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by toomuchtodo
2416 days ago
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You might get it eventually, you might not. Everyone's life experiences will be different. It's not a problem if you work someplace where they care about the skill more than your bedside manner (which is a lot of places!). If you're brilliant and abrasive, you're still brilliant. If you're kind but not so skilled, you're still not so skilled. Enough employers to go around for those who want to work with cordial people, brilliant people, or cordial brilliant people (if you can find them). People with dark histories of abusing their coworkers get hired into positions of power because they deliver results (not good of course). It should be no surprise that someone who is only abrasive will always be able to find work if they are a domain expert. If you generate revenue (or in a non-revenue role, are a subject matter expert), and can pass a background check (and sometimes even not!), someone will hire you. Disclaimer: None of this comment is about an individual, only workplace logistics in general and my opinion on the topic. If a mod ventures into the thread, consider detaching this entire subthread as it's off topic. |
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a) A lot of kind people are skilled people. There are so few roles where the pool of skilled people is so small you just have to settle for someone abrasive, yet there are so many people using the excuse of "I'm old so I get to be abrasive", or "they're old so they get to be abrasive".
b) Abrasive people take away from everyone else. More time will be spent building up "thick skin" against each other than needed and at the end of the day it's easy to drain any additional benefit of this "10x guru who doesn't know how to interact with people"
So much of value generation at a workplace is in "meatspace". Having the most technically brilliant product ever isn't enough to make it work. If the "genius" behind all of it is so abrasive your ability to react to needs is being cut down, you don't necessarily have a stronger product just because you have a domain expert and stronger tech.
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> People with dark histories of abusing their coworkers get hired into positions of power because they deliver results. It should be no surprise that someone who is abrasive will always be able to find work if they are a domain expert.
I have optimism that this is changing. More and more companies are putting a stronger emphasis on their core values and actually defending them. And I'm not naive enough to think it's just out of the goodness of their hearts or a suddenly growing of a conscious.
It's because more and more companies are figuring out these people are not generating as much value as they appear to be. Spiking turnover, being difficult to integrate into teams, giving workplaces a bad name, even the compensation they receive combined with these other factors, the numbers just don't add up. They make very impressive and flashy output, but then take away from the ability of the company to turn that output into a strong product.
The realization being made is a team that meshes well can execute better than a "cult of domain knowledge", even if the team that meshes well is not as technically strong. The same way the realization is coming about CEOs who work based on a "cult of personality".
Similarly between CEOs and engineers, some of the most well known players end up being those that lead a cult of personality, so outsiders start to assume that's what works, even though it only works when the stars align and is a serious detriment when it doesn't...