Reply to: Intolerant of intolerance

[suityou01]

a reasonable, non-violent, non-minuted response.

I wonder if its beyond reasonable expectations that you might keep us updated ?

Well my friend and I are pretty close so I think it's well within reasonable expectations.

[EternalOptimist]

My friend has decided on the "Sorry, who do you think you are talking to again?" said with an indoor voice.

Then if it persists it's windpipe massage.

a reasonable, non-violent, non-minuted response.

I wonder if its beyond reasonable expectations that you might keep us updated ?

[suityou01]

My friend has decided on the "Sorry, who do you think you are talking to again?" said with an indoor voice.

Then if it persists it's windpipe massage.

[minestrone]

If anyone has an open air rant just ignore it, wait for the silence, wait till they walk off a bit and loudly ask "who was that fat/daft/specky coont".

You want to say it loudly enough so they just hear it and they know you were not saying it to them but loudly enough so many people do and you get a few ofts and sniggers.

It is a 6 pointer, you deny them what they wanted and also it totally belittles them publicly. Used it a few times to fairly devastating effect.

If anyone took it too far with me I would just do a MF on them, not going to take any tulip in the office.

[tranceporter]

I am posting this here as I want to learn of other peoples experiences. My friend's one recently has been a bad one.
If this turns into a flame suity thread I will thread flounce and let you have your fun.

First things first. He has 100% attendance, delivers on time all the time, is pleasant, amiable and gets on well with this colleagues. This much is fact. He go for beers with them once weekly.

As he is nearing the project deadline, the senior dev (his direct report) has been getting more and more erratic. Apparently it builds from a call not going his way (and throwing his headset across the room in a fit of pique) to balling my friend out over the slightest thing.

Last Friday was the final straw for him as apparently this chap lost his rag, screamed "Come here" at the top of his lungs, pointing to the seat next to him, then continued yelling "I'm not through with you yet", then made him sit there next to him while he tried to integrate my friends code into his work (would it really take 2 to do this? It sounds more likely to me that this senior dev is a little haphazard in his approach). The final straw was when he said "OK good boy, now you can go".

My friend is 36

I checked out online to see if any of the bigger consultancies has a code of ethics for their clients. It seems Thoughtworks do :

Linky



I advised my friend that this is intimidating behaviour and should not be tolerated. Fortunately for him he only has 4 weeks left to go in this gig so can tough it out.

Have you EVER been spoken to like this on a gig, and if so, what did you do?

I'll be sure to pass along any good advice to my friend.

Not exactly shouting per se, but I have had incidents where people have been rude or have looked down on me. I have always made it a point to tell them to **** off right in their faces. But then it goes both ways. If you are at fault, it makes sense to apologise and accept your mistake and take flak for it.

[MyUserName]

The only time I lost my rag in the office it was terrible. It took me ages to finish the dusting.

[MyUserName]

And?

Do you mean that you say "And?" or are you asking me "And?"?

[NotAllThere]

Ok fair enough, being supremely competent and proving it undermines any BS case they may bring.

Well, it certainly made for an extremely good pay-off.

When they rant at you, stare at them until they finish. Keeping staring in silence before leaning forward and replying, quite calmly with...

And?

[Ticktock]

I only really lost my rag once. I was completely exhausted and stressed after trying to turn some work around in a limited time period.
The team leader (another contractor) was a complete arse - a two-faced little prick, nice to people's faces then slagging them off behind their backs (and he did this with just about everyone).
Started off with him taking me to a meeting room and telling me the senior managers and the project team had been reviewing a piece of work I'd been doing and they had "all been laughing" at how terrible it was (if it was bad, I don't know how that was funny). When I talked him through the work itself to explain what I'd done it turns out he hadn't even looked at it - he'd assumed I'd done eff all and had to quickly backtrack when he saw how much I'd done, saying how impressed he was with it and how good it was, even saying how I was the most effective person in the team and best at what we do.
Next we had a team meeting, where he again brought up how bad the work was. When I raised what he had said about the work being so good his response was "I was being sarcastic". I just gave him a look. At that point the other people in the room thought I was about to knock him out, he got a bit scared and went to grab a drink, but I let it pass, with only a few sarcastic comments back.
Finally he sat at my desk in an open plan office to go through some planning and other review work and started picking away at me, bringing up that piece of work again (now apparently poor and with eff all done to it again...), intentionally winding me up, until I told him that we had to end the meeting there, as otherwise I'd lose my temper. He immediately turned nice, changed the subject and suckered me into sitting down again. Then he went back to the original picking. At that point I turned to him, told him "Tell you what, **** you, and **** your job, I don't need it" and walked out. The people sitting around later told me how they were suprised I'd held my temper for so long, thought I'd actually acted pretty professionally, and how shocked they were - it was a very quiet office, everyone heard me, but apparently I said it very calmly and politely.
After that I went to see his boss, said I did not want to work my notice period and just wanted to end the contract there and then. The boss asked me to stay, said how valued I was on the project, and that if I agreed to stay he'd keep the little prick away from me. I had another 6 months work out of them and barely had to speak to the prick, plus I got called back for a short project a few months after the original project when he'd left.

Not my proudest moment, but at least it fulfilled one of the dreams I'd had since permie-days (saying that to someone), with the added bonus of not having to actually lose any invoiceable days.

[MyUserName]

When they rant at you, stare at them until they finish. Keeping staring in silence before leaning forward and replying, quite calmly with one of (in ascending order of situational tension):

"What did you say?"
"Don't -ever- speak to me like that again"
"Who the f**k do you think you are talking to?"

and once when I was angry enough to knock the gentleman's teeth out after he starting gobbing off I simply paused for a few second staring at him and then said "say that again". He took a few seconds and then apologised. Which was good because I was going to punch him.

[sasguru]

Points 1 and 2 spot on. Point 3, sadly, not. It would only be the case if the management wanted the best for the project/department/company, and they don't. Generally they look after their own interests. Management stick together, and they'd rather have a bunch of marginally competent workers than one they can't control.

Ok fair enough, being supremely competent and proving it undermines any BS case they may bring.

[MyUserName]

One PM lost it with me and kidnapped my daughter Jenny when I was carrying some huge tree trunks and wasn't fully on the ball.

Anyway, cut a long well written and well acted story long, I ended up jumping off some aeroplane undercarriage into a swamp, dropping a Porsche-driving senior dev. off a cliff edge and contronting said PM in a basement with lots of leaking steam pipes about.

He came at me with a protractor but I told him he didn't need the protractor, he could take me with out it and he said 'Yes, that was possible'.

But he fell into my trap, as he was putting his protractor back into his pencil case I launched a 9 foot central heating pipe at him and said;

"Time to let off some Steam, Chris..."

Actually his surname was Bennett but it never occurred to me to use it. Might have had more impact if I had...

Do you do all of this without wearing underwear?

[mudskipper]

I'd suggest the following:

If the guy raises his voice again, your friend should calmly, but authoratively, say "Please don't speak to me like that".

If he continues, your friend should say "I'm leaving until you calm down" and walk away.

If the guy physically grabs him / stops him walking away, then he's got to get aggressive "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME NOW!" ensuring that the whole office can hear.

Of course, this is assuming that your friend can keep his cool, and doesn't go all squeaky voiced when stressed.

Perhaps a bit of role play - he could pretend he's someone else when dealing with the situation.


(If it was me, I'd probably be snivelling, so this is a what he should do, not a what I would do...)

[sirja]

One PM lost it with me and kidnapped my daughter Jenny when I was carrying some huge tree trunks and wasn't fully on the ball.

Anyway, cut a long well written and well acted story long, I ended up jumping off some aeroplane undercarriage into a swamp, dropping a Porsche-driving senior dev. off a cliff edge and contronting said PM in a basement with lots of leaking steam pipes about.

He came at me with a protractor but I told him he didn't need the protractor, he could take me with out it and he said 'Yes, that was possible'.

But he fell into my trap, as he was putting his protractor back into his pencil case I launched a 9 foot central heating pipe at him and said;

"Time to let off some Steam, Chris..."

Actually his surname was Bennett but it never occurred to me to use it. Might have had more impact if I had...

You do know now the PM is going to go back in time and try kill your mum before you're born...

[suityou01]

Nurse!