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by Tade0 1442 days ago
My first tech job was in a very small company which was able to survive only because it could navigate such situations. I was the maverick in this scenario BTW.

At the moment there's not a lot you can do, considering you're going on vacation - try not to think about work during your time off.

But what you can do in the long run is to figure out their motivations. Here's my assessment of the situation:

Problem 1: The maverick thinks they're too good for this job and they'll show you all and whatnot.

Solution: show them that there's more to this job than leet coding and picking up the new shiny.

Divide their tasks into the smallest chunks possible - ideally ones which can be finished in a day.

Schedule regular updates(ideally daily) during which they will tell you what they've accomplished in terms of value to the user.

They'll protest all that, in which case remind them that you're all here for the users - that's the priority.

Also really - if they're as good as they think then surely they can deliver multiple small tasks?

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Problem 2: the copy-paster just needs to keep this job and thus focuses on delivering whatever to, in their view, appease their superiors.

Start off by making them feel safe and stopping this unnecessary theater - at least in front of you.

Then give them something to learn - something which requires going through documentation and actually understanding the problem. Something that they can't copy-paste from somewhere else.

BTW how does the maverick judge the copy-paster's work?

1 comments

"BTW how does the maverick judge the copy-paster's work?"

Maverick either does it for them or finds something online for them to copy.

They're cooperating! The maverick is helpful! This is good, this is all very good!

Make the maverick produce APIs and the copy-paster consume them. This way the former can work closely with their users(their teammate) and the latter can't wing it by copy-pasting, since there's no example online. Also the copy-paster can be productive this way with minimal effort, which is their aim.

I've been in a team of 11 where there were was one lead, two mavericks and the rest copy-pasters. Also there was me, disgruntled with my role. The lead and his lackeys produced a component set, and the rest was just writing configurations in JSON and were happy to do so. I wasn't, so I quit. It was a bad case of NIH, but it worked for them.