Developers with bad tempers?
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JimmyRopes wrote:
You are in the wrong profession if you have a short attention span. :doh:
Don't get me wrong. I love my job as a database dev. It's one of the jobs in which I can actually focus in. Patience wades thin often when you have to deal with stupid or arrogant clients, and you just have to breathe deep and take it all in. I only let loose on a personal level though.
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Member 9063556 wrote:
Patience wades thin often when you have to deal with stupid or arrogant clients,
May I remind you of an often quoted retailing quip "the customer is always right". Unfortunately stupid or arrogant clients come part and parcel with this job. If you can't deal with them tell your manager and try to stay out of the way. If your technical skills are above average they will put a buffer in the way so you don't have to deal with clients directly. P.S. - breaking a laptop because your code won't compile is a sign that you are under more pressure than you can handle in a healthy manner. You may want to find a less stressful line of work.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Did you have an interesting childhood experience with an Emu ? I just spent an hour looking at pictures of them, and I still want to kill someone.
“Use the word 'cybernetics,' Norbert, because nobody knows what it means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments.” Claude Shannon (Information Theory scientist): letter to Norbert Weiner of M.I.T., circa 1940
BillWoodruff wrote:
Did you have an interesting childhood experience with an Emu ? I just spent an hour looking at pictures of them, and I still want to kill someone.
Try :baaaa!: instead. :-D
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Member 9063556 wrote:
Patience wades thin often when you have to deal with stupid or arrogant clients,
May I remind you of an often quoted retailing quip "the customer is always right". Unfortunately stupid or arrogant clients come part and parcel with this job. If you can't deal with them tell your manager and try to stay out of the way. If your technical skills are above average they will put a buffer in the way so you don't have to deal with clients directly. P.S. - breaking a laptop because your code won't compile is a sign that you are under more pressure than you can handle in a healthy manner. You may want to find a less stressful line of work.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesJimmyRopes wrote:
May I remind you of an often quoted retailing quip "the customer is always right".
Hence the cursing stays internal. Always a useful quip. I still think I'm not alone in the outrageous bits, even though I try keeping my calm. Perhaps some of this advice can come in handy. I'm not quitting my job though until I've done what I need to and got a better and less stressful line of work. I think it's also the environment of where and how I work, oft times my frustration builds while I'm working at home, but at work it's more levelled. I noticed that going to Head Office it was very chilled, so perhaps moving there would help?
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If you do that when you make a few coding mistakes, what will you do when something really serious happens?
Often times when there's a serious situation I've been able to keep a level head, which is strange since I focus under pressure. Guessing working from home isn't healthy for me and I'm suited for an office environment.
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Member 9063556 wrote:
Almost into a point of getting loud at a verbal argument against one piece of code.
If I know that my boss is a bad-tempered man, I won't argue with him with just one piece of code. For example, he said that we will use <insert algorithm here>. If I know that there is another possible algorithm (which I think is better), I will suggest that. If he refused to consider your suggestion, then fine. Just do it. If he asks further about your suggestion, there's a possibility that at the back of his mind, he is considering it. Giving suggestions will not trigger their bad-tempered man side, I guess. I believe that being calm is always the best offense/defense. You'll solve nothing with your tempers.
Member 9063556 wrote:
are there really just a lot of developers with bad tempers?
No. All people have bad tempers. It's how they handle it that makes it different. I also believe that versatility is one of the many traits a developer must possess.
Don't mind those people who say you're not HOT. At least you know you're COOL. I'm not afraid of falling, I'm afraid of the sudden stop at the end of the fall! - Richard Andrew x64
kArViD0tnEt wrote:
If I know that my boss is a bad-tempered man, I won't argue with him with just one piece of code.
I think it's more likely where that piece of code should lie (since the integrated software is very hard to sparse) instead of what code to use. Most of the times my boss and I see eye-to-eye, but he can't take how slow I can be while coding. Sometimes I'm already in the spot he wants me to make an edit into and he shouts at me, in which I tell him I'm already there. I just need to pace myself most of the time. a Subset of Pascal isn't my native language (Learned C# in college, go figure) so it's sometimes a little weird to work in something integrated instead of a generic IDE.
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I don't really get bad tempered when I'm working, even if my workload is quite high - it keeps me busy and that's fine with me; I'm happy being busy. What I do dislike, and what does get me pissed off very quickly, are people who ask for help and then either: a) ignore said advice thinking they know better, break it, then ask me for help to fix it b) take on board the advice, agree with said advice, and still do it wrong c) ask the same question in two days time :mad: I thought, surely, everyone is like this... But, no, I now work with some true angels who, no matter how many daft questions they get asked are always calm and polite. Much better human beings than I. :( (I'm trying to learn from them!)
"Benjamin is nobody's friend. If Benjamin were an ice cream flavor, he'd be pralines and dick." ~ Garth Algar "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." ~ Paul Neal "Red" Adair
I think the thing that really gets in my grill is submitting a project or task at 4:00PM when it's time to do system maintenance and administration for the clients. Can't help but to make a stick-it and leave it until first thing the next day, even if it's urgent. I can forgive those circumstances, but last minute changes to a project can cause my nerves to shoot completely.
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My boss and I share a trait of being heavily bad tempered. Almost into a point of getting loud at a verbal argument against one piece of code. Recently I lost my temper and smashed my personal laptop after a few coding mistakes and frustration buildup on the coding source engine I was doing for fun. So here's my question... Is it just me? Or are there really just a lot of developers with bad tempers? Edit: I think it really boils down to how I'm being handled on my projects and work. if the clients have a decent attitude towards me then I'm acceptable to them, otherwise if not, then I grit my teeth and work with it. I think my temper is ill only once there's been a lot of stress. If all is well and well-maintained then I'm happy as can be. I really love my job, but sometimes it's hard to accept that these guys are willing to break rules just to get on my nerves. Opinions on this?
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I think you are taking your work (and programming) far too seriously.
Member 9063556 wrote:
and smashed my personal laptop after a few coding mistakes
Maybe you should get one of these?[^] That said, there have been times when I've come close to doing some damage. Fortunately I've stopped myself and stepped away from the desk (and sometimes the job) and taken the time to chill out and look at what it is that is causing a reaction of violence. Tolle (and others) have said it well: you can either accept the circumstances, try to change them, or leave them. The first is the hardest, especially when the $$$ are the only reason I'm dealing with the crap to begin with. Marc
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Often times when there's a serious situation I've been able to keep a level head, which is strange since I focus under pressure. Guessing working from home isn't healthy for me and I'm suited for an office environment.
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I wouldn't want to work with someone who got violent with his/her PC when coding wasn't going well...maybe being at home is best?
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I wouldn't want to work with someone who got violent with his/her PC when coding wasn't going well...maybe being at home is best?
Possibly better to work in the office where I've got a more controlled mind, Working at home gives opportunity for my mind to let loose, which is possibly the cause of why I wrote this up.
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JimmyRopes wrote:
May I remind you of an often quoted retailing quip "the customer is always right".
Hence the cursing stays internal. Always a useful quip. I still think I'm not alone in the outrageous bits, even though I try keeping my calm. Perhaps some of this advice can come in handy. I'm not quitting my job though until I've done what I need to and got a better and less stressful line of work. I think it's also the environment of where and how I work, oft times my frustration builds while I'm working at home, but at work it's more levelled. I noticed that going to Head Office it was very chilled, so perhaps moving there would help?
if (Broken) then fix.this else !fix.this end-if
Member 9063556 wrote:
noticed that going to Head Office it was very chilled, so perhaps moving there would help?
Definitely worth a shot. :thumbsup: When working at home, on personal projects, we put our own pressure on ourselves. It was a hard thing to learn that I wasn't the best and the brightest, but I survived the blow to my ego. After that realization I was able to approach my work with the knowledge that, yes, I will screw up from time to time, but so what. When you feel like you are not getting anywhere put it down and do something completely unrelated. A friend, who happened to be a sociologist, once told me that since we cannot solve the entire problem in a single day we should do something that will give us closure, like cooking our dinner, or some such task that we can complete; water the flowers, mow the lawn, etc. We can look at the completed task and feel like we accomplished something today.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
My boss and I share a trait of being heavily bad tempered. Almost into a point of getting loud at a verbal argument against one piece of code. Recently I lost my temper and smashed my personal laptop after a few coding mistakes and frustration buildup on the coding source engine I was doing for fun. So here's my question... Is it just me? Or are there really just a lot of developers with bad tempers? Edit: I think it really boils down to how I'm being handled on my projects and work. if the clients have a decent attitude towards me then I'm acceptable to them, otherwise if not, then I grit my teeth and work with it. I think my temper is ill only once there's been a lot of stress. If all is well and well-maintained then I'm happy as can be. I really love my job, but sometimes it's hard to accept that these guys are willing to break rules just to get on my nerves. Opinions on this?
if (Broken) then fix.this else !fix.this end-if
There is a difference between bad temper and passion. So many business environments are focused around not upsetting any one no matter how wrong they are. Which in my opinion is worse than a simple disagreement. If there were more shouting in software development then there would be more code.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost "All users always want Excel" --Ennis Lynch
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My boss and I share a trait of being heavily bad tempered. Almost into a point of getting loud at a verbal argument against one piece of code. Recently I lost my temper and smashed my personal laptop after a few coding mistakes and frustration buildup on the coding source engine I was doing for fun. So here's my question... Is it just me? Or are there really just a lot of developers with bad tempers? Edit: I think it really boils down to how I'm being handled on my projects and work. if the clients have a decent attitude towards me then I'm acceptable to them, otherwise if not, then I grit my teeth and work with it. I think my temper is ill only once there's been a lot of stress. If all is well and well-maintained then I'm happy as can be. I really love my job, but sometimes it's hard to accept that these guys are willing to break rules just to get on my nerves. Opinions on this?
if (Broken) then fix.this else !fix.this end-if
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yeah if you're smashing a laptop coz you buggered up some code then you probably need to back off a little :~ Bryce
MCAD ---
bryce wrote:
yeah if you're smashing a laptop coz you buggered up some code then you probably need to back off a little
I once smashed a joystick as a kid, but those days are long gone. I'd be worried about any adult destroying a laptop out of frustration. Put in another context, this might as well be a case of road rage just waiting to happen.
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kArViD0tnEt wrote:
If I know that my boss is a bad-tempered man, I won't argue with him with just one piece of code.
I think it's more likely where that piece of code should lie (since the integrated software is very hard to sparse) instead of what code to use. Most of the times my boss and I see eye-to-eye, but he can't take how slow I can be while coding. Sometimes I'm already in the spot he wants me to make an edit into and he shouts at me, in which I tell him I'm already there. I just need to pace myself most of the time. a Subset of Pascal isn't my native language (Learned C# in college, go figure) so it's sometimes a little weird to work in something integrated instead of a generic IDE.
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It's clearly stated, I used the words, "For Example". I'm not saying that it's also your situation. I'm giving a scenario wherein you can tell something inside your mind without getting your boss mad. After all, were talking about bad tempers, not the code, I guess? In order to have him controlled, being creative on constructing your sentences and tone will be very helpful. :)
Don't mind those people who say you're not HOT. At least you know you're COOL. I'm not afraid of falling, I'm afraid of the sudden stop at the end of the fall! - Richard Andrew x64
