Thursday, June 11, 2015

Making Assholes Accountable!



Life is way too short to put up with assholes. Whether at work or at home, you really need to "just say no" to them. All of them.

TheHackerCIO just the other day told a co-worker, "I just can't believe that every new client I visit & open up their Microsoft products, the UI is completely different."

I mean ..... really? Do we really need a multi-page-click "user-experience" in order to move from a document to print it, and then move back to the document? This is a new and improved experience? For those not yet blessed, I speak of "Microsoft 365."

But this collage was an asshole.

His reply was, "If you find dealing with change problematic, then you're going to have problems here at <Company-Name-Deleted-To-Protect-The-Assholes>." What a dick. Luckily, I don't have to deal with that dick any more!

It's important to hold this kind of asshole accountable for his asshole-hood, but I'm still working out the right way to do it. If I'm lucky, he'll read this one day, realize that he's the asshole, and the connections will fall into place.

Here's another prime example of assholity: A highly respected colleague recently interview with a major company for an Enterprise Architecture position. The company never got back to him -- neither the HR department, nor the hiring manager. This is a sample of the right way to hold this kind of asshole accountable:

Now here's where it really got bad. This hiring manager, who lives in another State, utterly defaulted on his obligation to "get back to the recruiter" with feedback. Now, over a month later, I still haven't heard one word either way about anything. The recruiter was completely mystified by the manager's complete lack of responsiveness. The recruiter, who was quite good, had attempted to confirm the face-to-face interview details, and was unable to -- he never received *any* response from this hiring-manager. No confirmation. No feedback. Nothing! Very unprofessional. Molina should fire the hiring-manager.

Frankly, anyone who takes up the time of someone in an interview has a moral obligation to give a response with feedback to that person in a timely manner. It's an implicit contract that underlies the interview process. This hiring-manager-who-needs-firing not only defaulted on this obligation, but actually lied to me. He stated to my face that he would get back to the recruiter with his feedback. He never did.

On a personal level, I feel that I had a lucky escape. The lack of organization (about who would interview me), coupled with the lack of responsiveness to email and phone calls, and co-workers with a poor grasp of English -- all this points to that work environment being the kind of place I'd rather not spend my life trying to fix. Give this "shop" a "miss"! That would be my advice.

 Glassdoor is wonderful and a great way to hold hiring managers accountable for their interviewing.

So, figure out ways to get rid of the assholes you deal with. And call them to account for it. Because life is too short. Way too short.

I Remain,

TheHackerCIO