About the Work Situation

[ninja_coder]

 
I could try to describe this in ninja-speak, or I can just dump it in modern terms. Either way, I'll just use the established ninja names.

A week or so ago, Jimon was placed in charge of the front-end (urban-fighting) ninjas. Jimon is fairly new at my workplace. Like Bunmei and I, he's a pretty damn smart guy.

In fact, a large chunk of my distress comes from the fact that both Bunmei and Jimon are really smart guys. Either (or both) of them may honestly be smarter than me. They certainly have a hell of a lot of knowledge about Ruby, and Rails, and they're really well-versed in all kinds of cool-ass programming techniques.

Honestly, the two of them move pretty fast, and I'm really having trouble keeping up. I feel "old and busted", and like a tired, old dinosaur that's getting edged out by the newer, quicker creatures.

It doesn't help that Jimon is pretty good at pointing out when he thinks something has been done in a less-than-optimal way... but not nearly so prone to compliment something when it's done well. (Or maybe it's just that he actually thinks my stuff sucks. It would help if there were anything I'd done lately that I could point to and say, "I'm actually proud of that. I did a good job on that, and I know it.")

Half the time, I'm not sure what he's talking about, and I feel like I'm too stupid to understand. The other half of the time, I think he's just a really lousy communicator.

Regardless, I've decided that the best thing I can do is improve my own game. To the utmost. There's no sense in asking him, "Hey, do you just think I completely suck? Or are you great at slamming on stuff, but incapable of giving praise?" Nobody's ever going to respond well to that kind of thing. Instead, I should simply work to "lengthen my line", as Joe Hyams learned from Ed Parker. Improve my own skills, work on doing the best job that I can possibly do — and don't give a damn what anyone else is doing, or how well they're doing it, or even what they think of me.

That last bit is going to be the hardest part. I've always been a little too concerned with other people's opinions of me. But if I work hard enough on improving myself, maybe I can at least shut those doubts up for a little while.

Comments

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed by your commitment to improving your work. It's more than most people expect, I think.

One thing that struck me - you said there's no point in asking him if he just thinks you suck. But good coders (he seems to be one) don't learn people-management skills by magic. I wonder if there's any utility to saying something like "I'm trying to figure out what particular areas I can improve the most and which I've got under control. You seem to think my work is acceptable, overall, but the only specific feedback is negative" and then asking about a specific project that you think you did pretty well on. Maybe he thinks you're great but has the geek tendency to pick things apart and find all the flaws.

Or maybe it's best to work on improving the things that interest you and then waiting for annual review season to ask that sort of question. Who knows...