Hey, what’s up?
John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
So I got this question from—he wants to be Pierre from Paris or Texas because it’s
funny.
I’ll say Pierre from Taxis.
Anyway, he apparently wants to remain anonymous, but he goes on—this video is about or this
question is about—it’s titled “My Co-worker Doesn’t Work.”
I can see why he’s being anonymous here, but I'm sure that a lot of you can probably—or
no, no one can relate to having a co-worker that doesn’t work, right?
That doesn’t happen ever.
He says, “I just want to let you know that I’ve ordered Soft Skills.”
If you don’t know what that is, it’s my book, Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s
Life Manual.
You can get it here.
“I'm really looking forward and I’ll definitely review the book after I read it.
My question is about co-workers.”
He goes on to say, “My boss hired someone to be an all-around, awesome person.
They are .NET developer and also use SQL for either maintaining current software or creating
new stuff.
As with most slackers, this person started running out of the gate, but has slowly begun
to steal remote time.
This person barely comes to work anymore and doesn’t seem to care about the software
they write.
The boss does care but is not addressing this serious situation.
The boss made a good point that if anything happens to the person or if they’re fired
all of the code they have not loaded in the source control portal may be gone forever.”
Yes, that’s true.
“The boss is a great person.
Very good at writing code and cares a lot about employees.
I’ve never worked for a better boss or company.
However, watching this person make over $90,000 a year and seeing them get away with totally
frivolous behavior, it’s disheartening.
I know I should worry about me and keep learning all I can.
I just want to get your take on this.
Thanks John.
Keep making videos and doing great work.
You’re a great motivator and a positive force in this crazy world.
Wishing you the best, Pierre from Texas.”
Apparently, Pierre from Texas also likes to be called Pierre from Texas.
You know what I'm going to say already Pierre.
That’s why you said it, is that you need to worry about you.
I'm going to do you one more.
Here’s the thing.
It’s like this guy is eventually going to get caught or he’s going to—he’s gypping
himself, right?
Anytime that you think that you’re getting a fast—pulling a fast one or you’re getting
paid for doing nothing what you’re gypping yourself out of is 2 things.
One out of the experience, because you’re not getting experience when you’re doing
nothing and, two, you’re gypping yourself out of the character building and the value
that comes from doing hard work.
I’ll tell you.
The only thing rewarding in life honestly at the end of the day when it’s all said
and done is the hard work that you’ve done.
It’s doing a good job.
Honestly, that’s the thing that makes you feel fulfilled and successful, is when you’ve
done a good job, especially if you’ve done a good job and you’ve helped other people
along the way.
That’s really the key.
Here’s the thing.
I'm going to give you some advice here besides just worry about you because you should just
worry about you.
You already know that.
You shouldn’t be worried about this guy, but give this guy some rope to hang himself.
If you really want to see him trip up, don’t fight him.
If you try to fight him and you try to go to your boss and be like, “Oh, this guy
is not working” and whatever, blah, blah, blah, you’re going to be combative, right?
Go the passive-aggressive route here.
Instead, give this guy a whole bunch of rope like whatever he’s doing like encourage
him, encourage him to work remotely and to get away with his crap.
Encourage him.
Encourage him to be sloppy and not checking his code and say, “Hey, you man.
Yeah.
You got it.
You’re pulling one over on them, aren’t you?” and encourage him as much as possible
like you’re on his side like you’re supporting his frivolous behavior.
Give him as much birth as you can.
Say, “Hey, look.
You want to take over—why don’t you take over my project and you could do this?”
Give them plenty of rope and the dude will just hang himself, and then you can sit back
and laugh because it will be funny.
I don’t know.
I mean maybe that’s a little underhanded, but it’s okay to be dirty sometimes.
I mean this guy is going to get what’s coming to him.
If you want to just sit and wait and not worry about him and just do your thing, that’s
totally cool.
If you want to accelerate the pace, then—the best thing to do when someone is on fire,
if you want to see them burn faster is to throw gas, the same thing that got him on
fire.
Let him take a bath in some lighter fluid.
That’s what they want to do.
They’re doing it anyway.
Don’t try and stop it.
Don’t try and put them out.
Let them burn out.
Let them go up in a blaze of flame.
Just let them keep on doing what he’s doing.
Just encourage him to keep on what he’s doing instead of fighting.
A lot of times when you get in this political situations at work, what ends up happening
is you got the bad guy who is lazy and you got the good guy.
The good guy is trying to do good.
He wants to do good for the company.
He’s sort of like tries to encourage the bad guy to like do the right work.
Then he goes to the boss and tells the boss, and he looks like the jerk.
He looks like the one causing trouble.
He gets fired and the bad guy is still sitting there collecting his paycheck doing nothing.
Don’t do that.
Instead, encourage him.
Be like, “Okay.
Go ahead.”
Yeah.
Give him as much rope as possible.
Someone like that who’s been on destruction, they’re going to hang themselves.
You don’t even need to do anything, but if you want to accelerate the process, keep
pushing the ball right down the hill.
Don’t try and stop it.
Just let it go.
It will pick up enough momentum and then it will take care of itself.
Anyway, I thought that was an interesting arrangement.
A lot of you have co-workers that are lazy that aren’t pulling their share.
This is one tactic to deal with them.
I’ve been in this situation before and I’ve done it wrong.
I’ve called them out and all this stuff and gotten myself—making myself look bad.
Instead, they’re going to make themselves look bad.
All you got to do is either not do anything or give them a little shove in the direction
they’re already going.
Anyway, hopefully you find that useful and not to underhanded, but yeah, it’s all right
to be a little bit nasty sometimes.
I'm joking, of course, but not really.
If you like this video, subscribe to the channel.
I’ll talk to you next time.
Take care.