Difficult co-worker
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@scottalanmiller said in Difficult co-worker:
@RandyBlevins said in Difficult co-worker:
Alot of times they reaction is dependent on the delivery more than content. Everyone is careful how they say things and try to give real specific instructions
Honesty, more and more this sounds like me. If he's like me, then I can give you decently constructive ideas.
Delivery (i.e. "how we arrived at this conclusion") is more important to me than the conclusion itself. A good answer can be arrived at randomly. A broken watch is right twice a day (in the 1900s when watches had physical hands.) But a good decision making process makes for repeatably good decisions that happen reliably over and over again. So I almost always focus on the process to get a good answer, the good answer will come naturally. He might as well.
Specific instructions: Unrelated (I assume) to anything else about me, I don't handle ambiguity well. I lack the normal "assumptions" that most people make. For example, if I asked you what's for dinner, that means I'm curious and in no way implies that I am hungry, in fact I'm most likely to be curious when I'm not hungry so I can judge how much to starve myself before we have the food to get ready. But my wife always adds the assumption that I'm hungry, even knowing that I would never ask what is for dinner but rather tell her that I'm hungry, if that's what I wanted to convey. Ambiguous tasks leave me confused and lost, but give me specifics and I'm pretty effective.
great example!
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@RandyBlevins said in Difficult co-worker:
I work with someone that is extremely good at figuring anything out. He has an extremely vast knowledge. He was involved in startup of a major tech company. (one of the top 5 for awhile)
However he is difficult and extremely particular about how he does stuff. Nobody can quite tell him exactly how to how to do something. He will fight based on ideal situations ( kind of similar to SAM) and resists heavily doing things he doesnt like even if it's something benign or neutral. Such as making a minor change that has no effect whatsoever, but follows standards like ISO 2700.
He's valuable to a a point that he gets to do things his way sometimes even if it's against manager.
Any advice for how to better work with him? He is cooperative most of the time, but sometimes it's hard to get a single point across.
Do you have children?
If you do, you can probably apply some lessons-learned from raising children to this situation as well.
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@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
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@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
Or he will have no memory of where he got information from, so he will explain something to you that was actually something you told him
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@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
Or he will have no memory of where he got information from, so he will explain something to you that was actually something you told him
Now you have me wondering how many times I've done that to people. More than I want to know most likely.
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@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
Or he will have no memory of where he got information from, so he will explain something to you that was actually something you told him
I didn't realize we worked together. Chalk that up to my bad memory
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@wirestyle22 said in Difficult co-worker:
@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
Or he will have no memory of where he got information from, so he will explain something to you that was actually something you told him
I didn't realize we worked together. Chalk that up to my bad memory
Or mini-strokes. . . (not joking at all)
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@DustinB3403 said in Difficult co-worker:
@wirestyle22 said in Difficult co-worker:
@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
Or he will have no memory of where he got information from, so he will explain something to you that was actually something you told him
I didn't realize we worked together. Chalk that up to my bad memory
Or mini-strokes. . . (not joking at all)
That would explain a lot actually
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Well who ever downvoted mini-strokes causing memory loss can kiss my ass. I hope my grandmother survives her stroke (and minis) from this saturday.
Dicks.
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@flaxking said in Difficult co-worker:
@Kelly said in Difficult co-worker:
Without more experience or information it is difficult to draw an exact conclusion, but have you considered that he is on the autism spectrum? Some of the things that you're listing could be indicators of that. There are significant differences to how you will work with someone on the spectrum vs someone who just has control issues.
This sounds a lot like my co-worker, who I am pretty sure is on the spectrum. He is amazing technically, reading comprehension of technical documentation that is out of this world. But he can't think in terms of business needs and what is practical. He will also assume he knows what you're saying without listen so you really have to watch for cues that the didn't actually understand what you said. Also can be a lot of work to convince him he is wrong, you need to have definitive proof ready.
Yes this sounds quite similar to what I have seen. Although, I will add that he always 100% believes he is doing the right thing. Its not because he wants to cut corners or anything. Sometimes we cannot get him to cut corners where they need to be cut.
