

Ask HN: How to deal with unwanted coworker requests? - jquery

After submitting a change today that added a JavaScript dependency to the header of a web page on our site, I received an unsolicited email from a coworker on another team asking me if I could do it another way. He provided the justification that it would improve performance.<p>Unable to think of anything else to say, I replied and told him it was a good idea (without committing to make the change). In reality, making the suggested change the right way would require at least two hours of refactoring and testing. While the change would cause an improvement in performance, it was my judgment that the benefits of the change did not justify its costs given the number of visits the web page receives and other project priorities.<p>I realized I've been dealing with this general situation for years with no personal guidelines on how to handle it in the most productive way. I feel such requests are disrespectful because they imply that the requestor's time is more important than the requestee's. I don't want to bruise his ego or cause a conflict, especially because I am fairly new at this company, and he's the lead of his team.<p>HN, what do you think is the proper professional response?
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patio11
Thanks for your comment Dave. The performance of that web page is not high on
our list of priorities at the moment, but I'll be happy to revisit the issue
after we clear the critical blocking issues off our plates. If your team has
an urgent need for a repriorization of this please feel free to send a request
to $MANAGER.

Regards,

$YOU

~~~
jquery
Thank you patio. Well done. I'd be worried he thought that was condescending,
but I am probably being paranoid. And sorry if I'm being dense, but what's the
general principle behind that response? Be assertive yet gracious?

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salaaami
It is condescending.

The problem is we don't know how friendly you and Dave are and how he handles
things. This could suffice as well.

"Nice, didn't think of doing it that way. Once my plate is clear I'll change
things. -You"

~~~
patio11
You've just said "Yes, I will change this" instead of "No, I will not change
this, but I am _open to the possibility of changing this_ at a later date _if
you feel strongly enough about it to bring it up again_." Six months from now
if this is not done yet it is because _you have not done your job_.

With my mail, Dave should understand that I consider this issue resolved
unless Dave continues to make an issue of it. That is a critical thing to
communicate to Dave if you do not, in fact, plan on changing this.

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meunierc
Keep in mind, you might very well be facing somebody who feels the need to
prove himself. If this is the case, then the issue is marginally technical;
his need to be right is his prime motivation.

Your first response was perfect IMO.

In situations like this you need to manage a person, not software nor a
project. If he's in a sibling reporting branch, you may want to discuss the
situation with your lead. He may decide to go ahead with the modification in
the interest of good relations. If he does, you must understand this is not a
judgment from your lead on the quality of your work.

~~~
sunkencity
Yeah I second that it might well be someone who wants to prove himself, or a
geek with poor social skills who want to befriend you by commenting on your
work.

It is pretty rude to just ask outright of anyone to rewrite their code, a
writing such a request as a suggestion or opening to discussion is much
friendlier. It would not be rude if there's a critical problem, but just a
small performance increase is way out of line.

The correct way to deal with this is of course to add the script tags at the
bottom of the page ;) (apart from your coworker not noticing - it's better for
performance as (most?) browsers completely stop doing anything but loading
javascript when they encounter a javascript tag).

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amazonfx
I must say I sympathize. We have a pretty stringent code review system where I
work and people are always coming up with nitpicky type of things.

Whenever I get technical comments from people that seems to me like they put
alot of thought into, I always approach them for a quick chat, ask some
questions even if you don't have any. It's a great way to build relationships,
especially if you're new. And you tend to find that in the end it's not really
important that you guys agree, but that you guys understood each other's
technical perspective. This is an opportunity for you to network with this
particular engineer, you should take advantage of it.

------
rue
"Patches welcome."

 _Edit: That is, if you work with professionals._

