[pasbesoin]

The dirty secret of 10x engineers is that you have to learn to prevent the other crabs from dragging you back down into the bucket (whether deliberately or out of ignorance).

Crap workspace? Leave. Crap cohabitants (not just in need of assistance, but willfully negligent or so far behind that you can't get your job done)? Find better people to be around.

The hard part: If you're a nice person, it can take a while to really learn and internalize this, and it can remain difficult to execute.

It's not about being "better than". It's about circumstances that hinder your own performance and leave you counter-productively frustrated. No situation is perfect, but there are points past which they become destructively counter-productive.

[kosma]

It takes just one bad apple to spoil the entire team.

I've been in this situation three times. Reporting that your teammate is dragging the entire project down is a horrible feeling - but it's the only responsible thing to do. If you don't, you buy one person's peace of mind at the cost of the whole team's well-being.

PS. Dr Glover was right: nice guys are not nice. They just try to cover their asses and stay quiet.