4

I have the following situation and I'm not sure how to react.

In my team there are three members:

  • A Junior with 2 years of experience
  • Myself and another Senior with 15+ years of experience (including myself)

I have been working for the current Client for a year, and the other Senior has been working with them for 5 years. The Junior has also been working with them for a year.

The other senior colleague is smart, and would probably be a good developer if he was not slacking so heavily. So far, the only tasks he completes are simple configuration tasks, or ordering things from the Operations department.

At the same time, me and my other colleague do all the heavy lifting. I am also very skilled in documenting things and visualizing.

The senior developer is not stupid; so he has learned all the concepts and architecture very well - despite having contributed none of the code, and none of the diagrams.

I normally wouldn't care how much he is contributing, or how much he is slacking. However, we had an architecture meeting with the chief architect and management, where the senior developer became suddenly vocal and started taking credit for the work me and my colleague have done - using our good documentation to sound like he knows what he's talking about.

This has made me feel annoyed. I dont have problem with him not working, i have a problem with him being loud and maling statements and engagements with other partiets that mat later affect us. How can his voice be shut down while i dont need him removed from the team. I prefer no direct confrontation either.

Pesho
  • 940
  • 7
  • 17
  • I've heavily edited the English for readability, but made no semantic changes - so the question is still as on/off topic as before. –  Nov 07 '19 at 17:23
  • @Bilkokuya thanks! Wrote IT from my phone. Dont know how to deal with the autocomplete. – Pesho Nov 07 '19 at 17:24
  • Pesho, Have you tried cornering him privately with the other developer? Telling him that if he isn't going to do the heavy lifting, he shouldn't imply that he did during meetings (otherwise, you will have to speak up the next time he does). – Stephan Branczyk Nov 07 '19 at 17:27
  • @Stephan Branczyk i have not. The country i am in culturewise is very much anti-conflict , anti-confrontation i am a bit afraid to gi into confrontation mode. You never know how IT will backfire plus he is working for this client for longer period. – Pesho Nov 07 '19 at 17:49
  • Pesho, Well, you do need to confront him privately at least. There is no way around that. Some people just get lazy when there is no active supervision of their work. It's human nature. And if you can't overcome your cultural programming, you're screwed. – Stephan Branczyk Nov 07 '19 at 18:15
  • What is most ridiculas is that i am sure he is a good developer. He is smart and has good understanding og things. – Pesho Nov 07 '19 at 18:15
  • 2
    Possible duplicate, although from a different angle: https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/23165/what-can-i-do-to-make-a-coworkers-lack-of-effort-more-visible. Perhaps not so much a duplicate as something to look at for answers anyway. – thursdaysgeek Nov 07 '19 at 18:39
  • Not that it in anyway justifies claiming credit where it's not due but have you made any effort to make him productive? Is there anything he's responsible for? It's easy to leave even smart people behind if you build up your momentum without sharing your toys. – candied_orange Nov 07 '19 at 18:41
  • Are you completely sure he is slacking? I, as a team lead for example, have completed very few coding tasks in the last week - not nearly as many as my junior colleagues - and yet I assure you I am not slacking. – DJClayworth Nov 07 '19 at 19:03
  • @DJClayworth I am prettey sure. Although I am not formaly the team lead I have been maintaining Jira dividing tasks into subtasks. Drawing architecture diagrams and maintaining them and yet I complete more coding tasks than him. I complete by far more, not just more. And yes I am sure that he is slacking because on the rare occasions he actualy do code he codes well. – Pesho Nov 07 '19 at 19:07
  • If your country's culture is a significant part of this, it would be useful to include which country this is. – Ben Barden Nov 07 '19 at 19:08
  • 1
    @BenBarden Norway, pretey much non confrontational culture. The fastest route out of a project is to be the troublemaker. The one that is not easy to work with or complaining. There is also this cultural thing called Jante loven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante – Pesho Nov 07 '19 at 19:10
  • 1
    @JoeStrazzere I dont think that she care very much. Quite possible she is oblivious. To some extend I have helped as well to this situation. – Pesho Nov 07 '19 at 19:13
  • Jante seems like serf law "You're not to think you are as good as we are". – Móż Nov 07 '19 at 23:31
  • 1
    Possible duplicate of What can I do to make a coworker's lack of effort more visible? – Cypher Nov 08 '19 at 01:08
  • Edited the question to be less broad and more definer. – Pesho Nov 08 '19 at 08:01

1 Answers1

1

Your culture is sure to have enforcement structures. Use them.

I acknowledge that I am an outsider, and I do not know the details of how things work, but it seems that the Jante Loven is all about not putting yourself above your group - not claiming glory for yourself, and so forth. Is this not exactly what your coworker has done? He stood up in front of a meeting with the architect and management, and essentially claimed all of the credit for himself. He is putting the self before the group, obviously in pursuit of his own ambitions. Prior to him being disruptive in this way, you were willing to let him go along in his own path, but now?

...and then come back around to the "eleventh rule". You do know something about this man - specifically, that he does very little work of his own. That, then, is likely to be the key to the societally correct way to punish his ambitious behaviors. If the law cannot be enforced, then it has no teeth, and it obviously has teeth. All you need to do is to figure out how to properly enforce, as a loyal follower of the social order.

Further, even if you can't figure it out for yourself, and no one here has enough specific area knowledge on how to handle the situation, you can much more easily ask for local advice, given that framing of the issue. It is generally pretty easy, in almost any culture, to ask for advice on how to properly reinforce the social contract.

Ben Barden
  • 21,301
  • 9
  • 52
  • 63
  • 1
    If you can provide no idea how to enforce the societal law you're talking about, what is the point of all these bloated texts, other than showing you know some jargon relating to the most basic of human behavior?! –  Nov 08 '19 at 14:02
  • @O.F. The point is a matter of perspective. Approaching the problem as "How do I enforce societal norms?" is a lot more tractable than approaching it as "How do I do this thing which seems to break societal norms without getting socially punished for it?" The OP does not have the local resources for the latter (or he wouldn't have asked). He almost certainly can find the local resources for the former. – Ben Barden Nov 08 '19 at 14:06