Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

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ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Noam Chomsky posted:

Another question:

How much do advanced degrees - let's say a Masters in CS - matter in the non-academic job market? Georgia Tech is offering an online masters and I was thinking about going for it at some point, but I don't know if it's worth it beyond personal gratification.

There are a few good general reasons to do a master's in CS:

You're a current undergrad and the job market isn't good. In that case, delaying your graduation by a couple years and picking up an advanced degree can work out very well.
You took some CS classes as an undergrad, but didn't do the major, and you want to have a CS degree.
You want to get access to the career network of a more prestigious school than your undergrad institution.
You want to specialize in something that's not usually taught at the undergrad level, like machine learning or distributed systems, but you don't want to do a PhD.
You can take the financial hit of not working for a couple years and paying tuition, and you like the idea of getting a master's. Alternatively, your company is willing to pay for it.

The further away you get from this list, the less sense it really makes to spend the money.

ultrafilter fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Oct 16, 2015

# ? Oct 16, 2015 00:34

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# ? May 9, 2024 21:24

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Having an advanced degree can also be a bonus when immigrating, countries that use points-based systems usually give extra points for them. Probably not a terribly good primary reason but it's a useful side benefit.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 00:57

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

If you're outside of the US and looking to come in, a master's program can be a pretty effective method. I think roughly 75% of my own master's class fit that profile.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 01:06

chutwig: May 28, 2001; BURLAP SATCHEL OF CRACKERJACKS

JawnV6 posted:

Principal engineers aren't management and aren't individual contributors.

I went from senior to lead to principal at my last place, and you know what? It sucked. I had no actual clout to change things managerially that needed to be changed, like increasing head count on the ops team or stopping the relentless amoeba-like expansion of the complexity of the tech stack or forcing teams to deal with tech debt, but the title meant I was Chief poo poo-Shoveler and the person who was always the first to get called to clean up somebody else's mess, because I knew the infrastructure. I could bend people's ears all day about this stuff but not actually force any changes, and it was hugely frustrating, and was mostly why I quit and went elsewhere.

Now I am aggressively pursuing a managerial track and making it clear I don't want to remain in engineering roles forever. I enjoy engineering and building things, but companies have clear-cut paths upwards for people in managerial roles and typically not so much for engineering roles. If I'm going to be in a position where I'm constantly consulted about things, I want to have the power to actually do something about these things, not just plead with other people who do have the power.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 02:11

Huzanko: Aug 4, 2015; by FactsAreUseless

chutwig posted:

I went from senior to lead to principal at my last place, and you know what? It sucked. I had no actual clout to change things managerially that needed to be changed, like increasing head count on the ops team or stopping the relentless amoeba-like expansion of the complexity of the tech stack or forcing teams to deal with tech debt, but the title meant I was Chief poo poo-Shoveler and the person who was always the first to get called to clean up somebody else's mess, because I knew the infrastructure. I could bend people's ears all day about this stuff but not actually force any changes, and it was hugely frustrating, and was mostly why I quit and went elsewhere.

Now I am aggressively pursuing a managerial track and making it clear I don't want to remain in engineering roles forever. I enjoy engineering and building things, but companies have clear-cut paths upwards for people in managerial roles and typically not so much for engineering roles. If I'm going to be in a position where I'm constantly consulted about things, I want to have the power to actually do something about these things, not just plead with other people who do have the power.

From my experience you don't even have any power as a manager until you're in the top bracket. Middle managers have always seemed, to me, to be very unhappy people.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 03:13

MeruFM: Jul 27, 2010

the illusion of having no clout is because you as a person have no clout for whatever reason, whether that be bad luck or charisma or whatever.

even lowly engineers who are charming enough or lucky enough to have done many "good" (highly visible) things can convince people way up the food chain on many things.

If low management, middle management, upper engineering, etc all have no power, then who the hell is making all the decisions. It's not like the VP is micro managing every decision done by their 200 underlings

# ? Oct 16, 2015 03:17

sink: Sep 10, 2005; gerby gerb gerb in my mouf

I think his point is that a a purely technical position is an illusion if you want to get anything done.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 03:42

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

MeruFM posted:

the illusion of having no clout is because you as a person have no clout for whatever reason, whether that be bad luck or charisma or whatever.

even lowly engineers who are charming enough or lucky enough to have done many "good" (highly visible) things can convince people way up the food chain on many things.

If low management, middle management, upper engineering, etc all have no power, then who the hell is making all the decisions. It's not like the VP is micro managing every decision done by their 200 underlings

I think that companies in which low-level employees can gain significant influence might also be vulnerable to marginalizing certain people unfairly depending on how bro-y their hires are.

Realistically, people with power existing outside the explicitly encoded power structure are an indicator that some part of that power structure needs to be worked around. Not that I'm advocating for strict top-down decision-making, but embracing and celebrating a free-for-all is probably going to mask an otherwise solvable problem every so often.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 04:10

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

sink posted:

I think his point is that a a purely technical position is an illusion if you want to get anything done.

For varying degrees of "get anything done." Principal/distinguished engineers should be in what are essentially R&D roles; spending time on things like figuring out how to make something into a product or fix some piece of organizational minutia is a waste of time. Organizations that don't get this are doomed to lose great engineers.

# ? Oct 16, 2015 05:42

Kallikrates: Jul 7, 2002; Pro Lurker

I thought I would be looking at larger stable boring companies for my next gig but then I recently talked to a startup..What they are saying seems to tick all the right boxes for a pre Series A company. (profitable bootstrapped took seed to grow, solving a pain point a large industry has, good traction etc)

What are some polite questions to ask a startup that will clue me into the overall health of the company?

I thought about asking what their burn rate was. Some of the exit strategies they would consider or are planning for.

I'm trying to get a rough gauge if this company will be around for at least a year. Without asking impolite questions. I'm sure there are others I'm missing.

I was introduce to them via Hired, so assuming they aren't lying my salary requirements should be met.

# ? Oct 20, 2015 01:03

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

I've got stock options at my new company but really have no idea what that means or how I take advantage of them. What sort of stuff should I know? Anything I should be careful about?

# ? Oct 20, 2015 02:09

Tezzeract: Dec 25, 2007; Think I took a wrong turn...

ultrafilter posted:

There are a few good general reasons to do a master's in CS:

You're a current undergrad and the job market isn't good. In that case, delaying your graduation by a couple years and picking up an advanced degree can work out very well.

You took some CS classes as an undergrad, but didn't do the major, and you want to have a CS degree.

You want to get access to the career network of a more prestigious school than your undergrad institution.

You want to specialize in something that's not usually taught at the undergrad level, like machine learning or distributed systems, but you don't want to do a PhD.

You can take the financial hit of not working for a couple years and paying tuition, and you like the idea of getting a master's. Alternatively, your company is willing to pay for it.

The further away you get from this list, the less sense it really makes to spend the money.

I was #2 on that list. Getting a masters in CS was no joke for someone who just took a few intro CS classes in undergrad and came back to get a MS after working. First year was just brutal and discouraging.

Still, finishing it was rewarding intellectually and the better I get at programming the more rewarding the studies seem in retrospect. The problem solving and diversity of topics that coding allows you to do at the grad level is pretty mindblowing.

# ? Oct 20, 2015 02:25

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

Blinkz0rz posted:

I've got stock options at my new company but really have no idea what that means or how I take advantage of them. What sort of stuff should I know? Anything I should be careful about?

Find out the number of fully diluted shares outstanding and the company valuation for a close approximation of how much your shares are worth.

# ? Oct 20, 2015 03:34

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

Blinkz0rz posted:

I've got stock options at my new company but really have no idea what that means or how I take advantage of them. What sort of stuff should I know? Anything I should be careful about?

Stock options are pretty much what it says on the tin - they give you the future options to buy shares of stock in the company that you're working for.

When a company is formed, it issues a number of shares to its founding members and reserves others for later options (the "options pool"). You can think of a share as being like a currency, in that they have a fluctuating value which the officers of the company and market forces can influence. When the company takes outside investment, it can issue more shares, which dilutes the value of the shares. If the company performs well, the market can decide that the company's worth more, which increases the value of the shares.

(For a simple example, a company's worth a million dollars and has a million shares; each share is "worth" $1. Suddenly there's two million shares but the valuation hasn't changed. Each share is worth $0.50. But doubling the shares let the company expand like crazy and brought the company's worth to ten million. Each share is "worth" $5.)

The "future option" part means that you can, at some specified point in the future, buy some number of shares at some fixed price. So in our example above, you join when the company's worth a million, I say okay, in a year you can buy 10,000 shares at $1 no matter what the shares are selling for on the market. A year goes by, the value's gone up, you buy your 10k shares at a $1 apiece.

Options generally "vest" over time, so rather than a one-time event, you can progressively get more options over time. So I might say that starting in one year, over the course of four years, you can buy 48,000 shares. The first month you can buy 12,000, and each month after you can buy 1,000 more as long as you're still employed by the company. This is, under ideal circumstances, to encourage employee retention.

Making matters more complex is the fact that investor shares are "preferred", which means if the company gets sold for a loss (or liquidated), the investors get paid first. Later investors and non-preferred stock gets paid out of what's left over, which will probably be nothing.

So assuming that options are a significant part of your compensation package, you'll want to know (or, rather, might have wanted to know before you signed anything) how many total shares there are, what the option price is, how many shares you can buy using your options, what your vesting schedule is, whether or not the company is planning to take further investment, and what their growth strategy is. There are also significant tax implications surrounding options, so be sure to talk to a tax professional before you buy any.

# ? Oct 20, 2015 06:19

sarehu: Apr 20, 2007; (call/cc call/cc)

Blinkz0rz posted:

I've got stock options at my new company but really have no idea what that means or how I take advantage of them. What sort of stuff should I know? Anything I should be careful about?

Taxes, AMT, 83(b) elections.

# ? Oct 20, 2015 13:29

Blinkz0rz: May 27, 2001; MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS

Tao Jones posted:

Stock options are pretty much what it says on the tin - they give you the future options to buy shares of stock in the company that you're working for.

When a company is formed, it issues a number of shares to its founding members and reserves others for later options (the "options pool"). You can think of a share as being like a currency, in that they have a fluctuating value which the officers of the company and market forces can influence. When the company takes outside investment, it can issue more shares, which dilutes the value of the shares. If the company performs well, the market can decide that the company's worth more, which increases the value of the shares.

(For a simple example, a company's worth a million dollars and has a million shares; each share is "worth" $1. Suddenly there's two million shares but the valuation hasn't changed. Each share is worth $0.50. But doubling the shares let the company expand like crazy and brought the company's worth to ten million. Each share is "worth" $5.)

The "future option" part means that you can, at some specified point in the future, buy some number of shares at some fixed price. So in our example above, you join when the company's worth a million, I say okay, in a year you can buy 10,000 shares at $1 no matter what the shares are selling for on the market. A year goes by, the value's gone up, you buy your 10k shares at a $1 apiece.

Options generally "vest" over time, so rather than a one-time event, you can progressively get more options over time. So I might say that starting in one year, over the course of four years, you can buy 48,000 shares. The first month you can buy 12,000, and each month after you can buy 1,000 more as long as you're still employed by the company. This is, under ideal circumstances, to encourage employee retention.

Making matters more complex is the fact that investor shares are "preferred", which means if the company gets sold for a loss (or liquidated), the investors get paid first. Later investors and non-preferred stock gets paid out of what's left over, which will probably be nothing.

So assuming that options are a significant part of your compensation package, you'll want to know (or, rather, might have wanted to know before you signed anything) how many total shares there are, what the option price is, how many shares you can buy using your options, what your vesting schedule is, whether or not the company is planning to take further investment, and what their growth strategy is. There are also significant tax implications surrounding options, so be sure to talk to a tax professional before you buy any.

This is very helpful, thank you. The options aren't a major part of my comp package but my last place was an ESOP company that wasn't publicly traded so I'm trying to get a better idea for the ins and outs of how my comp works at the new place.

# ? Oct 20, 2015 14:20

Huzanko: Aug 4, 2015; by FactsAreUseless

What's the job market like for NodeJS as opposed to Ruby on Rails?

I'm familiar with both, and have built some small apps with both, but I'm wondering which is worth taking the deeper dive into.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 21:55

Skandranon: Sep 6, 2008; fucking stupid, dont listen to me

Noam Chomsky posted:

What's the job market like for NodeJS as opposed to Ruby on Rails?

I'm familiar with both, and have built some small apps with both, but I'm wondering which is worth taking the deeper dive into.

The Ruby community is rather closed off. If you don't already have 5 years experience and fully embrace TDD, they will kick you in the nuts and throw you off a building.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 22:10

triple sulk: Sep 17, 2014

Skandranon posted:

The Ruby community is rather closed off. If you don't already have 5 years experience and fully embrace TDD, they will kick you in the nuts and throw you off a building.

This isn't really sarcasm, either, in case you're wondering.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 22:26

Twerk from Home: Jan 17, 2009; This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

triple sulk posted:

This isn't really sarcasm, either, in case you're wondering.

Admittedly, TDD owns bones.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 22:33

Huzanko: Aug 4, 2015; by FactsAreUseless

Skandranon posted:

The Ruby community is rather closed off. If you don't already have 5 years experience and fully embrace TDD, they will kick you in the nuts and throw you off a building.

Thats what I was afraid of. I'm primarily a JavaScript developer these days anyway, so maybe it's a no brainer... I do like Rails a lot but if it'd be impossible for me to get a Rails job then gently caress it.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 22:39

wwb: Aug 17, 2004

http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto comes to mind . . .

# ? Oct 21, 2015 23:07

New Yorp New Yorp: Jul 18, 2003; Only in Kenya.; Pillbug

wwb posted:

http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/ruby/rails/is-a-ghetto comes to mind . . .

But that guy is a self important cock so I have trouble taking him seriously.

quote:

I�ll add one more thing to the people reading this: I mean business when I say I�ll take anyone on who wants to fight me. You think you can take me, I�ll pay to rent a boxing ring and beat your loving rear end legally. Remember that I�ve studied enough martial arts to be deadly even though I�m old, and I don�t give a gently caress if I kick your mother loving rear end or you kick mine. You don�t like what I�ve said, then write something in reply but gently caress you if you think you�re gonna talk to me like you can hurt me.

I�ll never be afraid of some pilsner fresh fat gently caress who eats donut hamburgers and only gets exercise when he plays World of Warcraft on a DDR pad.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 23:19

Thermopyle: Jul 1, 2003; ...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. �Bertrand Russell

Ithaqua posted:

But that guy is a self important cock so I have trouble taking him seriously.

Pretty much everyone mentioned (including the author) on that page comes off looking like children.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 23:21

Bruegels Fuckbooks: Sep 14, 2004; Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Twerk from Home posted:

Admittedly, TDD owns bones.

Well you have to use TDD with ruby because you need unit tests or ruby falls apart. With typed languages unit tests aren't as useful as they are in dynamic languages.

# ? Oct 21, 2015 23:35

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:

Well you have to use TDD with ruby because you need unit tests or ruby falls apart. With typed languages unit tests aren't as useful as they are in dynamic languages.

TDD has it's place in any developers toolbox. Enforced TDD is a great way to drive away talented developers who don't want to drink the kool aid though. If you really want to go full dipshit, mandatory 100% BDD coverage is a great way to kill all motivation and productivity from anyone who's not a True Believer.

You have to trust the judgement of engineers, while tempering their desires with timelines and deliverables. Don't put the engineers in charge, and certainly don't put people who value code quality and beautiful design above functional delivery in charge. Discount people's opinions who believe that prescriptive quality methodologies solve problems, and promote problem solvers who also value quality.

It's all a spectrum though, and effective management is understanding where on the spectrum a team or project is and where you would like them to be.

# ? Oct 22, 2015 03:28

MeruFM: Jul 27, 2010

alternatively, gently caress around and get paid

i should listen to my own advice because i spent 2 hours tracking down a bug that ended up being a 3rd party SOAP endpoint not handling unicode properly, returning literally an empty string with status 202 if any unicode is in the request.

# ? Oct 22, 2015 04:00

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:

Well you have to use TDD with ruby because you need unit tests or ruby falls apart. With typed languages unit tests aren't as useful as they are in dynamic languages.

Truth. In languages with very strictly enforced type structures, like Haskell or Rust, you spend most of the time on getting your program to compile that you'd spend on writing those tests anyway :shrug:

# ? Oct 22, 2015 06:06

Ralith: Jan 12, 2011; I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today

Unit testing is still important for invariants that can't easily be expressed in the type system. This holds true even for languages like Agda and Coq which can, in principle, check nearly anything at compiletime, and any statically typed language you'll actually use professionally isn't anywhere near those.

# ? Oct 22, 2015 06:10

wwb: Aug 17, 2004

Ithaqua posted:

But that guy is a self important cock so I have trouble taking him seriously.

A perhaps deserved self-important cock with some classic material. Everyone should also watch the ACL is Dead once a year at https://vimeo.com/2723800

# ? Oct 22, 2015 17:39

lmao zebong: Nov 25, 2006; NBA All-Injury First Team

I have a question about how to deal with a current situation I'm having with a coworker.

I am part of a small two person team that works on a client version of a product my company is putting a lot of emphasis on. I came onto the project about six months after my coworker started working on it from scratch, and he built a ton of the underlying infrastructure and modules we use daily. He is an amazingly talented guy, and I've really enjoyed working on this project with him because I learn all the time looking at his code and he has held me to a pretty high standard for code formatting and how I approach problems, which I really feel has strengthened me as a developer.

However, for the last two months or so he stopped showing up on Mondays and Tuesdays. I thought it was a temporary thing because he really burned it at both ends for a while getting everything ready for our alpha release, and our manager who oversees all the client devs was out on an extended vacation so I figured he was taking it easy while he could. It also wasn't like the project was slipping because of it, he was putting in great work on the days he did come in and everything is still on schedule. It was frustrating for a bit because he is totally AWOL on those days, and would miss weekly scheduled meetings and not respond to emails until he was back in the office. However, this has not stopped since our manager got back, and this week it's been even worse since he has not shown up at all this week or responded to any emails.

Barring the situation that something bad happened, how should I deal with this? Should I deal with it at all? The product manager has definitely noticed and commented to me that it's hard scheduling meetings when the dude just doesn't show up to the office, but I don't think the dev manager has noticed how frequently he ghosts or maybe just assumes he's working from home a lot. I really don't want to be the guy going to our manager and saying "this guy isn't showing up to work half the week, reprimand him", but at the same time it's sometimes hard for me to continue working on my tasks because I want to have a discussion about refactoring something he created, and there is no way to talk to him about it.I feel like this can't go on forever, should I just hope our dev manager catches on soon and handles it?

# ? Oct 22, 2015 21:55

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

One of my biggest regrets at my previous job was not directly talking to a coworker who caused a lot of friction in the team and talking through issues that desperately needed to be addressed. The situation became unsalvageable and ended in disaster.

I don't know whether it's the right answer for you, or generally, but I might ask them for a couple of minutes when he's in the office (i.e. "Can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?") and a) asking if everything is alright and b) letting him know that you think he does good work, but your work is impacted when you need to communicate with him and he's only available 60% of the time.

If he gets defensive, perhaps I'd move on to "Other people have taken notice too, and people are going to start asking questions" or something, to give myself cover to escalate to my manager in private if necessary (it's truthful, but it also makes it harder for them to later blame you for mentioning it, because people were already noticing it anyway).

Just my two cents. Would also be very curious how other people would handle this.

# ? Oct 22, 2015 22:47

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Talk to your dev manager and let them know that it's an issue. It's their responsibility to decide what to do, and they may have information that you don't.

You don't want to confront the guy directly in case it turns out that he's missing work because of chemotherapy or some similar issue. That can get real awkward real fast.

# ? Oct 22, 2015 23:57

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

ultrafilter posted:

Talk to your dev manager and let them know that it's an issue. It's their responsibility to decide what to do, and they may have information that you don't.

You don't want to confront the guy directly in case it turns out that he's missing work because of chemotherapy or some similar issue. That can get real awkward real fast.

Valid point, though if that's the case then, at this point (manager is around + employee is still not showing up), either the other employee is irresponsible for not letting their boss know (even something vague), or whoever is managing schedules is doing a bad job letting the relevant people know their schedule is affected.

I mean, the fact that he's had over sixteen no-shows (2x8 weeks) and neither the dev manager nor product manager sound like they have anything meaningful to say about it is way more awkward than a "are you okay?" and "sorry, don't want to talk about it". Sounds like he's been working part-time hours at a full-time job, if that, and if nobody appears to know why, he's kind of in the wrong by default, unless he can excuse it in some way that someone in his reporting structure accepts.

But yeah, all else being equal, it probably is safer and more professional to just talk to the boss, and let it work itself out.

Doctor w-rw-rw- fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Oct 23, 2015

# ? Oct 23, 2015 01:56

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

A diplomatic way to go about it is to tell your manager that you're concerned about the project's timelines because you're feeling blocked on tasks ABC due to needing XYZ from your co-worker and he's been hard to get in touch with lately. You could also ask your co-worker what the most convenient way to get in touch with him during work hours is for times when he's out of the office and something urgent comes up. (This assumes a certain level of professionalism on their part, naturally, but I think it's better to try a bit of honey first before going for a confrontation.)

# ? Oct 23, 2015 02:43

Mniot: May 22, 2003; Not the one you know

ultrafilter posted:

You don't want to confront the guy directly in case it turns out that he's missing work because of chemotherapy or some similar issue. That can get real awkward real fast.

I thought this was a joke-post, but you seem to have two other people in on it?

Just ask. Christ. "Hey, what's up with you on Mondays and Tuesdays?"

Also, what's the actual problem? You want to know if it's cool for you to drop to 3 days a week too? You don't know how to answer when people ask "where's <coworker>"? You want more code-review time than you're getting now? The conversation shouldn't be awkward if you go into it knowing what you want to know.

# ? Oct 23, 2015 03:03

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

Mniot posted:

I thought this was a joke-post, but you seem to have two other people in on it?

Just ask. Christ. "Hey, what's up with you on Mondays and Tuesdays?"

Also, what's the actual problem? You want to know if it's cool for you to drop to 3 days a week too? You don't know how to answer when people ask "where's <coworker>"? You want more code-review time than you're getting now? The conversation shouldn't be awkward if you go into it knowing what you want to know.

Eh. Some people can be extremely lovely when you call them out on something they're doing. And sometimes you need them more than you want to punish them for doing something wrong. And sometimes they have legitimate private issues. Given zero knowledge it's not wrong to be cautious and diplomatic. Though that way of doing things still holds a chance of bad outcomes.

But IMO � and I have never really had anyone strongly reinforce this opinion � it's worth considering how the person is likely to react and just be direct about something. I think that saying something straightforwardly like you suggest can be a good thing, especially if it lets one express empathy for their coworker (and their coworker is receptive). I believe this, in the face of people telling me it's unprofessional + advocating a fairly cold approach. :shrug:

Either your humor detector is broken, or your reality is rather unlike mine.

# ? Oct 23, 2015 03:28

sink: Sep 10, 2005; gerby gerb gerb in my mouf

It sounds like this is legitimately affecting your work.

It seems to me the professional thing to do is to ask your manager first if everything is okay with your coworker, just in case that coworker has a special arrangement with the organization, for whatever reason. Don't throw your coworker under the bus, don't say that the situation is compromising deliver dates, just ask. If your manager doesn't suck, and they are paying attention to anything at all, this is more than enough to signal to them that they need to take some sort of action.

If your manager says nothing or does nothing then they are lovely, but just ask your coworker if everything is okay the next time you see him. It's a pretty casual and normal thing to do. If he wants to dodge that's fine, just ask if you can take on some more responsibility so it's not a big deal when he doesn't show up.

# ? Oct 23, 2015 04:02

asur: Dec 28, 2012

sink posted:

It seems to me the professional thing to do is to ask your manager first if everything is okay with your coworker, just in case that coworker has a special arrangement with the organization, for whatever reason. Don't throw your coworker under the bus, don't say that the situation is compromising deliver dates, just ask. If your manager doesn't suck, and they are paying attention to anything at all, this is more than enough to signal to them that they need to take some sort of action.

Asking your manager about a coworker's personal life is not professional and talking to the manager at all is potentially throwing them under the bus, though that shouldn't matter all that much. If you have a good personal relationship with the person, I would just ask. If you don't or want to approach it professionally, then determine how their behavior is negatively impacting your work, what they could do to lessen the impact, and then approach them or the manager with that information. In this case, the issue seems to be not so much that the coworker is absent, but that they are not communicating when they will be absent so ask them to update their calender or whatever method the company uses to communicate when people will be available.

# ? Oct 23, 2015 08:51

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# ? May 9, 2024 21:24

Doctor w-rw-rw-: Jun 24, 2008

asur posted:

Asking your manager about a coworker's personal life is not professional and talking to the manager at all is potentially throwing them under the bus, though that shouldn't matter all that much.

Asking for personal details from the manager, sure. Asking if there's something going on, not at all. The manager shouldn't disclose what is going on unless they are completely sure they are free to discuss it, but asking about the workday-shaped hole in their expected presence isn't unprofessional, nor is a response of "I'm addressing this issue with them and I'd like to keep the details private".

Doctor w-rw-rw- fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Oct 23, 2015

# ? Oct 23, 2015 09:09

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