Some people are just freaking difficult to work with. I've worked with people that wouldn't accept responsibility even after every other possible cause was ruled out. I've even gotten this reply: "well, you must have been unlucky to get the faulty e-mail, because it seems to work most of the time". Yeah, because that's how programming works: cowboy coding and hoping for the best.
This guy actually called bugfixes "optimizations": "hey, X the feedback widget on the front page isn't working", "oh, yeah, I haven't worked on that because that's code that needs to be 'optimized', so it's low on my issues list". Ugh.
I've learned my lesson now. In fact, that's an incredible lesson for a startup founder: never, ever, hire someone who dodges a question on an interview. And the first time they avoid taking responsibility for something that was clearly their fault, fire them. The last thing you want is someone who'll blame everyone and anything else for their issues. It's a great way to kill morale and create rifts in a small team.
> And the first time they avoid taking responsibility for something that was clearly their fault, fire them.
I guess there's still difficult for a lot of people to acknowledge their own mistakes, maybe because they're afraid of getting fired for that (acknowledging the mistake), which in the case of startups/small companies happens very rarely.
From my own experience of working at startups for my entire professional career as a programmer (7 and a half years) I can tell you that the first step when noticing you f.cked something up is to take immediate responsibility and then asking yourself "how can I/we fix this?" (you might need the help of other people to fix your mistake). After you've fixed the issue the question should be "how can we make so that this doesn't happen again?". That being solved I'd say nobody cares anymore whose fault was it to begin with, there's always other more important stuff to do.
I agree that maybe at larger companies this kind of thing might happen exactly the opposite way, i.e. you can get fired for making a mistake and nobody really cares to fix other people's stuff, because their next paycheck/financial well-being does not depend on that (or so they think).
Exactly! When everyone is on the same boat the priority is fixing the stuff, then wondering whether attributing responsibility is important (most of the time it isn't. Who cares who fucked up the e-mail template, as long as it's fixed next time it runs.)
I think in this guy's case the causes for his reluctance (or rather, incapability) to accept his own mistakes had much deeper roots. He was literally the most self-centered person I've ever met, to the point that he wouldn't accept anyone's opinion on anything. He went out of his way to find doctors that'd go with his suggestions and run all kinds of tests on him to determine why he had a blood pressure problem, when he was clearly way overweight and had the unhealthiest diet I've ever seen. He'd dress up in shorts and t-shirts during the worst days of winter, and then take a niacin pill to force a capillary rush so his hands wouldn't feel cold (?)
Basically, he just thought the world had to bend to his will. Why use common sense, when you can just say "fuck it" and find a workaround that fits your mindset. Of course you can't expect someone like that to 'accept' his own shortcomings.
The scariest part of all this is he tried, for a while, to become a cop. Yep, imagine that: a 240lbs armed prick, completely unable to reason, forcing his way on everyone. I shudder at the thought.
This guy actually called bugfixes "optimizations": "hey, X the feedback widget on the front page isn't working", "oh, yeah, I haven't worked on that because that's code that needs to be 'optimized', so it's low on my issues list". Ugh.
I've learned my lesson now. In fact, that's an incredible lesson for a startup founder: never, ever, hire someone who dodges a question on an interview. And the first time they avoid taking responsibility for something that was clearly their fault, fire them. The last thing you want is someone who'll blame everyone and anything else for their issues. It's a great way to kill morale and create rifts in a small team.