How do you deal with underlings that can't seem to ever do shit right?

[FaceHugger]

So here I am, another Friday night I should be spending playing God of War or drinking my face off. Instead I am fixing numerous scripts and automation tasks that someone else had a week to complete but failed to properly write and test, so I am essentially doing their job for them to get this go-live ready.

I am not their direct supervisor, so I cannot write them up and/or fire them. They are beneath me in a de facto fashion. I let my manager know, every single time in fact (this is the fourth or fifth time this person has failed to do their job) but nothing seems to be getting done.

This person has a degree in CS. He should know better.

He's the son of some random VP, so that complicates things.

He makes at least $110k going by our scales, in an area where the average household income is far, far lower, so to me it seems like he's coasting on nepotism while the rest of us do his job for him.

And to be clear this isn't even complicated stuff. It's Powershell and yaml pushed by Ansible and Jenkins, sometimes very basic C#, pulling from git. This is like intern level shit.

Should I just ask that they be fired? Is that too harsh? I am just getting tired of feeling like I am doing half their job for them.

 

[Maximus]

Well obviously you need to make it super apparent this is happening, but make sure you don't come off as an asshole. You don't want to pisss of his dad if he is a VP.

 

[capitalCORN]

Asking him to be fired sounds more like stamping a ticket for yourself in this situation. Maybe volunteer in another project/sector?

 

[A Robot]

Maybe next time he has to do stuff like that you could do it with him so he can learn from you?

 

[FaceHugger]

Maybe next time he has to do stuff like that you could do it with him so he can learn from you?

Click to shrink...

Tried that. He basically told me he understood, read my notes, and then half assed it again anyway.

 

[Trouble]

Stand you ground next time and let them fail.

 

[Cryptosporidium]

Fuck nepotism.

Id ask for a change to a new bay, areaz etc if thats possible.

 

[oneils]

Sending it back to their supervisor and having them wear it is not an option? Or are you stuck at work because a client is in need and that supervisor had already bounced by the time you figured out the problem?

Absolutely sit down with the supervisor and put them on notice.

I am in a different setting, so I would likely never suggest a firing as its impractical here, but i would consider throwing another manager under a bus if i had to. Luckily i dont think i have ever had to. I am usually the bottleneck myself.

 

[FaceHugger]

Stand you ground next time and let them fail.

Click to shrink...

They always seem to schedule these things at the times I am not off on vacation, my guess is because they know I will fix whatever problems arise.

Sending it back to their supervisor and having them wear it is not an option? Or are you stuck at work because a client is in need and that supervisor had already bounced by the time you figured out the problem?

Absolutely sit down with the supervisor and put them on notice.

I am in a different setting, so I would likely never suggest a firing as its impractical here, but i would consider throwing another manager under a bus if i had to. Luckily i dont think i have ever had to. I am usually the bottleneck myself.

Click to shrink...

His manager is my manager. I am in a weird predicament where I am at a "senior" level and our shared manager is at a higher level than the average technical manager. But I don't have the authority a senior engineer would usually have - probably due to his father being a VP.

I'll probably just apply for a new position. My manager is a good guy and very capable, but I am thinking his hands are as tied as mine.

 

[A Robot]

Tried that. He basically told me he understood, read my notes, and then half assed it again anyway.

Click to shrink...

I gather that you did the job and he tried to learn from watching you? You could try to do it so that he does all the work and you are there just to support him when he gets stuck.

 

[oneils]

They always seem to schedule these things at the times I am not off on vacation, my guess is because they know I will fix whatever problems arise.



His manager is my manager. I am in a weird predicament where I am at a "senior" level and our shared manager is at a higher level than the average technical manager. But I don't have the authority a senior engineer would usually have - probably due to his father being a VP.

I'll probably just apply for a new position. My manager is a good guy and very capable, but I am thinking his hands are as tied as mine.

Click to shrink...

Ok, that is shitty. Ive stayed behind to finish work from my staff or my boss, but have very rarely made one of my team members stay late to finish another team members work. If i did it may have been due to an illness. The situation you describe is really frustrating. I dont have a ton of useful advice.

 

[FaceHugger]

I gather that you did the job and he tried to learn from watching you? You could try to do it so that he does all the work and you are there just to support him when he gets stuck.

Click to shrink...

I work enough hours and don't get paid manager level money. I'd rather not babysit someone with the same degree as me on how to do the basic functions of their job. My feeling is that even if I did, once we inevitably pivot to some new tech I'll be in the same position again. Sure I make more than him, but I'm not his boss.

 

[Ichthyosaurus]

Blofeld knew what to do.

 

[A Robot]

I work enough hours and don't get paid manager level money. I'd rather not babysit someone with the same degree as me on how to do the basic functions of their job. My feeling is that even if I did, once we inevitably pivot to some new tech I'll be in the same position again. Sure I make more than him, but I'm not his boss.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, it might suck but if you help him when he needs the help you don't have to do his work on the weekend when you could be playing some God of War.

 

[amoy]

That stinks. Really seems coordinated to fall onto you o.O

If you let things go tits up, who would get the blame?

I work with two team leaders and some days it really makes me question how they reached that position, but they don't have any immunity by being friends or related to someone higher up, so everyone gets chewed out if they mess things up. There's manuals and safety checks that should be second nature to them, to avoid bullshit hold-ups and or any serious downtime.

 

[subpar spatula]

Tell him to do his own work. If your manager asks to cover for him tell him no.

Gotta stand your ground or else they'll just keep doing it. You'll be doing more than this person's work eventually.

 

[RagingAardvark]

Speaking from experience, it seems just about impossible to change someone's ways if they don't feel ownership or responsibility for the stuff that they're doing.

Sometimes you just gotta let things crash and burn. If the person who keeps committing the fuckups knows someone else is going to fix things every time, why would they feel motivated to improve?

 

[Bio]

So here I am, another Friday night I should be spending playing God of War or drinking my face off. Instead I am fixing numerous scripts and automation tasks that someone else had a week to complete but failed to properly write and test, so I am essentially doing their job for them to get this go-live ready.

I am not their direct supervisor, so I cannot write them up and/or fire them. They are beneath me in a de facto fashion. I let my manager know, every single time in fact (this is the fourth or fifth time this person has failed to do their job) but nothing seems to be getting done.

This person has a degree in CS. He should know better.

He's the son of some random VP, so that complicates things.

He makes at least $110k going by our scales, in an area where the average household income is far, far lower, so to me it seems like he's coasting on nepotism while the rest of us do his job for him.

And to be clear this isn't even complicated stuff. It's Powershell and yaml pushed by Ansible and Jenkins, sometimes very basic C#, pulling from git. This is like intern level shit.

Should I just ask that they be fired? Is that too harsh? I am just getting tired of feeling like I am doing half their job for them.

Click to shrink...

Stop doing his work for him. The situation will resolve itself in a hurry.

 

[JinnAxel]

They always seem to schedule these things at the times I am not off on vacation, my guess is because they know I will fix whatever problems arise.



His manager is my manager. I am in a weird predicament where I am at a "senior" level and our shared manager is at a higher level than the average technical manager. But I don't have the authority a senior engineer would usually have - probably due to his father being a VP.

I'll probably just apply for a new position. My manager is a good guy and very capable, but I am thinking his hands are as tied as mine.

Click to shrink...

I'm assuming that code needs to be reviewed before being pushed. Since you're senior to him, you can try to set yourself up to needing to sign off on his code before he's able to push the code. Don't need to tell him what the mistakes are, just that there are mistakes and that he needs to fix them. It's time consuming, but probably less time consuming than actually doing the corrections yourself. If it's simple, it shouldn't take long, and if it's not you can just stop at the first mistake you find and send it back to him to correct. And if he's just rapid firing half assed revisions, you could tell him to document the code better.

If the code is no good you just don't let it through. And if people ask you why, you just tell them what you told us and say there were too many mistakes.

Plus you could make it look like you're trying to groom the VP's kid, which might look good to higher ups.

 

[Horp]

Ownership.
I was CTO at a small tech company and had 12 devs reporting to me. But, I always felt I had do fix everything, own everything and work late nights to make up for their lack of motivation and skill.
Then I quit and moved to a large tech company. Guess what. My old company did better than ever before. Without me there the others had to start taking ownership themselves. My old colleague (biz dev there) says that this made people motivated, and started performing on a whole different level. Sure, he tells me some of the stuff I used to do is missed, and some of the devs feel that they lack someone with a clear vision etc, but all in all things are much better.
Now, I lead a much smaller team, but I do my very best to make sure people own their own work. It works.

 

[Lirlond]

Don't you have a work management system? Just don't do his work and when it's shit/not working he's stamped it off as complete. Don't fix his shit for him.

 

[Lord Fagan]

They've figured out you're a fireman.

What you tolerate, you validate. Get some sense and a spine, or just get a new job. This won't stop until you make it stop, OP.

 

[Galkinator]

Only one way.

 

[CarpeDeezNutz]

Must be nice to blow off work and make that kind of money. And you fix his shit too?

 

[SugarNoodles]

Maybe indicate that you're no longer interested in fixing his work?

If they're not willing to discipline him and you'd end up taking the blame for his shitty work, then do you really want to work there?

 

[nopattern]

Ownership.
I was CTO at a small tech company and had 12 devs reporting to me. But, I always felt I had do fix everything, own everything and work late nights to make up for their lack of motivation and skill.
Then I quit and moved to a large tech company. Guess what. My old company did better than ever before. Without me there the others had to start taking ownership themselves. My old colleague (biz dev there) says that this made people motivated, and started performing on a whole different level. Sure, he tells me some of the stuff I used to do is missed, and some of the devs feel that they lack someone with a clear vision etc, but all in all things are much better.
Now, I lead a much smaller team, but I do my very best to make sure people own their own work. It works.

Click to shrink...

 

[machinaea]

Ownership.
I was CTO at a small tech company and had 12 devs reporting to me. But, I always felt I had do fix everything, own everything and work late nights to make up for their lack of motivation and skill.
Then I quit and moved to a large tech company. Guess what. My old company did better than ever before. Without me there the others had to start taking ownership themselves. My old colleague (biz dev there) says that this made people motivated, and started performing on a whole different level. Sure, he tells me some of the stuff I used to do is missed, and some of the devs feel that they lack someone with a clear vision etc, but all in all things are much better.
Now, I lead a much smaller team, but I do my very best to make sure people own their own work. It works.

Click to shrink...

This (coming from someone who himself has had to face the same issue, and it took someone else pointing this out and taking a step back for me learn).

And no, it's not necessarily easy to drive the processes of a team to the point where ownership is taken properly. Especially if/(when you yourself feel so responsible and under pressure to deliver, letting people fail and learn may not be easy or natural, but driving ownership means you have to take a back seat and support people with means other than simply going and fixing their mistakes. Things like review processes where you can only suggest changes and act as a gatekeeper showing how his work fails to meet acceptance criteria can be an avenue forward, but I also recommend to talking with his supervisor about the performance and suggesting that your supervisor should set up better processes that enforce ownership for him, and pitch it with the fact that it will enable your output to rise and for the whole team to perform better. If that fails, then it's likely the person does not deserve the job, but that should become naturally apparent to his supervisor as well.

They've figured out you're a fireman.

What you tolerate, you validate. Get some sense and a spine, or just get a new job. This won't stop until you make it stop, OP.

Click to shrink...

This too, taking a step back and showing you have your own work to do, will help enforce this person to take better ownership of his work. It may come at short-term cost to the product(?) when someone does not fix the issues immediately, but by fixing them yourself, you become that trusted fireman.

 

[RPGam3r]

Stop fixing his problems. Open some defects send them his way and wait. Let the numbers speak for you rather than your opinion.

 

[Deleted member 10612]

Sometimes you gotta let go and let the car hit the wall.

 

[Captain Tuttle]

They always seem to schedule these things at the times I am not off on vacation, my guess is because they know I will fix whatever problems arise.



His manager is my manager. I am in a weird predicament where I am at a "senior" level and our shared manager is at a higher level than the average technical manager. But I don't have the authority a senior engineer would usually have - probably due to his father being a VP.

I'll probably just apply for a new position. My manager is a good guy and very capable, but I am thinking his hands are as tied as mine.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I'd get another position. Then if they give you an exit interview let them know why. Politely and professionally

 

[Deleted member 8257]

The fact that he is not your direct report complicates this. I had a similar but even more laughably bad situation but maybe you can find what I did helpful. A person who did not directly report to me, but to my colleague all sorts of fucked up an Excel spreadsheet because they don't know basic Excel formulas and stuff. Fine, I went in there and fixed it and also guided the person on how to make sure the problems do not happen again. Happened again, I fixed it again, and let their boss know this time. It kept happening again, and again and again. I saw that complaining to the person's direct boss (my colleague) was not helping much because even he couldn't get them to fix their Excel properly. I finally went to my boss' office and had a closed door venting session. I told my boss that this has been going on for 2 months and I'm doing someone else's work for them, and no matter what, the person isn't learning to do their job properly. I made it clear how it's frustrating me and impacting everyone else. My boss got upset that this has been going on for so long and took action. Eventually what happened is that my boss talked to my colleague sternly about the bad performer, and gave a choice of either sending that person to Excel Boot camp or finding someone else.

Long story short, the person was sent to Excel Boot camp and their direct manager (my colleague) took the responsibility of maintaining the Excel file. It all worked out in the end. I don't know if you have similar set up management wise as I do but go talk to your boss about it, and they will intervene.

 

[Kwigo]

Don't do his job. The go live misses the deadline? It's HIS fault. After the 3rd or fourth time, people will start asking questions, then everyone can start pointing fingers towards the one who didn't do his job.
No job in the world is good enough for you to sacrifice your free time because of someone else.

 

[FaceHugger]

Ownership.
I was CTO at a small tech company and had 12 devs reporting to me. But, I always felt I had do fix everything, own everything and work late nights to make up for their lack of motivation and skill.
Then I quit and moved to a large tech company. Guess what. My old company did better than ever before. Without me there the others had to start taking ownership themselves. My old colleague (biz dev there) says that this made people motivated, and started performing on a whole different level. Sure, he tells me some of the stuff I used to do is missed, and some of the devs feel that they lack someone with a clear vision etc, but all in all things are much better.
Now, I lead a much smaller team, but I do my very best to make sure people own their own work. It works.

Click to shrink...

This (coming from someone who himself has had to face the same issue, and it took someone else pointing this out and taking a step back for me learn).

And no, it's not necessarily easy to drive the processes of a team to the point where ownership is taken properly. Especially if/(when you yourself feel so responsible and under pressure to deliver, letting people fail and learn may not be easy or natural, but driving ownership means you have to take a back seat and support people with means other than simply going and fixing their mistakes. Things like review processes where you can only suggest changes and act as a gatekeeper showing how his work fails to meet acceptance criteria can be an avenue forward, but I also recommend to talking with his supervisor about the performance and suggesting that your supervisor should set up better processes that enforce ownership for him, and pitch it with the fact that it will enable your output to rise and for the whole team to perform better. If that fails, then it's likely the person does not deserve the job, but that should become naturally apparent to his supervisor as well.


This too, taking a step back and showing you have your own work to do, will help enforce this person to take better ownership of his work. It may come at short-term cost to the product(?) when someone does not fix the issues immediately, but by fixing them yourself, you become that trusted fireman.

Click to shrink...

They've figured out you're a fireman.

What you tolerate, you validate. Get some sense and a spine, or just get a new job. This won't stop until you make it stop, OP.

Click to shrink...

Thanks, sound advice all. I just always felt like I was in a position to have to get it going given the position and all, and deadlines. I intend on showing spine and pushing it back onto his plate in the most professional way possible.

Don't you have a work management system? Just don't do his work and when it's shit/not working he's stamped it off as complete. Don't fix his shit for him.

Click to shrink...

Kind of. It's cooked into our heavily modified ITIL solution. The best way I can document it now is in git, by forking his work and making notes that X, Y, and Z are wrong in both the code and validation processes, and listing what I had to do to correct those issues (which were, again, typically entire overhauls).

 

[Mercurial]

I would get rid of them if this is a regular thing.

 

[healbite-maritima]

Sounds like you need a new job. I would say let them crash and burn and let them see how valuable you are, but this is the real world.

 

[ArnoldJRimmer]

Do you have a code review process in place? If not, you should, and maybe lead the effort. Do not allow code in that hasn't been reviewed. Use a proper tool to manage pull requests and make sure everyone is aware of discussions that happen around them.

They'll get tired of seeing you correct the same issues coming from this guy, they'll get tired of doing it themselves because code review should be something everyone does, not just you.

Essentially you are bringing everyone into the code review process so that you're not stuck doing this guy's work for him. EVERYONE gets stuck doing this guy's work for him. It's not fair it's all on you. And this is much more likely to lead to multiple complaints which might actually get something done, vs it possibly being viewed as you being a trouble maker.

 

[FaceHugger]

Do you have a code review process in place? If not, you should, and maybe lead the effort. Do not allow code in that hasn't been reviewed. Use a proper tool to manage pull requests and make sure everyone is aware of discussions that happen around them.

They'll get tired of seeing you correct the same issues coming from this guy, they'll get tired of doing it themselves because code review should be something everyone does, not just you.

Essentially you are bringing everyone into the code review process so that you're not stuck doing this guy's work for him. EVERYONE gets stuck doing this guy's work for him. It's not fair it's all on you. And this is much more likely to lead to multiple complaints which might actually get something done, vs it possibly being viewed as you being a trouble maker.

Click to shrink...

For my department, no. We're infrastructure, automation, cloud, and virtualization. We don't have the same kinds of seasoned programmers and managers utilizing tools and standards that the app teams have enjoyed for years. Lab to dev to test to prod - we're just not there. Reading through the great responses in this thread, I am realizing it's something I need to push.

 

[Koo]

If you aren't his supervisor, why is it falling on you to correct his mistakes? If the responsibility is somehow being shifted to you; sounds like you need to ask for more compensation for basically doing someone else's job.

Also doesn't matter if he didn't pay attention last time you went over things with him. If you're expected to step in, then he needs to be there as well. You work, he works. If he can't retain anything, whatever, he still should be working with you on things he should have completed. Maybe once he sees he has to keep putting in extra hours he'll figure shit out on his own.

 

[FaceHugger]

If you aren't his supervisor, why is it falling on you to correct his mistakes? If the responsibility is somehow being shifted to you; sounds like you need to ask for more compensation for basically doing someone else's job.

Also doesn't matter if he didn't pay attention last time you went over things with him. If you're expected to step in, then he needs to be there as well. You work, he works. If he can't retain anything, whatever, he still should be working with you on things he should have completed. Maybe once he sees he has to keep putting in extra hours he'll figure shit out on his own.

Click to shrink...

I'm what you would call escalation (the senior): their pipelines and/or packages aren't working? Call in FaceHugger to rapidly repair them.

And I earn a fair amount more than him. So I'm not being taken advantage of in that respect. Just my time and sanity. Which I would argue is worse.

And I agree with him having to be there. With the advice I've received, that it is something I intend to demand from here on out if I am called in again by some director to clean up a mess.

 

[One Eyed Willy]

OP, I've lived these shoes. Here is my heart-felt advice.

1. Talk to management about it, but do EVERYTHING in writing, meaning email.
2. Do not ask for someone else to be fired.
3. Insist that you are tired of doing someone else's job and can't continue to operate in that kind of culture.

Long term?

Everyone in IT, literally everyone working in IT needs to have an "exit plan". Nobody ever talks about this, no high school counselors, no university counselors.. because they don't know. IT is a career that will eat you alive over time, but only if you let it. So.. don't let it.

People are excited for money, and opportunity so they jump in and work hard to be successful. Everyone working in IT should have clear career goals, the last of which should always include an exit strategy. What I mean is, you're going to spend 15-20 years building skills and climbing the ladder. You're going to master systems, software, scripting, platforms, cloud, ERP, storage, virutalization.. you're going to acquire all these skills to just be some 50 year old engineer STILL working in the trenches next to 25 year olds, all while being managed by 35 year olds and being underpaid through it all. Its similar to being that old guy in the bar, hanging out with 20 somethings. Don't be that guy.

There is a window where you can take all your skills and escape but the window is tight. Most people do it between 35-40'ish but by 45 if you're entire resume is just trench work, you're probably stuck there indefinitely. An exit strategy should include real plans to take all those skills you've acquired and apply them somewhere else, doing less work and making more money. If you don't, someone else will.. so don't let someone else do this in place of you. Examples of "getting out" would include leaving IT trenches for management, but better would be going to work for a VAR/partner as a post sales engineer if you still like to tinker. Or get into pre-sales engineering or sales in general. Any of the above will double your income and have you working a steady 40 hour work week, and you'll never own any systems, or platforms.

You'll need to exit before you simply just age out. There are always exceptions, but companies hiring people into (pre/post) sales are not looking for 45-50 year olds looking to break into sales and settle down. They are looking for younger people, experience who are hungry to make everyone money. Management is another option, but now your'e still in IT but just one tick up and still have to deal with some amount of BS.

So my short answer for that entire wall of text is, file these incidents away in your head as cause to start planning your exit from IT. Figure out what is you want to do next to make more money and work less. Pick something, start building your network and start your exit.

Don't make the mistake of thinking IT is a life long career, don't make that mistake. Outsmart the system.

 

[Threadkular]

Get some humility first and don't view them as underlings. Your ego is out of control. "Doing shit right" is a relative term that you have defined.

I say this from experience of saying the exact same things you did.

 

[VeryHighlander]

If you aren't his supervisor, why is it falling on you to correct his mistakes? If the responsibility is somehow being shifted to you; sounds like you need to ask for more compensation for basically doing someone else's job.

Click to shrink...

Bingo. It shouldn't be about how someone under you is fucking up it's only about you doing extra work for free OP and this is how you should approach it to higher ups.

"I have no problem doing extra work to make everything run smoothly but I would like to be compensated for the time and effort"

 

[House_Of_Lightning]

Should I just ask that they be fired?

Click to shrink...

Is it ultimately your job to clean up after them? If so, then I'd organize a meeting with the data points you need and the dangers he poses with his sloppy work and take it from there.

If you're just covering for him because you're an engineer and fixing shit is just your MO then you'll need to let his failures come back on him and let his lack of professionalism be his own problem.

 

[Deleted member 46493]

This is why I never do anything for anyone else at my job if they don't finish or do it right. If they didn't finish their work, it's on them. The more work you do for others, the less they'll do.

 

[BarringGaffner]

I directly supervise 20-50 artists for my department at the peak of a show, I work in vfx. I set up bi-weekly training and if one artist asks me a question I will bring it up with a solution in the training session. That has given good results and the team always really likes it.

But the problem of 'finishing' is real. Some people just can't get shit done. And the show and their contracts will end. And then they will come back and do it all over again. Because we either won't be able to hire enough people and having someone is better than no one, OR my company was top cheap to get better people.

 

[FaceHugger]

OP, I've lived these shoes. Here is my heart-felt advice.

1. Talk to management about it, but do EVERYTHING in writing, meaning email.
2. Do not ask for someone else to be fired.
3. Insist that you are tired of doing someone else's job and can't continue to operate in that kind of culture.

Long term?

Everyone in IT, literally everyone working in IT needs to have an "exit plan". Nobody ever talks about this, no high school counselors, no university counselors.. because they don't know. IT is a career that will eat you alive over time, but only if you let it. So.. don't let it.

People are excited for money, and opportunity so they jump in and work hard to be successful. Everyone working in IT should have clear career goals, the last of which should always include an exit strategy. What I mean is, you're going to spend 15-20 years building skills and climbing the ladder. You're going to master systems, software, scripting, platforms, cloud, ERP, storage, virutalization.. you're going to acquire all these skills to just be some 50 year old engineer STILL working in the trenches next to 25 year olds, all while being managed by 35 year olds and being underpaid through it all. Its similar to being that old guy in the bar, hanging out with 20 somethings. Don't be that guy.

There is a window where you can take all your skills and escape but the window is tight. Most people do it between 35-40'ish but by 45 if you're entire resume is just trench work, you're probably stuck there indefinitely. An exit strategy should include real plans to take all those skills you've acquired and apply them somewhere else, doing less work and making more money. If you don't, someone else will.. so don't let someone else do this in place of you. Examples of "getting out" would include leaving IT trenches for management, but better would be going to work for a VAR/partner as a post sales engineer if you still like to tinker. Or get into pre-sales engineering or sales in general. Any of the above will double your income and have you working a steady 40 hour work week, and you'll never own any systems, or platforms.

You'll need to exit before you simply just age out. There are always exceptions, but companies hiring people into (pre/post) sales are not looking for 45-50 year olds looking to break into sales and settle down. They are looking for younger people, experience who are hungry to make everyone money. Management is another option, but now your'e still in IT but just one tick up and still have to deal with some amount of BS.

So my short answer for that entire wall of text is, file these incidents away in your head as cause to start planning your exit from IT. Figure out what is you want to do next to make more money and work less. Pick something, start building your network and start your exit.

Don't make the mistake of thinking IT is a life long career, don't make that mistake. Outsmart the system.

Click to shrink...

Thanks, and yes I am currently trying to line myself up to take over an impending management job regarding Azure. My org is kind of new with the cloud and I have a good reputation with the managers of the various app teams - most importantly their directors as well. So when the time comes I am going to jump into management there, and if it doesn't work out, I can look to a management position in other companies with people I had good relations with when I was still a 20-something trying to move up. I definitely don't intend to be one of those 40-something engineers just coasting on a six figure salary but hating the job.

Get some humility first and don't view them as underlings. Your ego is out of control. "Doing shit right" is a relative term that you have defined.

I say this from experience of saying the exact same things you did.

Click to shrink...

I don't know if my ego is out of control. I do try to help others less tenured and am completely aware that there's probably some 25 year old out there that could do my job with more eagerness and would love to do it.

"Doing shit right" is pretty straight forward in this field. There's a correct way to write this automation and what not, and when it's not correct, it plain doesn't work. The metals are metals and all. This is literally a person not doing things right, and then fucking off come Friday for everyone else (usually me) to do things correctly for them. But like I said earlier that's over now. No more.

 

[Masoyama]

If the person needs a bit more time to get their head around a problem, I try to help out, however some people just don't have it in them. If you hold people to the highest standards, some of them just don't put the effort into learning from their past mistakes and gathering all the information they have been exposed to. Those people are not really worthy of my time, and its best to figure it out quickly and find the right ones. Not everyone will meet expectations, and that is fine, you learn pretty quickly how to find the good ones.

This is how I was trained and how I approach training. If you teach people how to solve Problem A, the results can be categorized into three groups

1) People that cannot solve the same problem when faced with even slightly changed parameters. These are the computers and are useless.

2) People that can solve problem A again even if you change stuff around and flip it. These people are technicians and good to keep around but don't spend energy on them.

3) People that can solve the problem you taught them but make connections to other things they've faced before and can immediately see how to solve Problems B, C, D. These are the engineers, and the ones that are worth of keeping around and training further.

This world view helped me through my PhD and has really helped me focus my energy after graduation.

 

[PoppaBK]

Thanks, and yes I am currently trying to line myself up to take over an impending management job regarding Azure. My org is kind of new with the cloud and I have a good reputation with the managers of the various app teams - most importantly their directors as well. So when the time comes I am going to jump into management there, and if it doesn't work out, I can look to a management position in other companies with people I had good relations with when I was still a 20-something trying to move up. I definitely don't intend to be one of those 40-something engineers just coasting on a six figure salary but hating the job.



I don't know if my ego is out of control. I do try to help others less tenured and am completely aware that there's probably some 25 year old out there that could do my job with more eagerness and would love to do it.

"Doing shit right" is pretty straight forward in this field. There's a correct way to write this automation and what not, and when it's not correct, it plain doesn't work. The metals are metals and all. This is literally a person not doing things right, and then fucking off come Friday for everyone else (usually me) to do things correctly for them. But like I said earlier that's over now. No more.

Click to shrink...

So he is delegating his tasks to someone with more ability than him and getting them to work longer hours to do it. This guy has future manager written all over him.

 

[One Eyed Willy]

Thanks, and yes I am currently trying to line myself up to take over an impending management job regarding Azure. My org is kind of new with the cloud and I have a good reputation with the managers of the various app teams - most importantly their directors as well. So when the time comes I am going to jump into management there, and if it doesn't work out, I can look to a management position in other companies with people I had good relations with when I was still a 20-something trying to move up. I definitely don't intend to be one of those 40-something engineers just coasting on a six figure salary but hating the job.

Click to shrink...

Hey congrats! Congrats on serious goals and plans, you're already ahead of people twice your age in this industry.

40 something year old engineers are common, 50 something year old engineers are not. So just make sure to have your exit planned before then. Weirdly enough 50 something year old "tech support people" are wildly common, because they didn't ever manage to climb higher and settled. The trick is to recognize the cycle and make active goals to game it.

You won't ever need a degree to achieve this, ethic and drive will propel you. Take risks, and keep doing what you're doing. Most of all be kind to people and remember the industry gets smaller the higher you climb. You never know who your boss will be. Your reputation is your brand..

..Build your brand.

 

[texhnolyze]

Tried that. He basically told me he understood, read my notes, and then half assed it again anyway.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I know that type.

It's such a complicated situation you're in. My condolence.