[thezoid]

A players should work on pulling people in other categories into their category. If everyone works on making everybody better you can make the place better.

Rejecting people because they don't match your idea of an A player (I'm assuming 'perfection') is pretty narrow minded.

[kabdib]

I agree, it's narrow-minded.

But it's SURVIVAL.

The times I've had to work with mis-hires have been awful, miserable and very depressing times. Like, they made me not want to come into work.

I was once the "human grep" for the mis-hire that sat across the hall from me. Constant questions; apologetic questions, but continual and unrelenting and stupid questions. Q: "Where does this function get called?" Me: "Search for it, please." Q: "What are the arguments to function X?" Me: "Please go find the function and see." Every few minutes, for MONTHS. Nothing I did seemed to help; this person was simply addicted to asking people about stuff that was literally in front of their face. Management didn't help ("this person is doing negative work"). Pleading didn't help. Getting them to save up questions for an "on the hour" chat didn't help. I wound up leaving that job.

Should we help people in a lower "letter grade"? Yes, if they are teachable. Should we suffer? No.

The simplest thing to do: Hire people better than you are, in general. Really try to do that and you'll find that your company won't rot from within, and people will be happier and tend not to leave.

[tbrownaw]

So the only possibilities are that someone is practically perfect in every way (A), or entirely incompetent (B-Z)?

[pistle]

People can change at human timescales. Businesses die at business timescales. Business timescales in technology are shorter than human timescales. So, lower downs could become higher ups, but not by the ship date.

[tbrownaw]

Small project timescales are shorter than human timescales.

I've had my current job for 7 years. Most of our work in in SQL. When I started I went from knowing approximately nothing of SQL to being productive to helping other team members in a few months. This matches what I've heard in other places, that it can take 1-6 weeks to become minimally productive (as in, not a net loss to the team) in a new language and 6 months to become competent.

But, my employer is not a Startuplandia single-project exocompany. We haven't renamed "project manager" to "CEO" or "Director" to "Investor". We have an actual sustainable business model, rather than "exit or bust". We have people running the place, who have been around long enough to understand beyond the latest hype cycle.

[kabdib]

No, but

- try to hire people who are better than you

- remember that people do grow; recognize potential, but don't assume that someone can be fixed

The sense that someone is merely adequate is a killer. When I'm on the fence about hiring someone, the correct answer is "No hire."

[rcruzeiro]

Well said. For me, what companies should look for is potential. No one can know everything and you can either hope to find someone who knows exactly what you need or find someone capable and willing to learn. How do you find someone with potential? Don't just give them a problem to solve but work with them in solving the problem. See how their thought process is and how well can they communicate their assumptions about the problem at hand. Nod them in the right direction sometimes and see how they take it from there.

[kelseyfrancis]

> If everyone works on making everybody better you can make the place better.

I totally agree with this, but it requires active participation on everyone's part. It only works when people want to learn and actually want to produce high quality work. Many people don't seem to have any desire to improve their output. How do you fix a person's work ethic?

[cema]

  How do you fix a person's work ethic?

I don't think you can, and the question is, is it possible to recognize the culture fit/misfit during the interview process.

[cema]

I think you have a great point. But I would like to see a world where it happens the way you described it.