The Workplace Stack Exchange
The Workplace Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
190
votes
19 answers

How to stop an employee from holding the company hostage?

I work in a team that writes software to facilitate one of the key business units of the company. I joined the team a few months ago and found out that there is high turn-over in my team due to one person. This person (let's call him Mr. A) has been…
MightyPizza
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189
votes
7 answers

Job offer without any details but asking me to withdraw other applications - is it normal?

I have recently applied for a job through a recruitment agency, and had my interview last Thursday. On Friday the agent called me and said that the company is keen on giving me an offer. He said he will send me an email later to confirm, and…
user12205
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188
votes
15 answers

How to discipline overeager engineer

I have a software engineer on my staff that has been very useful. He basically trains himself on new technologies on a weekly basis, and can memorize and apply the latest O'Reilly textbook over a weekend, and master the content within a month. He's…
Hong
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187
votes
13 answers

Is it ethical to use knowledge in main job for side gig?

Suppose I have a main job (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) that involves lots of computer programming, and one day I build a recommender system for my company (think of Amazon.com making recommendations). My company is in the perfume industry. Now, I…
wwl
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186
votes
10 answers

Client wants me to do something explicitly illegal

I work as a freelancer, alongside my regular dayjob, for several different people with all sorts of odd needs for software. One those clients asked me to do something highly illegal. This isn't something that might be considered a privacy issue or…
T. Sar
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186
votes
13 answers

How can a company recover after a Glassdoor debacle?

This is concerning one of my previous employers. Recently some junior dev left a bad review, people found out, and this triggered a wave of disgruntled posts detailing their ill experiences. These are centered mostly around the use of old…
rath
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185
votes
11 answers

How to deal with a coworker who blamed me for the bug that was his fault

I’m relatively new at a job, but have established myself as the “guy” when it comes to a certain web service we use. Our own website integrates with the service. I don’t really work on the site, just with the service. Today we had something of a…
Ryan
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184
votes
9 answers

How can I increase focus when doing something boring?

I'm a senior software dev at a contractor company. The issue I'm asking about goes as follows: When I program or debug or do something I like, I'm super-fast. I'm fast enough that I do tasks in 50% the budget-time. On the other hand, when I do…
The Quantum Physicist
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184
votes
9 answers

How can I handle my company docking my pay due to poor quality of previous consultant's work for customer?

I work for a consulting company as a developer in Italy. A month ago a major client demanded a replacement for a developer who worked there on a project due to concerns about the quality of their work. A week and an interview later I was put on…
Anon
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183
votes
14 answers

Is it unprofessional to have a quiet alarm for your own finishing time?

At my current job - a UK-based development company - I set a vibrate-only alarm on my phone that goes off for only a second at 5:30 pm (which is my official end time). I don't like to literally watch the clock as it would be distracting and…
user34587
183
votes
14 answers

Ways to respond when HR says your market salary range research isn't correct?

I'm negotiating a raise at my job (entry-level job; I've been at the company for 1+ years). For a lot of reasons (primarily my skill set, accomplishments, & performance), I believe that I'm getting severely underpaid. I did a lot of research: At…
c36
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183
votes
14 answers

How do I deal with an autistic employee who criticizes teammates publicly and doesn't understand the harm in doing so?

I have a very autistic person in my team who quite often criticizes his teammates in public emails, causing lots of complaints. We are in a Nordic country and it is not very common to fire people here, so we won't do that. A lot of people have…
Mark
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182
votes
15 answers

How can I deal with troublesome Professional Engineer?

I currently manage a team of quite a few engineers in Canada. Things normally run smoothly, but we've had a serious problem with a senior engineer as of late. This engineer is the sole engineer on our team with his Professional Engineer (P.Eng.)…
user47645
182
votes
21 answers

Dealing with reactions from colleague about being self-taught

I'm working as a software developer for a big company in Western Europe. I have 2 years of industry experience and 2 more years as a freelancer doing web apps on the side. All in all, I've been from the frontend to the backend of the software…
escplat12
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181
votes
12 answers

Colleague commenting negatively on my look

I'm a man in his 20s working in a research center in one European university and I'm wearing a longer beard and completely shaved hair (my uni doesn't have any dress-code or something like that). Everything is good here, except one thing. Everybody…
Eenoku
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