WRONG Software Engineers Are Throwing Me Under The Bus!

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what is up it is Saturday December 21st 2024 got a topic from Reddit I will explain it and then catch you up on the morning um the topic is about um getting this windshield cleared no it's about um the original poster was saying they've been in situations where they're in a meeting so some type of semi-public setting right it's not a oneon-one and um someone basically called calls them out to correct them and they're just blatantly Incorrect and it's kind of like they it's almost like the feeling is that someone's trying to make them look like an idiot sometimes maybe that's not always the intention but that's sort of how they're they seem to feel like they're being called out for something that's just Incorrect and um so they're saying this has happened it's not like one person doing this it's kind of a theme

that they've noticed um something else they mentioned was like I wonder if it's like a language barrier cultural thing they happen to to notice and I'm you know I'm not going to even get into the ethnicity but they were saying seems like uh historically there seems to be like more people from a particular ethnicity doing this so they were like I wonder is it like a cultural thing I didn't by the way I didn't interpret that in their wording like they were being racist more like a genuinely is there some sort of cultural difference that I'm not aware of where this is more common so I thought it was a really interesting topic I've had this kind of experience in the past we'll into that um I've had a pretty rough yesterday and today um I've recorded three videos that I'm not putting online the

first one I forgot to turn on the receiver for the audio which is pretty embarrassing uh second one I I actually posted this morning and someone pointed out that all of the audio is ruined so I took that down and then the third video I did on the way to CrossFit today which by the way I started driving to the wrong gym because it's a a different gym on Saturdays and I'm stupid um and I was I could tell I was very frustrated and so I recorded the full 20 minute video and like right before pulling into the gym I just turned it off like I'm not happy with it so I'm going to repeat it now and I feel better about going into it so again topic is about people in like a semi-public setting basically correcting you or attempting to correct you and

providing incorrect information so friendly reminder if you want your questions answered comment below with the question if it's more detailed or you want to be anonymous look for Dev leader on social media send me with all the details you want I'm happy to read through and a reminder that Mondays at 700 p.m. Pacific on my main Channel Dev leader I do have a live stream every Monday tune in to that um it's basically like this except there's a chat and I will basically dedicate as much time to the chat answering your questions as possible so what does this look like well if if you haven't been in a situation like this let's kind of walk through like like hypothetically what this looks and feels like right because I want you to put yourself in this person's position to understand like why it's frustrating so um

and they they provided an interesting sort of like example of like being a mechanic and having expertise in an area like taking something apart rebuilding it and then having someone sorry my my lung capacity is zero after doing CrossFit and getting out of my cold but they were saying you know you you have expertise taking apart something and putting it back together as a mechanic and then someone comes around and they tell you like something else about it and you're like I literally you know have disassembled and reassembled this thing many times I know what I'm talking about so in situations like this I think a couple things happen one is that like um there's incorrect information being presented and especially as software Engineers like it's not I think in general people aren't really comfortable with incorrect information but I think especially as you know

people in software development as Engineers we're doing analysis like 100% of the time so when there's incorrect data that really muddies the situation so we don't want incorrect data floating around that's part of it a second part and this is like like another reason like I think interpersonal skills and stuff are really important is like the way that I was trying to frame this in the first take I did of this is that I personally do not and would never try to in a public setting like belittle someone or make someone look like an idiot right so if someone was incorrect about something so say someone was presenting something and I was like oh I disagree with that or or I have data that suggests otherwise what I'm not going to do is just like interject and like kind of like step on them or

make them look bad but as necessary I would try to highlight that that like something's incorrect right so um I might give them the benefit of the doubt and say hey like for that information you brought up um you know could you talk about how that was collected or or what have you right so instead of jumping to like hey you are wrong and I'm right it's a kind of a weird situation to put yourself in uh and some people will do this though so instead of doing that I would much rather sort of inquire maybe I can learn something about how that data was collected maybe there's something I'm missing right so I want to give someone the benefit of the doubt and say hey in my head I'm like that's that's information that doesn't jive with what I understand so like let's try

to understand this better and then as necessary we might say hey oh like it actually looks like when you collect data that way um it might be that you're missing this other thing like have you you know is that something that came up when you were going through this process like what are your thoughts on that so again it's not to like single them out and say hey look you must be a dummy you didn't get this and um obviously I'm using stronger language to exaggerate a point but in situations like this it could be very frustrating because the to me at least it's see and and I experienced this it almost feels like someone's treating you in a way that you would not do to like you wouldn't do that back to them right so it almost feels unfair so when I recorded this

this morning before CrossFit and I'm redoing it now uh I was walking through a couple scenarios I've been through in my own personal experience and I also mentioned that I read through a couple of the comments on the Reddit thread to see and like it it does feel like there's some very opposite uh perspectives on this in terms of like actions to take so uh someone was basically saying like hey like basically just go take it offline like you know don't worry about it go talk about it outside of the meeting and I think the The Meta point there was like you don't have to attack them back like that's not going to help but their their proposal was like basically forget about it in the context of the meeting and go discuss it offline the other sort of opposite end of the spectrum and

uh suggestions I was seeing were basically people being like screw that like if someone's going to make me feel like an idiot like they're going to be an to me in a meeting like I'm not going to let them walk on me right like I'm not going to let someone make me look like a total idiot and get away with it that's totally unfair so if they're going to do it to me like I'm going to put an end to that right now and like they're using a public for it okay like they deserve to have it back to them so that it's sort of stopped right there immediately and I find that when I read through perspectives like this where they're they they feel kind of completely opposite in terms of actions that um the truth for me is somewhere in between and I

don't mean directly in the middle and certainly it's going to be contextual but somewhere between those two things so um historically I would say that when I've been in situations like this um I do make it known that I like I don't agree with something and um I have been in situations where people will basically uh like they're they're if you've heard of the phrase like throwing someone under the bus like kind of like left them out to to look like an idiot um I've had this happen to me in my career multiple times I've had it from my manager before I've had it from people that I you might call them peers different roles but like peers so to speak um and yeah like I guess the my my approach to this is somewhere in the middle right so first thing that I recommend

to everyone and it's easier said than done but I highly recommend you practice it just keep calm um and advice my wife has given me on this stuff which sounds funny I've talked about this before it legitimately works really well um it's breathe and you're probably thinking well no I'm breathing all the time like that's not really helpful advice but the whole point is that when we're getting frustrated um I think she could probably explain the physiology behind some of this stuff but like basically you want to get oxygen to the parts of your brain that are responsible for rationalizing things so literally take a deep breath and drive oxygen to your brain because when you're getting frustrated with something and you're not thinking rationally you're likely going to say things that you don't mean or that you regret maybe you mean them in the

moment but you're going to regret them so uh I have found personally uh there's a there's an event that occurred earlier in my career um in a meeting I won't go into all the details but I was with my team and someone else and this someone else was trying to make it look like I had I had really dropped the ball on something and they were presenting data and to basically management uh and what they presented was factually incorrect so it was really awkward um so they were presenting in information trying to put it on me and I I to this day if I could literally call up my teammates and this is like 6 years ago or something um maybe longer I could call them up today and say do you remember that meeting and they would say absolutely because the person was presenting

the information everyone like my team was just watching them and kind of like and I know in their heads they were thinking like oh no like what's about to happen because they know it's not correct and as soon as the person finished speaking I can remember everyone on my team kind of like slowly turning their heads to look at me like what's about to happen and honestly in that moment I was Furious I was so angry because it was like incorrect information someone was clearly just like trying to punt responsibility to me to blame me for something and it was incorrect so it was almost like a total disregard of me and I was like I was feeling frustrated cuz I'm like that's not something I would ever do to someone else not to mention it's incorrect so I remember taking a huge breath and

if I had if I could call up my team members from that time and get them to talking to this camera they would tell you I I sat there and went and then I just said no um and it was really like to them it was the funniest thing they've ever seen uh at that time at least and um the point was that or the point of me telling you this is that I had to calm myself down okay so I think that's a critical thing you don't want to start speaking when you're upset regardless of like if you're going to address it in the meeting or take it up offline don't let your emotions get the best of you you will say things you regret and not to mention it looks quite frankly it's embarrassing to watch adults yell at each other and say

mean stuff to each other you might feel in the moment like oh I'll show them it's the only word I have for it is embarrassing I've had to interject and stop uh literally grown men I've had to stop grown men from yelling at each other on a meeting in front of like Junior engineers and it's honestly one of the most embarrassing things I've had to watch so I I'm trying to say this to you so that you can realize that in the moment like oh I'll show them but like you're not showing anyone now I do think it's important to stand your ground and there was I'm not going to get into the details of this one but there was a situation where I had a manager that was basically presenting incorrect information or disregarding decisions that were made and trying to make it looked

like I had completely failed at something and I am more than happy to take responsibility on things but um they started presenting some information and I was fully prepared to be like that's incorrect and here's here's sort of uh the sequence of events but the point of me telling you this one without going to the detail because it doesn't really matter is that I didn't make it about the other person as much as I wanted to to be like hey like stop being an to me like that's not how you treat other people cuz I very much would have loved to turn it into a lecture about how you treat other humans because that's not what you do right I'm not going to go do that back to the person because it's equally as like in my opinion it's equally as wrong to try and

put someone on the spot like that just because you do it to me I don't feel that that's a good reason to do it back but I Will Stand My Ground on things and I will not make it about the other person so that's the key part of this second piece is you can present information and not try to attack someone just because someone did it to you or made you feel that way does not mean you have to stoop to that level and I truly feel like it's stooping to a level when you have to start belittling other people or attacking someone's character data speaks right information speaks facts speak you don't need to go after someone to prove a point so I would highly recommend you don't do that now to some of the other comments that I saw on the thread about

like oh take it offline and stuff I think there could be a time for that like if you need to get into the detail so say you know you present your facts you're not attacking the person you're like so someone said you know here's here's what we measured and and you know here's the result and someone speaks up and they're like no that's incorrect and you're like I literally measured this stuff like I I have the data like what what does it mean for me to be incorrect here um if you're going back and forth I think it's totally fine to stand your ground about data and if there's a discrepancy and people cannot agree number one we want to deescalate it from being about attacking people right so that's an important part that's sort of the entire talk that I've been giving so far

is don't make it about people deescalate it focus on facts if you can't get past the facts people cannot agree on the facts I I think that's important to take up offline okay because if depending on what the meeting context is if you're going to derail the whole meeting because of this might not be worth it if everything can't proceed or sorry if anything if nothing can proceed um without that decision being made like maybe it is worth discussing in the meeting maybe it does need to be derailed but I would say like if you have to get into the nuances and understand how data was collected maybe two groups of people disagree on fundamentally how something should have been done and there's gaps and you have to come together get an agreement and go forward totally fine so I think that's a reasonable approach

um but something else that I wanted to layer on top of all this is like in terms of taking stuff offline so I want to give you another example um I have I'm going to park the manager one because I don't think that that's not something I want to get into on a recorded uh video at least at this point in my career um perhaps in the future in different uh contexts I'll I'll get into more detail on it without without revealing the person whatever because it's not relevant I just don't want to talk about the detail and and because it may be too revealing um in other situations right even situations that I've been managing where other people are say the situation where people are yelling at each other that is something that I think does warrant a conversation offline Maybe not to address

what's going on so you know if someone is presenting incorrect data like let's get that cleared up focus on the data however if you felt like in a conversation someone was making you feel like an idiot and you didn't appreciate that that is something that I would have a follow-up conversation on and in Prior videos for code commute I've talked about this kind of thing a lot and it's way easier said than done but I am a firm believer that if you're having difficulty working with other individuals talk to them don't put it off don't let it continue to build resentment because it's so easy to just say oh I hate that person now like screw them whatever never work with them again it it doesn't help anything you may feel like oh it's hopeless whatever they're just they're just a piece of like no

one likes working with them anyway they're just the hard person to work with please believe me or give it a shot at a minimum this person's driving by and staring at me talking in my car go away um have a conversation with them take that part offline you don't need to have that private conversation in front of the group of people but you could tell them right and you could have a conversation and say hey by the way in that meeting I just wanted to talk through that but I felt like when you were presenting that information that it felt like I was being belittled it felt like um you were kind of call in me out and it felt almost like you're putting me down and not focus on the data right so you could say I just wanted to talk about this because

I didn't appreciate it and I wanted to see maybe if there's a way that we could talk about how to how to do that more effectively in the future um you know is that something we could talk about offline ahead of time is this something like I don't know like maybe this person didn't realize that they were having that kind of effect and more often than not I would say that's the case I would say more often than not people don't intend to be a piece of to other people people don't generally want to be mean to others they don't want to put other people down it's not it's more often that people receiving things are are sort of inventing that they're going I see what someone's doing therefore they must be trying to be mean and I think a lot of the time people

just don't realize that they're doing things in an off putting way and bringing some awareness to that I strongly think because I've seen it happen many times can lead to a much better working relationship so I realize what I'm saying is difficult because it means a hard conversation but I would strongly recommend doing it so if I could leave you with that that's what I would do so to recap very quickly one I think it's important to stand your ground about factual information uh if you're doing that let's not make it about the other person right it's not a personal attack the I guess zero I should have counted but it's number three uh zero is to uh remain calm in these situations remain calm deep breath right it sounds funny take a deep breath before you speak it will help you um and then

the last part was really like taking stuff offline to discuss interpersonal things that does not have to be in a public setting even if it's started that way take it offline try and uh you know rebuild that working relationship or build it up in the first place so hope that was helpful um again friendly reminder if you want comments if you want questions answered leave a comment um check out my main Channel Dev leader for the live streams on Mondays at 7 pm. Pacific and if you're interested in knowing what the topic is if you go to weekly. deev leader.com not going to be offended but the newsletter is generally the topic that will be the live stream so if you want to see like right now I'm recording this on a Saturday my newsletter is out you have all Saturday all Sunday all Monday

until the evening to go check out what the topics going to be understand what I'm going through prep any questions you have and if you have totally different questions not related to the topic come ask them anyway let's hang out I will see you Monday take care