Positive vibes

I was in real dilemma as my boss had articulated the problem with a difficult employee as inter-personal issue. It was a clear case of professional misconduct but could be due to smokey company policies that do not allow stringent action it may have been easier to carry along.

Moreover a dear friend of mine had advised to generate positive vibes in an atmosphere that could otherwise go haywire and it seems to have worked because we did not touch sensitive areas as I drew the emphasis on positive successes that we had in the past and that this was only due to strict deadline that true character came forth.

Anyways even he is part of team and thus it is my responsibility to make environment friendly for him as I do for the rest. He simply falls into category of vulnerable sensitive puppies as I sometimes feel that me too.

Personally there seems to be no angst so its easy to accept.

Professionally the person needs to work on his office timing and adjustments to team structure, a great shift from individualistic approach and I have to ensure that that happens.. How I don’t know? But I don’t think it will be a big deal.

The boss kept on rambling indirectly and the employee was still seeing the specifics and I was watching the show, a rare treat if you allow me say. The boss gave warning as if it was first occurance, it has been something hidden for over a year and now brought into public light and it may be dangerous to leave it unattended as it is not directly addressed.

mix personal angst into professional conduct

I am not here to correct individual behavior or their personal lifestyle. I am here for a purpose and that is to maintain a healthy team culture in which everyone participates and contributes professionally towards meeting team/group goals.
Everyone has personal needs but they should be able to contain them and sort it out personally either through direct interactions or escalations but should not disturb team's environment to further their cause. They should display a maturity in professional conduct and should not corrupt it for personal needs.
I would have left this issue here if the person in question would have been satisfied by giving me negative 360 but I found that the venom has been passed on to the team too and therefore I am providing this recommendation.
He could not adopt to the ambiguous work environment that comes with a solution setup that is happening for the first time. He could not learn what all we were doing and still will show no interest. He was only focused for the task at hand and showed no interest towards various initiatives that I took for team's welfare. He maintained his own timing and did not bother whether it affected team's need or not. He misused company's resources like Cab for personal reasons like cricket match. He cannot pick up new areas of work quickly and takes too much time to adopt to newer technology. He is not able to generate respect in a team of freshers. He is reluctant to ask for help from his teammates and even after being told that there is a teammate who has done so and so and why don't you discuss the same with him and resolve. He demands respect for his years of experience. His suggestions are silly and diverts team attention and directions and thus get ignored like shift meeting from 10 to 10:05. His explanations are silly and non-consistent like sometimes he mentions that he had backache 3 months back so came at 12 today or yesterday he slept at 12 and so he came at 12 today.

I would have still accommodated him but he has been a difficult resource in course of this project.
At the start of the project I had mentioned that he is lead designer for this project and thus all ideas should be filtered by him and should pass on to team only after he had done its impact analysis on coding/testing etc., He said I was not able to communicate the delay so I was not accepting any changes.
The design of his module went on for endless discussions even after I repeated that start putting it on paper so that I can review the progress and finally when it came on paper the coders were uncomfortable because there was no detail to carry forward to code. On one Friday they came to me and I had to ask them to define the design by themselves and go ahead, there was already a delay of 1 week and no more delays could be tolerated by the schedule. The coders defined the designed on paper and even then the final design documentation is very poor.
During the design phase on Friday evening he tells me that he is on training on Monday. I try to persuade him to understand that a delay in design will have severe impact on coding and thus the whole project. He tells me that he will decide on Monday. I go to the coder and tell him that understand the design verbally and go ahead with your coding because I would not know when it will come out on paper. This is after repeated reminder that his design is a dependency.He finally skipped the training.
I had made a mandate in the team that we should restrain from taking leave as it was a critical target driven project for us and we should all finish our as well as help teammates to finish their task earlier. He comes to me on Wednesday saying he is on leave on Friday. I give him a task list that includes design doc, initiate code review and test plan. I saw the document and left it at that because no point reminding How bad it was after the person has said that he has given his best. The review did not start till late in afternoon and I dont yet know how much was complete.

He has not been able to adjust to team's timing,technical requirements nor has been able to help other teammates in their tasks for faster completion.

Even after all this mess the team is moving along towards meeting its goal but I will not be able to absorb tantrums by such resource on a regular basis.

my cubicle

technical architect and software engineer

There is a TA in team and rest of the team is of SE. The TA was trying to create his own time space and individuality and I was disturbed when it started affecting the team's functioning. I was postponing the dialogue because we were in middle of project and I did not want to disturb the rhythm of the team. Finally there was a code review planned for the day that was before the unplanned leave day of TA and I was enraged that it has not yet begun as there was email from the TA to SE asking for path location of the file even though they sit next to each other. I called the TA and asked him the context of the mail and he showed surprise that why was I so enraged, I asked who owned the review if we kept waiting for the mail reply.
I took him to a room and gave him my piece of mind and I think even he was bottled up so he released his venom too. He has been in team for over a year and has not able to gain respect of the team because the SE's have picked up newer changes and older technologies like J2EE faster than he could adopt. So I was giving him individual role as we had invested him by sending him to onsite training etc., I kept suggesting him that he could take help from any on us that he may have took as disrespect remark as he was TA and rest were SE. He made silly comments in meeting and was not contributing even though I had given him enough opportunity in the beginning to speak up. I would have reprimanded him for diverting team's attention and what I was trying to bring in the team say uniform timing wherein everyone is there so that teammates sont have to depend on each other just to complete their task but he took it as a personal offence to his flexible timing. I asked him why he would take cab that left late in night and he said no one questioned him in his 7 years. I asked him why he did not attend team meetings at 10 in morning and he gave me minute by minute break up and brought in his health reasons too.
Also he was after my planning and his designer role. He has done a bad designing job and still felt that it's okay to delay the project by a week if he gets idea in middle of coding stage. Probably the idea is borrowed from Principal (senior consultant) in the team. And he felt sandwiched between the Principal and me as he thought we had a personal enmity and were causing him suffering using designing and scheduling as alibi. Even pointed out that my written communication was poor as I did not reply to his mail that requested the morning meeting to shift from 10 to 10:05.
He expected other designers to be available at 8:30 in night and he did not mind their waiting them till 12 in afternoon because he was senior.
He kept on challenging me to allow him to be thrown out of the project as his previous attempt to get back to unambiguous and straightforward work environment had failed and he had failed to adjust to a team environment where there are less peers and more juniors.
He was very firm in his belief and could not understand why I kept on insisting on team and its goal and how we can help meet them by participating in them.
As for respect I think in software you get it by deeds than by words because in early stage its a technology intensive industry where in youngsters believe that if you want respect than you have to prove it technically.

unit transfer

I was confused in the project manager role as there is hardly any client interaction and disturbed at my technology(networking/telecom) proximity so thought that I should move into a vertical specific unit for more direct client exposure and revenue bottomline. The resume showed a vendor name that was transforming itself from networking to applications level and the rebranding is still in process so I have to explain the same in the initial few minutes and then they say there is disconnect.
I took my grievance to my boss's boss as the strings of my recent bosses showed no inclination nor support in trying to understand my woes as it is not acceptable practice to make such request. Neither do they have the power.
He mentioned about the recent promotion and how they had done it even though I was not performing the role. For me it did not matter as role entailed no monetary change.
He asked me about my core competency and I said project management blah blah and he said I was too early for that. I started talking about technical skill set I have written few client applications on windows.
He was clear that it cannot be done in the next 6 months. In the mail he mentioned 1 year.
Then I took personal grievance of a senior in group who sometimes loses temper and uses shouting as a mode of communication. He said it would not help him change his decision of timeline even though he would address this matter.

access door and ODC

He was the security officer for the account with a large bank and responsible for setting up of offshore development center. The building was not designed to handle secure access so the small entry door had one part with the magnetic latch and other part was bolted.

The first challenge came with keeping the closed door closed. The facilities wanted the inside number on the access card to provide access to people and there were 400 of them and not everyone took it seriously so they came knocking on the door and guys closest to the door would come and open the door for the door. Sometimes they left the closed door open and there was lot of noise because security officer for the account would come charging in and demand who left it opened.

The second challenge came from individuals who had to squeeze in through the access part of door. The security officer requested the facilities who said it can only be approved by CEO. CEO asked for quote and facilities provided the quote from best builder in town and it was Rs 35K for one door and there were two of that kind. The CEO disapproved the request.

The third challenge came from fire exit as it was a open gateway to other floors and facilities closed it by constructing a wall but then people were worried what would happen in case of a fire and then a door was made that was locked and a key kept in glass enclosure close to the door.

The fourth challenge came from the opening close to door and client on a visit objected that people would just climb and enter ODC. Facilities asked whether they wanted plain or tainted glass and they said tainted.

Newer building that came are still not designed for security aspect as needed by client.

cab request

I wanted to have a common team timings so that some do not have to wait for others if they have dependency.
One of the senior folk who has been around for all his time here was coming by 12 and leaving late and sometimes by cab because the last bus left at 9. He would do so by sending a mail demonstrating that he has left late in the day.
I confronted him and asked his reasons and he started helath etc., I tried to explain that I was trying to bring in a culture wherein people work in day and help each other in common hours of work.
He said no one has questioned his cab request in the past. There are things that one learn beyond 9 for the benefits of the team. In his last project people left by cab almost on daily basis because they were doing another project in day and theirs in the night. The other team members were not available at 8:30 PM.
The other team members said he was not available at 10 AM.

she can shout too

I was struggling with tracking and usage of Microsoft project. My boss’s boss gave a zero gap deadline for the IP creation project. Neither the designers nor the implementators have good skills to execute the idea in decided technology but we said yes. There were few action items that were imposed by my boss on me through her perceptions. I prioritized myself and decided the rest of the information could be retrieved after I did resource leveling in the plan.

I did so and also did the crime of leaving office on time and my boss called me and gave me a blast, of course the tone was close to a shout. I just kept on requesting her to keep down the phone.

The whole of next week was in agony starting with Monday where in my interpretations of the event was successfully suppressed and boss gave one more piece of her mind.

I tried to work and also contemplated quitting. I have been also struggling to quit because I have done so many times in past that I don’t feel like doing again.

There were silly comments like why did I put smiley in the mail and how can I know the urgency of the task because I did not have the bigger picture.

In another meeting in the week I suggested a slippage because of design ideas from another grand thinker in the group who is short on temper and long on ideas. She recommended stretch. I recommended her to get somebody else to do the job and she wanted an email on that too. The agony week was more of email week than meetings.

stretch

Stretch is one more word in Industry which means I don’t care about your evenings, neither your weekends nor your religious holidays. I know that we should plan but when it comes to execution than we should put more efforts than planned just to be on track. Re-planning is recommended but date should not change. No matter how much the team should stretch, you have the freedom to give them compensation off but date should be met.