
In response to This*: Stop letting engineers get away with social ineptitude - hoop
http://www.charleshooper.net/blog/stop-letting-tech-people-be-socially-inept/
======
nathanb
I can't agree. My professional experience involves enough interaction with
extraordinarily talented engineers who have extremely abrasive personalities.
Often, that abrasiveness is a side effect of their talent: the same ability
which allows these talented men and women to see through the complexity and
grasp the conceptually simple steps necessary to solve the problem also helps
them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that
we call people skills.

You can argue that if the culture shifted such that these individuals were
marginalized and forced out then they would change out of necessity. I could
see this argument--idealistic to the point of fallacy though it is--presented
at other venues. However, those who frequent Hacker News should know that
these people will find talented others who are capable of dealing with their
social immaturity and will end up co-founding their own company and,
unencumbered by the enforced social niceties of this fictional society, may
very well end up becoming a dominant player and returning to the status quo.

~~~
generalk

      > My professional experience involves enough interaction 
      > with extraordinarily talented engineers who have 
      > extremely abrasive personalities.
    

There's a difference between "that guy's kind of a jerk, but I don't think he
knows it" and deleting paid accounts and backups over some words on Twitter.

I agree, very talented engineers tend to be abrasive. I know a handful myself.
But each and every one of them is capable, at the very least, of not being an
intentional jerk and being basically polite and respectful in their dealings.

~~~
reduxredacted
_There's a difference between "that guy's kind of a jerk, but I don't think he
knows it" and deleting paid accounts and backups over some words on Twitter._

Yeah, there's a not-so-subtle line there.

I would be concerned if an employee of mine exhibited that behavior, because
I've seen it before. We had a technically brilliant, but socially ... scary
... individual working as a sysadmin. He blew up about a decision to abandon
all of our 1-off mail platforms and switch purely to Exchange (rather than
GroupWise, which he preferred and most in our location used).

He was the technical lead for our GroupWise deployment, so to voice his
dissatisfaction with the decision that _idiots in upper management made_ , he
did us the courtesy of wiping out a swath of our employee's mailboxes
contained on one of the servers. And, much like this guy but on a grander
scale, began erasing the current set of tapes that had backed up most of our
servers our location.

We didn't end up losing much, and I can't remember why (we had tapes stored
off-site off-line, but they were only moved weekly). The thing that was most
shocking was all of the profanity and yelling originating from his cube while
he was packing up his things under direct supervision of a member of corporate
security. He seemed genuinely surprised he was told his services were no
longer necessary (they even laid him off rather than firing him for cause,
allowing him severance pay and unemployment during a hiring boom). At no point
did he _seem_ like a stable guy. His boss liked him because he was very smart
and the result of his _cleverness_ was enough of an improvement to services
and reduction in costs that his instabilities could be argued away ("He
launched this project that's bringing in X revenue, he's just a little
strange, that's all.").

Sad thing: he continued to find employment and continued to get laid off (5
places, I believe), then died at 37 of a heart attack. The guy who noticed the
obit forwarded it out to our team like it was some sort of vindication " _See,
he DIED because he was such a jerk!_ ". Even normally decent people have a
mean streak about them, I guess.

~~~
ldar15
Let me be _very clear_. Anger management problems do NOT correlate with
sociopathic behavior. Sociopaths can be charming just as likely as they can be
assholes. Equally, someone who is charming is just as likely to be a sociopath
as a frustrated technical person with no social skills.

So thanks for your single data point of an angry person who was also a
sociopath.

Your post is equivalent to writing: "We had a technical guy. Very polite. But
he was black. When we asked him to do something he deleted all our work. Turns
out he did this at the next five jobs. Be careful hiring black people".

Being black, or white, or martian, or having anger management issues, are not
relevant. Being a sociopath is relevant.

~~~
NyxWulf
Sociopath is a tough word because it means a lot of things and it really isn't
used in clinical diagnosis. Based on the historical patterns though a
sociopath was typically someone lacking any type of empathy, so they would do
things hurt other people just to amuse themselves by watching the results.
There is no where near enough information to diagnose sociopathy presented.

If you look at the Anti-Social Personality disorders, this may fall closer to
a Cluster B - Histrionic. Which is what many people consider someone with
"anger management" issues.

I agree with what I think is the intent of your post, that people with a
personality disorder are suffering from something they may not have control
of. However, I do think anger management issues are a disorder and are not of
a kind with being "black" as there is no inherent disorder associated with
being black.

I think that employers have a very real, and legitimate interest in not
employing people with severe personality disorders, particularly if they are
not under control or in treatment for the disorder. Even then, it doesn't make
sense to put some people in a position where they can cripple your company if
they are very upset over something.

~~~
alnayyir
>Sociopath is a tough word because it means a lot of things and it really
isn't used in clinical diagnosis

When understood as a synonym for an acute case of antisocial personality
disorder (this is how virtually all people educated in clinical psychology
understand it), it's actually one of the primary commonalities of criminals
and is an incredibly meaningful way to understand some people.

> Based on the historical patterns though a sociopath was typically someone
> lacking any type of empathy, so they would do things hurt other people just
> to amuse themselves by watching the results.

That's a pretty gross over-simplification, there are many comorbid behaviors
with sociopathy and they form a whole constellation with which a clinician can
diagnose/identify it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder>

Here's a good start, you may want to educate yourself before you pontificate
on the subject. Sociopathy is a very misunderstood disorder by most of the
public, although there was a recent book that covered it semi-okay.

------
reduxredacted
I don't think the issue is one of social incapability, but one of failing to
match a hire with his responsibilities. If you're going to have your technical
guy interacting with customers, then being technically brilliant but lacking
customer service skills is not a good fit.

I work for MegaCorp. We have developers here that are incredibly difficult to
get along with and a few that are great. There seems to be this sense that the
more capable and intelligent a person is the more frequently they're jerks to
deal with. I haven't found this to be true. There are plenty of good devs that
aren't "holier than thou" (and one of the best devs I worked with was clearly
on the extroverted side, though most of them land on the introverted side of
things).

I will say, though, that more people have ended up being let go for attitude,
rather than work quality where I am employed. To put it plainly, in a large
corporation where you have to work amongst imaginary and real bureaucracy, it
doesn't matter how skilled you are, if you can't work with people you won't
get anything done. Your fantastic project/work will not be looked at because
nobody will care to see it and your manager (often non-technical) won't want
to show it off because you keep aggravating him or putting him in the awkward
position of defending your behavior to his superiors.

~~~
rick888
"I work for MegaCorp. We have developers here that are incredibly difficult to
get along with and a few that are great. There seems to be this sense that the
more capable and intelligent a person is the more frequently they're jerks to
deal with. I haven't found this to be true. There are plenty of good devs that
aren't "holier than thou" (and one of the best devs I worked with was clearly
on the extroverted side, though most of them land on the introverted side of
things)."

I agree with you here. I also find that the jerks, may seemingly be
intelligent, but don't learn much from other people (which usually happens if
you are smart+socially aware) because they think are right all the time

------
sbarre
I think the 2 "skills" in question here are "tact and maturity".

No one is asking engineers to be salesmen or glad-handing PR people. But as so
many others have pointed out, any mature adult, no matter their vocation,
should have the basic social understanding of "this is ok to do/say" and "this
is not ok to do/say" for most given situations.

i.e. tact..

And to all of you who hide behind the "that's not learnable for me, I'm
awkward/nerdy/shy/neckbearded" excuses, I call bullshit. Grow up.

I was the epitome of awkward, shy and socially inept (since childhood) as a
developer, and in my mid-20s I made the conscious choice to overcome these
things. To become more professional and to learn how to communicate and
interact properly with my co-workers, superiors, reports and YES even
customers.

And I did it by just throwing myself in the fire. It was hard at first, but I
figured it out. And it has opened so many doors and opportunities for me.

The combination of my technical competency as a developer and my professional
communication skills has been a huge asset for me when looking for work and
new opportunities.

Plus, on the lighter side, it eventually helped me with my inter-personal
communication and social skills as an added bonus! (i.e. it got me laid more)
:-)

------
araneae
> yet employers often find that people filling these roles with poor people
> skills are still employable. This needs to stop. I’m of the opinion that
> every position is customer-facing.

Well fuck me, then. I'm sorry, it's already hard enough for me to find jobs as
it is.

Frankly I'm glad we live in a society that has a place for us social retards.
I really do believe that social "skills" can't be learned, at least not well.
I'm glad there's a place for us, just like I'm glad there's a place for people
who are short, black, or ugly. Yeah, there are fewer employment opportunities,
and our salaries are handicapped consequentially (tech skills + people skills
= high payed manager!) but telling us we should be out on our asses for
something we can't help is cruel.

Obviously the guy should have been fired though.

~~~
metafour
As adults I think it's pretty immature to recognize a fault and then not even
attempt to change one's behavior in a positive manner.

~~~
araneae
Not if it's a fault that can't be changed, or at least not easily.

I'm short, too, and I've learned to accept that, just as I've learned to
accept the fact that some of my friends have more people posting "happy
birthday" on their wall than I do.

~~~
jff
Can't be changed? Are you sure you aren't making up excuses for yourself? If
you didn't believe people skills were innate and unlearnable, would you have
to face the fact that you may be simply lazy in that regard, or that you're
clinging to an unfriendly personality because you feel it makes you more of a
techy hacker archetype?

------
Jach
Wrong problem. This whole issue was just typical assholery, it's not a failure
of introverts or antisocial behavior. By all means, stop hiring assholes, but
don't blame it on people who just hate smalltalk and never bothered to learn.

------
Wilya
This guy is mistaking "poor people skills" with "being an asshole". I'm not
sure whether the two are so clearly related : there are a few different
manifestations of lack of social skills, and there are jerks who don't have
much social skills issues.

"All it takes for someone to be good at customer service is: [...]".

This sounds so simple. And it misses quite the point. Lacking "social skills",
is precisely this : not knowing how to behave completely "normally" (whatever
that means) with other people. Like, not grasping the effect of your words, or
not being able to think them through fast enough before saying them. Of
course, I want to be helpful, and to answer the person in front of me (or on
the phone). That doesn't mean that it is what the person will see or hear.

------
CapitalistCartr
There seems to be a convention amongst the techie crowd that social rules are
a silly bit of nonsense that dumber people engage in. This is not at all the
case.

When I handle a project from beginning to end, it goes smoother. I find any
mistakes I've made myself; I know what assumptions I made at every step; I
don't have to get my head around the job over and over again; it's all-round
easier.

When a team does projects, it requires rules, with some rigidity. Each person
has to act somewhat like an object-oriented sub-routine, with guaranteed
input, guaranteed output. This does add some overhead, but it allows each
person to function with relative freedom in his own space.

Social rules and conventions are the rules for the team comprised of a culture
doing the project of living. They allow us to get through the day using
hundreds of social shortcuts; assumptions about each other's behavior, needs,
wants, expectations.

~~~
tomjen3
Assuming that people show up on time, do what they have agreed to, etc
obviously isn't stupid social rules. They have practical utility.

Sugar-coating peoples screw-ups, pretending they aren't wrong when they are or
have a point when they don't, playing politics or favorites, etc however tends
to make smart people look with distain on all social rules.

------
lsc
wait, what? There is a difference between being socially inept and destroying
data because you think someone is a jerk. This difference is similar, I think,
to the difference between honking or flipping someone off in traffic and, say,
ramming them.

I mean, one of those things is just being rude. The other is going out of your
way to damage someone else.

Personally, I would put up with a lot of the first. Rude people, of course,
shouldn't be in customer service, but on the back end, eh, if they are good
enough, I think they are worth keeping around. Especially if they are the
extremely direct, blunt and honest kind of rude, I think they can actually be
better back end people, sometimes, than people who try to twist things to look
better than they are.

But people who destroy things when they are angry or insulted? yeah, those
people should not be let anywhere near a root prompt.

------
mekoka
I believe that what many are quick to refer to as _social ineptitude_ is a
keener sense of bullshit detection, combined with the inability to take it
with a smile.

Imo, most _socially-inept_ tech people are simply individuals that are more
sensitive to the hypocrisy and nonsense one is exposed to when dealing with
the public.

I don't know if being a tech person is a cause or an effect of that bullshit
sensitivity, but as a programmer who used to be a bouncer in a bar a few years
ago, I can tell you that some of my non-tech colleagues were by far very quick
at losing their temper than I was.

Now, there's a difference between being bullshit intolerant and being
malicious. I am of the firm opinion that the actions of that Tech support guy
(deleting data out of pure spite) are certainly not characteristic of the
tech-guy stereotype as we know it.

------
hong
Good engineers' poor personal skill is often a manifestation of traits that
allow them to be good engineers in the first place (though not a necessary
condition). The same way Steve Jobs and James Cameron are horrible bosses to
work for, the same way CEOs often suffer from ADD and bi-polar disorder, and
the same way so many amazing Nobel Laureate have autism problems. If you
appear ordinary in your personalities and traits, then chances are that you
aren't the outstanding leader of your field.

~~~
foobarbazoo
I would disagree with your characterization of Steve Jobs and James Cameron as
horrible bosses to work for, but I certainly see why you say it.

Many, many people I'm certain have asked themselves "why, oh why can't Steve
(or Jim) be nicer" (and still be the same in every other way). People just
don't work like that.

Great post!

------
mrcharles
500 - Internal Server Error

Stop letting writers get away with technical ineptitude!

~~~
epochwolf
Hey, cut the guy some slack, that's a proper error page instead of a debugging
message. :)

Edit: added a smiley

~~~
mrcharles
I just couldn't pass up the obvious joke. He had it back up a few minutes
after I posted that, which makes him a winner compared to some. I posted a
real comment as well.

------
ori_b
That's not social ineptitude. That's malicious behavior and destruction of
property. There is a difference. Please don't conflate the two.

------
ulisesroche
What's so hard about kindness that engineers can't figure out? I really don't
buy that excuse.

~~~
drivingmenuts
"Kindness" is a pretty vague term. I think "empathy" might better suit your
question.

It's rather difficult for some types of people to learn, especially if they're
not exactly wired for that or their cultural or familial background didn't put
much emphasis on it.

In the programming profession, it's not particularly useful when you primarily
deal with computers (computers just don't care).

~~~
eropple
No programmer in any company of any reasonable size deals primarily with
computers.

------
jarin
Based on some digging around I have a very strong suspicion that Jules is the
founder and only employee of This*. I think the "new employee" will likely
just be a new email account with a different name.

------
methodin
"The understanding that they represent their employer and that people are
relying on them" - Most developers have huge, inflated egos.

"A compassionate, helpful, and courteous attitude" - See above.

"The knowledge of whatever their supporting" - An understanding of the
technical side of a product is vastly different from the functional side as
its easy for a developer to say "This is sample. You hit X, then Y then select
Z and find Q" which does not translate in any way to a client understanding a
product and the frustration of dealing with "simpletons" shines through - thus
leading to outbursts like we've seen.

This is of course the standard. I would imagine entrepreneurs and such do not
follow this guideline, but for a generic programmer these traits are not
something that are a typical side-effect of the craft unless you start moving
up in rank.

The fact that the author would be offended by the statements mentioned really
reiterates the point that most developers take things entirely too personally.
I know I did for the better part of 10 years.

~~~
cousin_it
> Most developers have huge, inflated egos.

I think that stereotype is about as likely to be true as the "typical"
developer's stereotype of _designers and managers_ being the ones with
inflated egos. The "typical" programming company seems to be quite the ego
contest, if you listen to what everyone secretly thinks about everyone else!

------
tedkalaw
I know a few universities that are pushing programs to "fix" this problem in
engineers by encouraging them to do more presentations and group projects.

It seems like there will always parts of "geek culture" that just don't care.
Perhaps they're even proud of social ineptitude? But those aren't engineers I
would want to work with.

~~~
Lost_BiomedE
Yeah, although the ones that are less capable in group dynamics usually just
bail, making the others do the work.

Where I saw the most exercising of social skills, involved cheating.

------
Rantenki
Offence: Engineer is offended by customer and flushes the customers livelihood
(website)

Cure: Management should be offended by engineers and flush THEIR livelihood
(job)

Seems symmetrical, but perhaps over-simplifying the problem? Of course I
realize that the article above doesn't directly advocate firing the engineer,
but many high-functioning technical people just cannot realistically be
trained to be social animals too. Those abrasive nerds are really productive
outside of a customer service role, so wouldn't a better solution be to fix
the mis-allocation of tech staffing resources to customer facing roles?

edit: and yeah, maybe the problem is that this particular engineer was just a
dick, and we shouldn't use him as an example in the discussion of technical vs
social roles in our companies.

------
duggan
Yeah, I don't believe for a second that this is a trait that belongs
exclusively to engineers.

Here's a thought: anyone in a position of "power" is susceptible to this
dynamic; if "social" relationships were described as an equation, then power
(P) would be inversely proportional to the effort or energy (E) you need to
expend to maintain any given social relationship (R),

P = R/E

The more power/authority you wield, the more of a jerk you _can_ be (not
should be or are), because the value of the relationship is lopsided - you
don't _need_ to spend as much energy on it.

The power an engineer holds is that they are often quite valuable within an
organization, and tend to have an easily transferable skill set.

------
drivingmenuts
I'd put the blame on whoever hired the guy and put him out front as the
customer support guy, without monitoring him. Some of it's attributable to the
support guy, but most of the blame should fall on his bosses.

------
cruise02
I think the author needs to display a little bit of that compassion he's
talking about and realize that learning social skills is not as easy for
everyone as it might have been for him. The world is full of different kinds
of people, and it takes all kinds to run a company. If Jules is truly great at
the technical side of his job, I see no problem with freeing him to get on
with it.

~~~
generalk
This is not about social skills. The ability to function in a crowd of
strangers doesn't matter here.

Not being an asshole to paying customers is what matters here. That's not a
social skill, that's a matter of maturity and respect.

~~~
aphyr
It is about social skills. What do you think "maturity and respect" means in
the context of interacting with other humans? These are cultural norms, and
different people conform to culture in different ways. Place "respectful,
mature" American employees in a Japanese zaibatsu, and I think you'll discover
respect is more a convention than a universal standard. ;-)

Pedantry aside, that engineer still comes off as a dick in this context.

~~~
generalk

      > What do you think "maturity and respect" means in the 
      > context of interacting with other humans?
    

We're not talking cross-cultural divides here, we're talking about engineers
not being allowed to hide behind the excuse that they're "not good with
people" to allow them to be jerks.

~~~
aphyr
One could argue a certain kind of engineering personality tends to comprise
its own distinct culture. As an INTJ, a cross-cultural divide is _precisely_
how I look at it.

I'm speaking more in general, though. To reiterate, this guy acted as a jerk,
and I agree with you.

------
cHalgan
I don't believe this is something special to engineers. Hey, back home, in
"less civilized" part of the world, you can be beaten up by waiters if you are
complaining (being asshole) about meals at a restaurant.

In order words, "tact" is something you need to learn. Especially in internet
world where doing something stupid is just a click away.

------
mrcharles
The last line of the article really just sums it up for me. If you don't have
basic every day people skills, you'd better be _damn_ good at what you do,
otherwise, it's probably not worth it as you alienate your coworkers and make
life difficult for those around you.

And that's _before_ you get a customer-facing role.

------
dsl
The vast majority of web hosting shops are not "companies" with "employees"
and "management." They are one or a few guys with some dedicated servers and
most tier-1 support outsourced to huge web hosting support shops.

This seems like a whole lot of attention over what seems like one guy who is
an asshole.

------
mahmud
Web hosting tech-support people are NOT "Engineers". Or for that matter tech.

------
joshu
I kinda wish there were ways to add URLs to an extant thread rather than
starting new threads with URLs. Because, for fuck's sake, this is like the
fourth link on this boring topic.

------
badusername
500 - Internal Server Error.

Can anyone post up a copy? Seems like a sensational title - would love to see
the argument.

------
sdfjkl
_500 - Internal Server Error_

Someone needs a socially inept engineer to fix their website.

~~~
hoop
Hi there, you must have caught me right before I increased the level of
caching in place on my very-undersized Linode. You should be able to access
the site now. Thank you!

------
kahawe
I think one problem here is that they non-chalantly made "poor people skills"
equal to "abusive behavior towards costumers" and used the "awesome tech with
poor people skills" image as a euphemism in their PR to comb over a VERY ugly
situation where they were getting a shit storm of bad PR - it was probably the
only way out of that situation short of publishing "welp, sorry, he was a
total jerk-off asshole and we fired him".

I do think the (stereo-)typical techs can be said to prefer focusing on
interesting problems and on their computers rather than having to deal with
people all day long - possibly angry or even downright abusive customers
demanding support. I don't see the (stereo-)typical techs as slimy and very
skilled at playing the political game and manipulating people and advancing
the career ladder through it. (which is something I would see as very specific
but definitely STRONG people skills, no matter how repulsive.)

But that doesn't mean all techs don't have any manners or empathy.

------
ldar15
"As a technical person who has worked many customer-facing support roles"

Stopped reading right there.

"I am a technical person who also has ability Y, therefore all technical
people should have ability Y."

This is the thinking that would sit Magic Johnson down and say "Your ball game
is pretty good, but your golf game is awful. Stop working on your basketball
skills and start golf training."

Bottom line: customer support requires ability, certain personality traits,
and training. Do not let _anyone_ (technical, non-technical, CFO, anyone)
handle customer support if they are not qualified. It will end badly.

~~~
burgerbrain
Social skills are not comparable to golf, they're comparable to being able to
move around physically without tripping or falling into everybody within a 5
meter radius of you. It's not a sport, it is a _critical_ skill that everyone
who expects to participate in modern society needs to have.

~~~
tomjen3
Bullshit. Steven Hawking can't even move his arms yet he produce more value
than most people.

What we need is the social equivalent of a wheelchair and then get back to
more important matters.

~~~
burgerbrain
Social skills have nothing to do with paralysis. Steven Hawking is permitted
to lack mobility all he wants so long as he has some social skills.

It's not that we can't put up with people with no social skills, it's that we
_shouldn't have to_. If I can avoid dealing with your lack of social skills by
simply not hiring you, you can be damned sure that's what I'm going to do.

------
jpr
As soon as people stop letting non-engineers get away with total, utter
technical incompetence and stupidity.

------
sabat
I suppose some of it is attributable to Asperger's -- some of it. In many
cases, though, I can't help but suspect laziness and a holier-than-thou
attitude.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Laziness? He went and deleted the customer's backups.

~~~
sabat
True, he did. I was talking about something slightly different -- laziness in
terms of learning to interact well with other humans.

------
recoiledsnake
I think he's reading too much into it. I have seen waitresses get moody and
piss off customers, MBAs that have had violent disagreements and stomped out
or quit on the spot. A Tmobile once hung up on me when I complained loudly
about not getting cell service and being stuck in the office unable to call a
cab.

There are tons of geeks who are really personable.

Taking one example of an engineer who may have had a bad day because of people
being rude/confrontational and extrapolating them to social ineptitude of
engineers is missing the forest for the trees.

~~~
dasil003
Or the infamous flight attendant grabbing a beer and pulling the escape
chute...

I'm an engineer with "people skills" who has worked large and small
organizations including a hosting company and many freelance jobs. No one
should be really surprised when a hosting company employee goes off, because
it is one of the shittiest customer service jobs you can have in terms of the
entitlement factor and low margins. That's not to say the guy should be
excused, but just pointing out that it doesn't necessarily means he lacks
people skills, it may just have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

As far as engineers talking to customers goes, I think that depends heavily on
the company. Obviously engineers can provide better customer support than
someone with little technical knowledge, but if there are many customers then
there's most likely more bang for the buck solving technical problems that
affect many people. Personally I've often felt visceral frustration with
taking the time to provide quality support when I know full well that I'm
sacrificing potential productivity to help one person when there are issues
affecting hundreds or thousands that are still unresolved. I justify it by
chalking it up to the (perhaps) intangible benefit of providing truly
exceptional customer service.

------
russell
I clicked on the link and got a "500 Server Error". I cal that pretty damned
rude and socially inept.

