This Software Engineer SUCKS With Customers (Or Do They?)

Transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.

what is up it is Monday December 23rd it's almost Christmas which is sweet I'm headed to CrossFit so we'll do one of these on the way in I can't recall if last week I got any of them on the way into CrossFit uploaded because of issues with audio but I have a ground Loop isolator installed now an $8 little thing to keep the noise down um we got a topic from Reddit it's an interesting one I thought um it's going to be a little weird to articulate but I'll try my best so um it has to do with someone getting some feedback as a contractor and the scenario is something like they were brought into a call with a customer or client and they were going through the requirements that they were given and and the client is sort of disagreeing with them saying like

hey I don't think that's right and then this person is basically saying like hey that's just what I was told I'm just kind of like relaying this to you and I mean all the details are omitted but it basically sounds like the client ends up not being very happy with the person's attitude his contractor's attitude and um even the the author like the original poster on Reddit it says like they admit that they probably could have done a bit better of a job in handling that which is interesting right like basically someone is admitting like yeah like I I probably could have been a nicer human being in that situation um but anyway they call in I don't know what the I've never heard the acronym BSA I'm assuming it's like business systems analyst maybe um to kind of go over what the actual requirements

and stuff were so they call in someone who's supposed to be able to help uh you know get everyone on the same page and uh sort of move on with the meeting and then later that evening they get a email from their manager saying like basically feedback that the the client was not very happy with their um engagement right so saying like you know they were they felt like they were being talked over basically a lot of like soft skills feedback for the person so we're going to talk through that um it's only about oops I didn't press start on the GPS uh it's about a 15minute drive so I'll go through that just a quick reminder that if you want questions answer just write them in the comments happy to answer for you and uh if you want to add more detail or you

want it to be very Anonymous just look for Dev leader on social media send me a message I'm happy to make make some content for it if I can help so um this uh this situation I feel like has a couple of different elements because the person is uh also asking if they should respond to the manager's feedback so we got a couple things right like how did they act what's sort of expected there and then the manager's feedback which is basically relaying the customer was not very happy with how the meeting went um so maybe let's start with the manager's feedback uh I think it's extremely important to address uh direct manager's feedback um there's going to be situations where maybe like you don't agree with it or what have you um but literally in this situation the person is is saying in their

in their written like a letter to Reddit that like yeah I probably could have done a better job in how I was communicating right um I don't think that this this person even doubts for a second that they could have done a better job and I think that's important to call out because um when it comes to receiving feedback and navigating that it's not even a matter of like like oh man there was something was completely rep misrepresented like oh no like how did this ever happen it's like they're literally saying yeah like probably could have done uh could have done better there now I think this person is feeling frustrated because it feels like you know their side's not being heard because in their in the Reddit post they're saying like hey like this person they were kind of giving me attitude so like

then I was getting frustrated and started to give them attitude but they're feeling like no one's listening to the fact that person doesn't have their lights on uh no one's listening to the fact that this this client was giving me attitude but like I think the reality is um that doesn't matter and uh I think that when we're going through this kind of stuff it's like that's not really in your control and the part that's in your control is how you respond to things and how you navigate to things how you navigate through things sorry obviously it's early I it's maybe it's not obvious it's uh it's like 5:30 in the morning so I'm I'm waking up so if I all my words are messed up that's why um but yeah I think it's really about like how you respond to things how you navigate

through conversations and this is yet again why soft skills are important right now in this scenario that was being described because I was reading through some of the comments some people were saying oh like nope like you did the right thing like I would have like completely shut down the client like they're being rude you can't have people walking all over you but like I don't even think that's what's happening here I think someone there's a bit of a disagreement going on and right like and I feel like rightfully so if someone's getting frustrated on the other end being like I'm literally paying for this and this is not what I was expecting in terms of what someone's going to go build for me so they're like hey like what's up with this what's going on if you start getting snarky back to them like

that's not the right move if someone was being like degrading to you or like they're being racist they're being degrading they're ins insulting you like this is a different story and I think that there's a different way to navigate that and that might very well be like you know hey like nope I don't put up with people like literally attacking me and like that's it and then I would immediately report said conversation to your manager like I would end that call and report it to your manager uh HR whatever it happens to be all the above and say that you basically had a a client or a customer that was harassing you and that's why you you basically ended things and you wouldn't the response in that situation would not be giving it back to them would not be like oh you're you're being racist

to me I'm going to be racist to you you're insulting me I'm going to insult you like that's not the answer the answer is well you would end that conversation and just say like hey like this conversation's over and uh you know be I don't even know you don't have to say anything else just like if that's the end of it because someone's doing that end it and go report it but that's not what happened here right it's not like so people that were getting like in the comments to this post that are getting all butt hurt and trying to say like oh no like you never let people walk on you it's like that's just not what's happening it's just a disagreement and a misunderstanding and what we need to do is respond in a way that's not going to be escalating things so

this person was continuing to escalate and that's just not it's just not good behavior right so I think that with respect to the manager's feedback they absolutely need to acknowledge this they need to take responsibility for it and it's not that's not like career ending right like this is like we're human we're human it's like it's I'm not saying it's like uh I'm not saying please go have an experience like this but I'm I am saying like if I had to work with an employee they're talking about a contractor in this situation but if I had a contractor or a full-time employee and there was feedback like this I wouldn't like in this particular situation the way it was described I wouldn't say oh you're fired but I would give them this feedback I think it's important to here and I think that people can

learn from this and grow from this right the correct response when things are getting escalated like that when people are disagreeing the goal is not to be an back to someone it's that's never the answer and especially when you're dealing with a customer the goal is to try and get things resolved so I think that the action that they took and I believe the acronym was a BSA business systems analyst is my guess I like I said I've never heard that uh so maybe it's just my lack of understanding on the role but they essentially brought in someone that understood or was told the requirements to get on the same page like I think that is the right thing to do right like they're they're relaying to the client hey like here's what I'm told and the client's going like I don't think that's right

man so they should say oh okay well you know that's what I've been informed so like let's try to get to the bottom of this make sure we're on the same page right like we don't want we don't want anyone to waste their time so let me bring someone else onto the call that was either responsible for Gathering these requirements or maybe had a different conversation let's just get things cleared up right because if what you do is just take what the customer was saying right at that point in time and that's not necessarily Your Role or responsibility you're probably going to have another follow-up conversation with someone about a misunderstanding of requirements so I think it was a great move to bring in the person that apparently is responsible for this activity right get on the same page age work it out together everyone

walks away hopefully being happy but I think it was about how it was done I think if you're like I said getting to a point where you're trying to match someone else's uh like crappy attitude like it's only making things worse and I would say you should expect that someone's going to complain about that I think there were some analogies in that thread that were like comparing uh software contractors oh man what's this person doing that's not a lane yikes they uh they went to go pull off for an exit and then decided no last minute but then they were driving like immediately between the exit and the highway so like uh there's not a lot of Runway there before you run into a wall that was pretty scary to watch um I guess it's early right we all have an excuse but yeah this

uh this comparison to like weight staff I thought was kind of weird um they I think people were kind of making it seem like oh you should expect to be like expect to be crapped on and like that's just part of the job and again like I'm like I'm not I don't know if that's like a good analogy or the way that that was being explained was good but I think the point they were trying to get across is like as a contractor and there I guess this was their their goal was to try and compare contractors to full-time employees and I'm not even so sure that I would draw like a huge distinction there and try to like call out like this really big difference but I think the reality is if we have a customer like we should be trying to listen to

what they have to say and making sure that we can solve their problems right the I think the reason that things on the the Reddit thread became a little bit more escalated is just people's different interpretation of the situation and how how sort of aggressive the customer was being right that's why I was saying if they're literally attacking you no one should be a no one should have to put with that in work right so if you're if you want to use the weight staff uh comparison like if you were a server at a restaurant and you had customers that were like insulting you that were you know throwing food or something at you I don't know just being like terrible like that then uh I'm pretty sure you have grounds to not serve them and to ask like ask a manager to have them

leave the the restaurant or something like that so people are trying to make this comparison right um but they're saying hey like consider yourself like weight staff just like get the make the customer happy so aside from people being completely outrageous in their behavior I would say generally I do agree with that right we should not be trying to escalate things um yeah I I talked about this the other day in terms of keeping Cal right um I think that video got uploaded maybe that was the one that got uploaded today I had really bad luck since Friday with getting uh stuff recorded between uh not pressing the the power button on the uh on the audio receiver and then I had a situation where I uploaded a video where there was uh sort of like digital noise artifacts the whole time because of a

ground Loop the ground Loop isolator and then uh I had the one video I filmed on the way to CrossFit on Saturday and basically after the almost the entire thing was done I just turned it off cuz I could tell I was I was so frustrated recording that that I was like I'm not happy with with how I navigated some scenario um I was I was almost like trying to put myself in the position of someone receiving this type of advice uh from a coach or a mentor and I was like being honest with myself I was like this just feels like a shitty way to present this uh this advice like why are you like you don't just don't put this online like it's just to just to have a video like no like I don't think it's worth it so it's been a

little bit rough but hopefully this one comes through okay but yeah I I was talking about keeping calm right um it's very easy in conversations where when you're not agreeing with something if if you especially if you notice someone else start to have a little bit of you know they're upping the tone a little bit and you're disagreeing with them and you feel like something's not fair if that starts to sneak in I would say like you know it it's a recipe for for having this like sorry I got to move Lanes here um it's a recipe for putting yourself in the situation where you need need to watch um you know how calm you are because I think it's really easy for emotions to escalate and stuff like that so we got to stay on top of these things once you start losing your

cool um even a little bit you're not really thinking clearly and uh you're really setting yourself up to say things that you don't really mean or that you're probably going to regret so uh the advice I gave in the other video which which sounds kind of funny uh my my wife has a psychology background and does uh Works in therapy so when we have conversations of not that she's she should be but not that she's giving me therapy but when we're talking through different things that come up like one of the things that she had said was like um especially when people are like upset angry they they basically stop thinking clearly and they literally need to try and drive oxygen to their brain so um taking a moment this is why it sounds funny but like taking a moment just to be able to

like breathe and actually like go and like get some literally try and drive more oxygen into your brain uh can be helpful so um I don't know I I was saying that I've been trying to practice that more so if there's ever situations where I'm getting frustrated like trying to do it and I would like to believe that it's working um I think even just taking that moment to pause and not just like immediately respond right um having some awareness that you're starting to lose your cool I think is important if you don't have the awareness you can't take that big deep breath um but giving yourself that chance to pause um and if there's some way that you can stop yourself from from saying something you might might regret I think that's a that's a that's a win but yeah in this case my

advice for this person is absolutely respond to the manager's feedback own up to it um you know it sounds like this person already acknowledges they could have done a better job I don't think they need to go into defending themselves on it um it's not the point right there's a lesson here keep you cool I think they did a great job with the the action that they took just not how they uh approached it right bring in the person that can help solve the problem get on the same page excellent um but how they got there I think based on what I read from their their post I think that's the part that needs work and I think that's what the feedbacks on so focus on that try not to like derail it and I don't like I said I don't think there's a reason

to try and say well no it wasn't wasn't like that like you need the full story like there's a lesson you know great let's learn from that and let's move on but I think that's uh what I would have to say about that article or that Reddit post hope you thought that was at least somewhat helpful I am pulling in to CrossFit now so it's bench press day which basically never happens in CrossFit and that's one of the only things I can do from bodybuilding and powerlifting so not missing that so thanks so much I will see you after CrossFit take care