line" through the behaviours of different people towards you over the course of some amount of time.

I think it's just important to pay attention.

CGamesPlay• 17 years ago

This is an interesting article. I find myself disagreeing with the decisions of my coworkers and supervisors frequently, and I argue my position, we come to a conclusion, and that's the end. I don't take the fact that someone disagreed with me personally, but I am always nervous that other people will.

desiderata• 17 years ago

It's ridiculous to expect a recommendation when you have "different opinions about software development" and actively shot the guy's plans down in meetings. If you don't do things the way the guy likes, why would he recommend you? "Here, hire this guy, he does things completely wrong from my point of view."

rpcutts2• 17 years ago

I've never met the guy and I don't like him.

derefr• 17 years ago

Honestly? Would you actually go up to him and say "I don't like you" if you saw him, or are you just being an Internet Tough Guy?

rpcutts2• 17 years ago

Neither.

I don't randomly walk up to people and discuss my opinion of them. But if someone started a conversation with me about how many people do or don't like them then yes I would have to tell them I find them irritating and walk away. There is nothing 'tough' about it.

Nor am I an Internet tough guy, just giving an opinion is all I'm doing. People that obsess over who like them or not and why, I just don't like them.

jodrellblank2• 17 years ago

I've never met the guy and I like him a lot. This is probably why I gave him the benefit of the doubt when reading the blog entry and why I think the detractors calling it "ham fisted" and "unsatisfying" and "inconclusive" and "lacking empathy" must be people who did but skim over it before spraying their unhelpful personal attacks.

petercooper• 17 years ago

I see Daniel's point. He's right. There are people who don't like you for bizarre reasons, for the same reason there are plain crazy folks out there you can never hope to understand. Like one of his commenters, though, I think these people are worth forgetting about rather than analyzing. Some people you'll just never get - and life's too short.

I tend to avoid confrontation and haven't had many incidents like Daniel's (this is a big part of why I work solo) but even I've hit into it. I positively reviewed a book on Amazon yet some third party guy I've never heard of (and unrelated to the book) went crazy in the comments how he didn't like me. Like.. WTF? So, yeah, let's write these people off to just being the crazy side of life we'll never understand - life's kinda fun like that :)

akkartik• 17 years ago

"No matter how right you are, if you care about effecting change, you should never open your mouth without some sense of who will agree with you and who won’t."

jodrellblank2• 17 years ago

I want to highlight this paragraph:

I think the worst attribute any team member can have is not wanting to make waves. In fact, I think it's the number one attribute I would actively seek out to exclude from a team. Everybody has to work without nets on an agile team. If we're not taking emotional chances and communicating, we're losing ground.

Is this wisdom born from long experience or is it unwise naivety? Is there any grounds for saying "if you want to encourage waves then you have to have an environment where people wont fear being fired for sticking out. At all."?

I think actually having such an atmosphere and acceptance that everyone believes would be a lot harder than it sounds. Perhaps that's something that startups have - the founders have equity in the company, they can't fire the other founders and they can't be fired, so they have the freedom to do whatever they think will make the company progress, and no particular benefit (e.g. "not being fired") for not rocking the boat.

DanielBMarkham7• 17 years ago

There's a trick here. At the surface it sounds naive, sure.

The trick is that people can and should passionately defend and believe in the viewpoints, espouse and defend them, and then go along with what the group decides.

Either "passionately defending" or "going along" is not sufficient in itself. You have to have both.

raganwald2• 17 years ago

There's a phrase for this, it's known as having Strong beliefs, weakly held.

ramanujan3• 17 years ago

One thing I noticed is that while there are quite a lot of posts on his site about "agile" and "methodology" I see basically nothing in the way of technical stuff (meaning working code) on his front page or in his tags list.

Sets off my spidey sense for PHB.

scotch_drinker2• 17 years ago

Really? Because a Scrumaster or an agile project manager who doesn't post code immediately is irrelevant? That's an odd conclusion to make.

It seems clear to me after reading several of his posts that he manages people. While it is certainly true that there are a subset of managers who are also PHBs, I don't think you could highly correlate those who are and those who aren't by the number of posts they make about working code.

If a person wrote nothing but posts about code and how it worked, no one would ever disparage them because they weren't a manager. Why is it that people disparage managers who don't write about code?

ramanujan3• 17 years ago

> Why is it that people disparage managers who don't write about code?

Because it increases the probability that they don't understand what they're managing.

Look at Peter Norvig or Urs Hoelzle or Jeff Dean. They are still very, very technical despite managing many people. That earns them credibility among their troops.

By contrast, this guy has written about 70 posts on Agile with almost zero code. I could find exactly three lines of code on his entire site under the F# tag, though I didn't look that hard.

Bottom line is that he's unlikely to be someone who would earn an engineer's technical respect.

kunqiana• 17 years ago

see Paul Graham's essay on See Randomness, (http://paulgraham.com/randomness.html) it might or might not be true for your case but personally it makes me feel better when I am in similar situations by maybe seeing things in better perspective. A lot of times when I am confused about someone's actions toward me I tend to think that it must be about me and to make it worse I exaggerate it in my mind. Sometimes it isn't rational to always expect a rational response from other humans. We are all humans after all, and we make mistakes just like everyone else, a little understanding goes a long way.

I don't like you very much

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