[throwaway823882]

I have been one of the toxic persons in a workplace. I was young and immature and an ungrateful arrogant prick. Not saying I'm totally reformed now (I still have my moments!). But every so often I see a little former-me running around. After a certain point I stop them and ask them to please calm the fuck down, because they are acting fucking nuts. That can sometimes result in a 180-degree behavior change (especially after a manager has already talked to them) because they usually don't want to get fired. I can't "fix" them, but I can give them the benefit of the doubt that they may want to be better, and may just need a nudge now and then to re-adjust.

[01100011]

Sometimes the people aren't toxic, they're just encouraged to be that way by the management and company culture. Lots of younger engineers have only worked at a single company and don't have the benefit of experience. Always good to assume the best, even with a highly toxic person.

At my current company there really isn't a technical promotion track. You either get into management or stagnate. That's created some unfortunate situations where excellent technical contributors with poor personalities keep slamming up against the invisible wall preventing advancement instead of being encouraged to stay technical. Also, weak management allows minor technical disputes to turn into all out wars. Pretty sad. Good for me I guess, as my aging brain's best contribution seems to have been in moderating the conflicts.

[mellavora]

Hey, thank you so much for having the self-reflection to be aware of this, and even more thanks for the courage to bring it out publicly like this.

We all have "our moments".