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Ask Slashdot: How Do You To Tell Your Client That His "Expert" Is an Idiot?
Esther Schindler writes "It's a danger for any consultant, and for most inter-departmental internal project staff: To get the work done, you need to work with someone else who supplies expertise you lack. But when the 'expert' turns out to be the wrong person how do you tell the client (or boss) that you just can't work with that individual?"
Tell the truth?
If its your last day on the job. Just say, "You're an idiot and so is that moron you hired."
Just remember though, burning bridges isn't always a good thing.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Many years back a CEO of a subdivision of a company wanted to know why his email service was disrupted. I told them that it was because their idiot webmaster took control of their DNS and did not copy the MX record. The webmaster defended himself claiming that a document was not in place explaining how to handle the client's DNS. This went back and forth a bit between the three of us, and ended with me calling the two of them incompetent and irresponsible. I never spoke to the webmaster or the client CEO for better or worse.
A few years later, the CEO of the parent company called wanting to know why his network was suffering intermittent downtime and demanded it be fixed immediately. I explained that his outage was caused by antiquated equipment that could not do debugging, and there was a proposal already on his desk for replacement gear. He was in a huff, but he knew I didn't mince words or advice, and that quote was signed in minutes.
While you can't always directly point to a net gain after a net loss, your experience and attitude will help define how other perceive you. You can go in quite politely, or you can be very blunt. I have been both depending on the situation.
Either way, if you can't call out losers, you'll wind up being one.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
I hope you have the credentials to back up your claim that the person is an idiot. Many people with no IT experience think if you don't have the answer within 5 seconds you are an "idiot." I've dealt with people like that before and needless to say I moved on to bigger and better things. I won't stay with a company that works like that. I also have 20 years in the field and many certs. I will never ever know everything, I know I'm competent at my job functions.
Most experts are idiots at what they claim, but an expert at earning trust regardless of their knowledge. So be careful of these people, as they are quite aware of their lack of expertise and their fragility. Gain trust of the client first before taking on people your client trusts.
Oddly enough, I never had to work with anyone who was completely incompetent. Some didn't know squat about the technical side of things, but their business knowledge was impeccable, and that was what they brought to the table.
Maybe the problem isn't whether they're an expert in the field, but whether you know how to communicate with someone outside your field.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
...and doesn't know the first thing about the job the people under him do.
I don't know, but I'm sure if I read the free eBook that the article is advertising I'd become a management expert literally overnight. !!! DOWNLOAD NOW !!!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If I don't want to work on a project with an "expert", as part of my job, but I don't want to work on the project anymore because of something someone else is doing...I'd complain to my supervisor, then if I still wasn't happy, I would quit my job. If I wanted to keep my job (even if it was just to see them fail) I would manage to hobble through by doing the absolute minimum. It's not exactly controversial. How is this interesting enough to be a topic?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
it's been done before
I believe the phrase "different points of view can help ...." makes for a decent excuse. Trust Your Doctor? When to Get a Second Opinion
How is this an Ask Slashdot when the article answers the question. Are we supposed to argue that the author(expert) of the article is an incompetent?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Have you already billed and been paid? Do you know if the 'expert' has already voiced an opinion to said client about your voracity? Is the client a relative?
This happened in two different contracting jobs. In one, first indication of possible trouble was when the contractor in question put all of his certificates of course completion (framed) up in his office. Second indication was when he tried to convince our client that he should manage the rest of the contractors. Eventually, we stayed, he didn't. The bad news was that I had to untwist and make coherent all of his "solutions".
In another job, similar experience, one of our team of four complained loudly and often about the state of our administrative solutions, saying over and over again "it's just a mess". He was hired into project development. About six months later he left for unstated reasons, and our client offered all three of us full time positions.
I never did figure out how to tell my client that he had hired a poser, but in both cases, things worked out for themselves. I'd say, wait and see if the client wises up.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Just remember that "getting it off your chest" is usually a bad, counter-productive approach. Usually (there are always exceptions). Think before you leap. Then couch the news in very diplomatic language that sounds complimentary to the "other expert" to any third party listening (probably not your boss though) but which also states that their expertise such as it is, is not necessarily a good match for the particular project.
Going around calling co-workers morons generally is a bad idea, except in certain environments where you wouldn't want to work anyway.
Just read, Dealing with Dummies for Dummies...
Figure out what you'd need to get the job done. That might be an additional person, not a replacement person in order to make up for the deficiency. There may even be someone else in the company that could "assist".
Go to your client and tell him that this is what you'd need to get the job done because you'd assumed a certain skill set.. If the client won't go for it, regretfully let him know that you're not the right person for the job under these circumstances and that his "expert" might be able to suggest someone else. Or maybe you can and then you've solved the problem, even if you're not the solution yourself.
In any case, walk in with a solid proposal for fixing the problem that doesn't paint the "expert" as a complete idiot - just say that the skill sets don't line up right - and be prepared to lose the client. But if it's really that bad, you might be better off losing it now than getting dragged into a giant fight over breach of contract or cost overruns.
Outline cases where the project has been or is being adversely affected by negligence or incompetence. Provide measures to correct the issue via further documentation if part of your consultation is dependent on the projects success (if it can be saved). Otherwise you should have had performance reviews to gauge how the project is performing. If you are just providing technical direction disregard everything above and offer to provide the incompetent employee training on how to fuck his wife.
As a consultant it is *my job* to work with the client and their people. Incompetent or not, it is still my job to work with them.
If you are complaining about this as a consultant, you have no business being a consultant.
Hey dude, you expert is an idiot.
I'm using the slas^H^H^H^H a website's beta and its designers have the same issue.
Near as I can tell, they don't plan on listening....
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Come on, be honest. But before you open your mouth, THINK carefully.
I have a policy of ALWAYS assuming that any problem somebody brings me is MINE to fix. I most likely caused it and it's my responsibility to fix it. Problems are not always my fault in the end, but until I've proven to myself and more importantly to the person who brought the problem to my attention that it's NOT my fault I'm taking personal responsibility to see it gets fixed.
With that in mind, before you go off and start calling somebody you don't know well an idiot to his face you better be darn sure. And before you go tell anybody else about your suspicions they are an idiot you better be doubly darn sure you can back up the claim with absolute, you'd bet the farm on it, proof. Otherwise, you are going to be shot full of holes because YOU are the idiot.
Given that you obviously are NOT the subject matter expert (or why would you need one given to you) I would say that what we most likely have is a personality clash between you and the expert. There is a non zero chance this is not true, but unless you are ready to make yourself into the subject matter expert and PROVE it, you really have two choices...
First choice: You can suck it up, stop complaining and start working with the expert regardless of how you feel about them. You don't have to like them, but you need to respect them and stay professional about any disagreements. This will involve trying to figure out how you can best approach this person and doing things you would consider wasting time by taking their advice. Get their advice in hard copy, just to CYA in the future, but do your best to play in the sandbox with them.
Second choice: You can go in, guns blazing and shoot the idiot full of holes, preferably in public in front of management. If you are wrong, you will go down in a blaze of glory, fully burning the bridge behind your hasty departure. If you are right, and manage to prove it without stepping on a land mine in the process, nobody will ever want to work with you and the disgraced "expert" is still likely to be there, possibly on your team, which puts you back to your first choice where you will eventually have to work with them. When they start like this, such relationships don't go well and your life will be a mess.
So, I suggest you suck it up and do what it takes to work with the idiot and if you really just cannot make it work, look for another job.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
[EOM]
and examples.
Reminds of the time I was talking to an 'Expert Computer Engineer'. I had to explain binary to him.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Any web developer who had to work with a client's self acclaimed "SEO expert" can relate.
With computers with computer networks the idiots always declare that others are the idiots. Whenever they make a mistake they say "it's because of that idiot" behind the alleged idiots back. In computers and computer networks everybody is an expert and every problem is because of somebody else. There is a reason why an employer likes to see the word a team player on a CV, it is because team players help each other and turn all the computer network experts into non-idiots. No company can function without the self-declared experts until the self-declared expert is gone.
In some instances its really not worth the time and effort to work with an incomplement client. If there is a problem with the design you may end up spending a lot of unpaid hours trying to fix or patch it. In my observation is simply better off not to bid on the project and spend your efforts on getting a different project. It certainly saves you in liquor and shrink expenses! Peace of Mind is better than any financial gain.
If you wish you can simply decline to work on this selected project because of other ongoing projects that prevents you from providing the sufficient resources need to get it done on time or on budget. In many some you make end up getting a call back by the client begging for help when the expert turns the project into a disaster. This way the client dumps the expert and you can step in to save the day for the client. The idiot expert gets his\her just rewards and you get to kudos of saving the day.
... and if the client still doesn't see sense, drop the client, let him/her use their expert and pick up the pieces when it all goes to shit.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You find another client.
If there's someone you can't work with, you're the incompetent one.
On the other hand, if you have a process in place, and a manager + lackey who refuse to follow their own process, they're the ones who have the problem and you need to just get the fuck out.
You really should avoid names like "expert" and "idiot" as they are opinions. You should provide technical answers backed up by fact. Once done, you will let the other person draw conclusions about expertise and idiocy. We are all experts in some way and idiots in another. Please put your emotions aside and be a professional.
If you find yourself always having terrible roommates, guess what? You're the terrible roommate.
I work with designs that come from "expert" "degree holding" AV engineers all the time. and most of the time they are idiots because they have no clue at ALL what they are doing. They base everything off of equipment descriptions and sales literature and never EVER touch the stuff.
So they design something for the client that is a load of shit that will not work, and I have to point out how they wasted $20 grand by paying this engineering outfit to draw them a broken design.
Typically the job ends with it not working, the engineer asking "what can you do to fix it" and Me looking at the boss saying, "I told you so". Little old me fixes the overpaid idiots design, and we recycle the whole thing over again on the next project.
All because the overpaid idiots have degrees and papers. Fact is most degree holding people are morons.
Structure contracts, fees, tangible goals so if the "expert" slows you down, you get paid more.
The idea of avoiding idiots is lunacy, you make due with the cards dealt. If they have an "idiot" as an "expert", this speaks a lot about them and they probably need your help quite a bit.
If they didn't need your help, they wouldn't have hired you!
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
(1) Is there more than one idiot you work with or near?
(2) Do you think you are substantially undervalued by the company?
(3) Are you of the opinion that you are doing your coworkers a favor by working with them?
If you answered "yes" to any two of the above, you're the idiot.
nuf said
You need to stop worrying about whether your expert is an "idiot" or not. The only question is: are they qualified to provide the input, or do the thing they needed to be brought in for? If yes, then if necessary remind them and the client what the scope limits are on what the expert is needed for, show the concerns proof that the expert was going a bit out of scope, and point out their "signs of incompetence" as specific problems/action points for the expert to address, or point out on how you know this expert has not so far brought the expertise in the area you needed.
You should not put yourself in this position in the first place.
If you lack expertise, and the expertise is not just vendor support, You should find your own experts to help you, not ask your client to go out and find another expert; which basically reduces your appearance of qualification to even make the decision that the expert is not clueful about the right things.
What about when the expert you had the client recruit tells them that you ( the consultant) are an idiot?
Because one day you may find that your that consultant that's the "idiot"
Ultimatum or Resignation
So this story is directed at dice.com parent company? :)
Over coffee
Maybe this article was written by someone working at slashdot and wants to tell dice that they are idiots? Would make sense. But just tell them that they are an idiot and things will workout. I've always been straight-forward and don't lick boots of anyone and haven't suffered as a consequence. If you're afraid of telling the truth, then enjoy being in a cubicle for the rest of your life.
Years ago I interviewed for this hot up and coming company. Their stock was on fire and after a series of interview with all the top guys they had me in a meeting where they presented a pretty damn good offer. But in that same meeting they finally dished on their "secret weapon" Lotus notes. I just about threw up. They had this PhD CS guy who was their "Expert" I basically said, using Lotus on a project of this nature is like building a car out of sand. In the first few hours you might make something that looks like it is going to be a car but you will never drive it one inch. Their "Expert" made a face like I farted and told me that I knew not of what I spoke; even though I just just finished a project that required digging the guts(business logic and data) out of a lotus notes database and making it actually work in a sane development environment. So they basically said that it didn't look like it was going to work out and I said something like, even without me rethink your choice of Lotus.
About 2 years later they flamed out in a huge stock and legal disaster. The lawsuits and criminal investigations are still moving along after many many years. A critical part of their disaster was their complete inability to deliver what they promised to their biggest customers/investors. Not that they were unable to deliver exactly what was promised but basically deliver anything.
Another PhD CS "Expert" I later dealt with was a fan of some stupid browser and insisted that any development be done for that browser and not others.
But my favorite PhD "Expert" shoot down was one that worked for a company that I worked for, she was an expert in DSP. But after years of working in a dark room somewhere basically everything she knew could be purchased in a chip. In the end she was doing paperwork audits.
I am not saying that PhD CS people are all useless. I know many who are damn good and doing cool useful things. Just that many people in the business world are blinded by a PhD, they assume that the person has some sort of magical ability to make things happen. A PhD basically indicates that they know a whole lot about some certain thing at a certain time. If your business is that thing and their knowledge is recent then great. The reality is that things move so damn quick in the CS world that anyone who is good is always keeping up to date and doubtfully has any paper to show that.
...and it's not your decision. You don't. You take the job as it is, for what it is, or you leave. You don't get to change the client, and that includes their decision in other persons.
This happened to me. The boss man had "taken the initiative" and brought in a new consultant. The guy was an idiot. He opened tickets with the software vendor asking things like how to set the date on a Linux system. He told one of my co-workers that if the root password was lost, he'd need to boot with a rescue disk and do some trickery with /etc/shadow. Tasked with building a cluster, he failed miserably blaming it on poor documentation and other nonsense. I tried many times to tell the boss man that his consultant was an idiot but was told I was being "combative" despite the guy's obvious failings.
It all worked out though. As this guy's contract was being renewed, we asked him to show what he'd done. All the lies he'd told the boss man evaporated when it was revealed that his cluster was just a cluster fuck, his vaunted "remote management" system was really just a "yum install webmin" (left unconfigured), and he'd informed another co-worker not to reveal where he was sitting.
Even years after, the boss man still insisted that the contractor "had fooled everyone."
So no, if the boss is an idiot, you may as well just distance yourself from the idiot. Let him dig his own grave.
Your other option was to play nice like the dummies are advocating, and have a failed project as a black stain on your resume.
You did the right thing. So did they. Good people are incompatible with idiots.
Futurist Traditionalism
this expert must have designed Slashdot Beta...he'll know he's dealing with an idiot.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
...and tell the client he is an expert on "that", but you want a expert on "this". If you search hard enough, you can surely find some related topic, that the expert is actually little bit knowledgeable. But that is the easy way out.
On the other hand, if the client actually considers the person an expert, it is possible there is another problem. The person may actually know things, but may not be interested in telling you that. S/he might be misguiding you on purpose. Or if s/he is not really an expert on the topic in hand, you may even get that expert to tell the client that s/he may not be the right expert for the job, and someone else might know better.
So you actually need to analyse your specific situation in depth before figuring out exact action needed.
My best advice for anyone in this situation is to document everything .
I spent a few years working customer service handling orders for manufacturing company. One particularly customers was a consistent problem. This company believed one of their personnel shat gold bricks, but I realized right off that they were incompetent and used lies & intimidation to cover this up.
This person would routinely fax their orders at the end of the day (right before they would leave) without confirming that they actually sent me the files necessary to start their order, and that their orders were almost always "rush" orders with very very short turn around times. Another thing this person would do, would be to call me up, tell me they had an order and ask me what the latest day they would need to receive the order by a specific date and time. I would tell them, then they would wait well past this final submittable date, submit their order and then claim that I had promised to turn around the product by that time. Over the years, the turn around time necessary to complete their orders shrunk to impossible expectations and their customer began getting upset as my customer started blaming me personally for the delays.
The irritating part, is that whenever I some how failed to live up to this person's errors (i.e., I was unable to cover for them), they would call up my boss and complain about me. My boss only believed half their bullshit, but it was still enough to impact my career.
Unfortunately for them, one of their customers wasn't an idiot, and had remembered me when he came along to our plant for a facility inspection prior to us beginning production of their product. This customer set up a meeting between our companies and asked me point blank when I received the purchase order, when I received the files and when I delivered the product. Thankfully, I had records of the time and date of every purchase order that company had ever sent, along with records of the time and date of receipt of every file to begin production, as well as the delivery date of the product to their warehouse.
It turned out that the end customer was sending the purchase orders to our problem person up to three weeks before the problem person would send me the PO and files. The problem person would sit on the file for weeks before submitting it to their production and farming out our part to us. The problem person ended up losing their company around $2million in sales yearly when they lost their client.
We ended up being directly contracted by the end customer to continue manufacturing our part of their product.
Document everything and make sure that everyone has access to the documentation you produce. Direct confrontation seldom yields favorable results, but if you document everything that is going on they will eventually read the status reports and documentation and come to a conclusion that either a) their fair haired child is being exposed to excessive risk through involvement in the project and needs to be moved away from the project or b) They need to get rid of the idiot before the idiot looses them their job when their management reads the documentation/reports. Plus, in the meantime the documentation can help protect you from backlash related to the idiots actions. (Make sure the documentation does not come out and state that the individual is an idiot. If they are an idiot then eventually the evidence of neutral statements of action will build up to the point that gets the point across. (Based on experience, I once caught serious flack for specifying "Individual X is the most significant risk to the project", it was true, but not what the customer wanted to see...)
http://www.despair.com/consult...
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
You get them both in a meeting, and when the "expert" presents an idea, you point your index finger at your temple and rotate it in a circle around your ear.
Rolling your eyes and bursting out laughing is also good.
When the expert starts his powerpoint presentation, sigh loudly, raise one butt cheek and give an audible fart. Look around the room and say "Is he serious?" in a stage whisper.
There, I think that's a good start.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This programmer guy I know who works for Verizon, calls himself "The best of the best of the best" . He has no problem telling people he works with, people in other departments, and even clients, that they are morons. When he has a mouthful he never holds back. If he can(and has), he will go out of his way to get people fired for being stupid. He will berate people to tears. He says he just can work with morons, and he lets every one know that. He thinks he's the Dr. House of programmers. I ask him if he can get in trouble or fired, he says how he is the best programer ever known, and verizon would fold if he was fired.
What is it with programmers? Are they all arrogant?
Tell them that you can't work with poorly educated, incompetent Africans.
A college degree in the USA doesn't mean anything anymore.
This is an add for the article from Intuit. I've never had any success with any of the products i used from intuit. My company tried their Quickbooks Enterprise which was a horrible nightmare. But i'm sure this is useful. Seeing how they are being so straightforward about their approach, and they aren't using someone elses website to try and make money.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I was making a web application for a client when it came time to tart up the interface. I told my client we needed a web graphic design guru, so he gave me an employee who was some ex-carpenter dude that had learnt Adobe Illustrator along the way and managed to get a gig with them working on a flash project. The guy was nice enough but he didn't know the difference between raster and vector graphics. I asked him a dozen times to send me jpgs and pngs instead of pdfs but he never got it. Also, it didn't take long for me to realize he would just blatantly copy the designs from other hot web applications at the time rather than coming up with anything original. And the guy would make every change every single person suggested whenever he demoed the layout...didn't matter if it was the janitor or his grandma...I'm talking 3 times a day.
Anyway, I liked the guy so I did the extra work to cover his ass. I'd convert his pdf icons to png and add the transparencies. I'd implement his moronic changes 3 times a day. My client didn't seem to care which surprised me greatly so I didn't really care too much. I was getting paid by the hour.
Anyway, lesson learnt, my client obviously did care as the funding started to run out. And then I started getting the vibe from my client that this other guy had been bad mouthing me, saying I take too long to do stuff. Long story short, he threw me under the bus and I only had myself to blame.
I couldn't work with the guy after that. They were wondering why I was refusing $200/hr to finalize some loose ends. I pointed them at some other developers and wish them good luck.
Sometimes, one must look from a different angle.
A consultant screws up and the IT employee gets to fix it. This can turn into job security and a profitable career. It has the added plus in that management thinks that you agree with them.
I have this kill tally I keep up with so far I have filled out categories such as the vendor expert was fired, the expert was removed from project, the have to ask permission before talking to me, they have in cure emotional duress to name a few...I suggest you start your own kill tally
Is the consultant really an idiot or does he not bring anything useful. If he has expertise that you don't have and do need, then you need to make the case that he can't communicate that expertise properly. If he doesn't have expertise that you don't have but do need, you should explain that the scope of his expertise is outside the scope of what your project requires. Many people have accomplished a great deal in life which wouldn't help you at all if you tried to work with them. Jobs are often too narrowly focused to need general experts. Of course, if you are just a dick who was hoping that you'd use someone's else's money to hire an expert and then use him as a grunt, you deserve what's coming your way.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I was a consultant for a while and trained more than a few FNGs. I would always advise them that the choice was theirs, but that the chances of a positive result were slim to none if they took their concerns to the customer. Sure enough, I saw several otherwise excellent consultants get shown the door because of this exact scenario.
Part of your responsibility as a consultant is to "work magic". If you run into roadblocks, you find ways around them and that includes the occasional professional vegetable. What typically isn't in your domain is giving advice on personnel, unless you were specifically hired to do exactly that. In the end, almost nobody wants to be told that one of their chosen workers is sub-par. It's negative, it's dangerous, and it's usually pointless.
Just work around them, document everything, and communicate that sort of stuff with your own manager behind closed doors. You should also be sure to have customer "witnesses" in your emails and meetings. Team distribution lists and direct managers are excellent for that.
I have run consulting org's for 15 years. Assuming the boss / client is competent and they have worked with this person for a while, then they already know the guy is incompetent. At least it is suspected.
Figure out why the the boss cannot call this person out. Could be they are passive aggressive, fear that they cannot hire a replacement, corp culture does not like confrontation, afraid to demoralize the team, boss's girl/boy friend, whatever.
Next is the complicated part, figuring out the win/win/win for boss/you/dumb guy. Likely is it is planting some reasonable suggestions with the boss together with some kind of soft confrontation between the three of you where the decision breaks in your favor. Hopefully there is a role for the guy. If not, well, get him out of the way long enough to get the job done and make sure as many folks as possible know you were the reason. Things will usually work themselves out assuming you keep the dialog up.
I had a great job in the chicago suburbs working for a guy that owns garrets popcorn in chicago and has a crapload of jimmy johns franchises in Seattle. I worked in a spinoff tech investment and I tried to build a server for him, his expert said that there was no way to be sure the components I ordered would be compatible, and that Dell would be able to build a better server and support it than anyone else could.
I convinced my manager that his bosses expert was an idiot and ordered the parts. They arrived on a cold winter day and I let them sit overnight to defrost, when I came in the next morning to build the server, I had to box the parts up to ship them back and pay a restocking fee because the bosses expert wanted the dell with the warranty. A few months later I lost my job.
My advice? Just smile and nod. People who are tech idiots and have drinking buddies will always triumph over brains.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Why'd they turn it back on? This shit sucks. Following the "Classic" link at the bottom of the page doesn't help. As soon as you go to read comments you're thrown back into beta.
FUCK BETA
....find another client.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
Not every country has as strong corporate veil as the US does. For example, where I live, if you are the sole owner of the corporation nothing is going to protect your personal assets if there is a hint you didn't play by the rules. You can't just pay yourself out of corporate funds and then declare you are out of money and debtors get nothing. Lawyers would get the corporate veil dropped in a matter of minutes. Playing with shell companies just doesn't work very well in here. Doesn't mean some won't try. And a commen trick is to include a company registered outside of the country somewhere in the owner chain, it at least slows the investigation down a lot.
It has both good and bad sides to it.
You sound like an idiot. I remember the days when titles made sense and content was interesting.
reveal that the "expert" only has 9,999 hours of practice and everyone will understand s/he's unqualified
1. collect evidence and facts that point to the problem/s
2. discuss it with your manager but don't get emotional just stick to the facts (play the ball and not the person). Say that you're concerned about the risks of what is happening and the risks of continuing to do business with this person/group. Say that you don't feel that the company is getting value for money by employing them etc..
Hopefully you've worked hard, earned respect and built trust with your manager so that they will listen to you.
If they aren't the kind of person who will and you're sick of dealing with it then explore other employment options.
3. If the above doesn't work then confront the person who is frustrating you and once again stick to the facts. Tell them that you're concerned about x and feel that something can be or should be done better. See if you can persuade them to fix things. At the very least you'll let them know that you know that something's not up to scratch. Work out why? Is it that they simply don't know, or is it that they are lazy or are they breaking things on purpose to get more contract time and money?
I'm popping over to my Mac where I'm already logged into /., then I'll write slightly more. Stand by...
Have the person make definite statements in documents. Test them so that you can demonstrate they do not work. Report the failure and ask for more money as you cannot build on these preparations and hence the "expert" did not fulfill a contractual obligation. (Do not have such an obligation in the contract? Well, you are screwed and you learned something.) If the person refuses to make definite statements, report that as blocker for your work.
Never, ever accuse anybody of incompetence. It is far better to list failures and state that they are not "consistent with the claimed/stated level of expertise". The problem with accusing anybody of incompetence, is that you automatically accuse the person that hired them of incompetence as well. That is however your usual escalation path.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"But when the 'expert' turns out to be the wrong person how do you tell the client (or boss) that you just can't work with that individual?"
Here's how: Boss, I just can't work with that individual.
You're welcome.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
It is like using references, I have learned that if a company asks for them, they are idiots. Nobody EVER calls them and if they do they are basically saying "I have no clue from interviewing how good this guy is, so I got to ask someone else". Stellar performance right there!
The solution is relatively simple, see job interviews as a two way process. They are interviewing you BUT you are ALSO interviewing them. And gosh darnit, you can reject THEM as an employer!?! Shocking ain't it.
When I read a site like clients from hell, (not linking because it has an annoying nag script) I can't help but feel that a lot of the time all the problems could have been avoided if the complainer had just said at the interview "you are an idiot, I am not going to work for you".
If you spend sometime in your field you should know the warning flags. If a client/employer for instance is looking for a lead developer, the existing code base is a pile of steaming shit such as you have only seen in every single job before where the existing lead had to finally admit he needed an extra hand (translation: needed to be taken outside and shot for the good of humanity). If they are looking for a replacement team for the software project, the existing code doesn't (exist that is, what is there is maybe some scripts that on some days, does something but nobody knows what). If they are considering a rewrite, the servers are on fire and the the sys admin has slaughtered the entire office and is sniping from the rooftop.
You get to regonize the signs after a while. Does the boss spent the entire interview bitching about what gone wrong before? Translation: He is to busy still raging and hasn't yet learned from the mistake which was HIS, for hiring the wrong people.
There is no handover period because the previous guy already left? Translation: Make a sentence with rats, ships, sinking. Question: Do you want to come on board? Consideration: At least the ship is rat free.
If the ship is on fire and they are haggling over budget with the fire-fighters, translation: they spend all their money on flammable lifeboats and have nothing left for you. Another form of this is if they talk about how much money already has been sunk into the project and/or whining about recovering investment. Fact of life: money sunk into a project that has failed is lost, deal with it. A projects worth is NOT measured by how much money has been lost on it.
And hey, you can ignore all of this and think YOU are going to be the perfect employee who can deal with idiots... and I will point to you and say "this guy is going to be on a rooftop someday, sniping at the police while chewing on someone's leg". Either that... or... you are one of them... got an MBA?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Who is a loser? It's not always so obvious. Short term winner may be longer term looser may be looonger term winner. Short term winner may cause others (1..n) become short term and/or long term losers. As so often, nice catchy phrase - and utterly useless. It does not spare you from looking at the individual complex case. This only becomes "simple" when you suppress most of reality. Example: You say the guy who makes the most $$$ is a winner - but he may for his/her entire life lack all the things that are associated with that state. Is a lack of empathy winning or losing, and/or an overblown sense of entitlement ("I did this all by myself" - like the pharao building the pyramids, right?), in this context? Depends on the point of view, but the more of the world you include in your view the harder it becomes to see clearly using simple term such as winning/losing.
especially the antisemitic part... very very subtle...
I just tried nbcnews.com. Was it always so awful?
Looks like the same dicks that savaged the beta already shat all over nbc. So sad.
The record turnout was just over half the people eligible to vote.
This is in no way a suggestion on how the others would have voted, merely a matter of pointing out that they did not even bother to turn up.
You don't.
You present facts that prove the expert is wrong and put all relevant people/management in CC.
If you're a consultant, you've just struck gold.
Now I dislike consulting work and only do it if the project is irresistable, but during my corporate days I worked with many consultants, from the big names down to tiny but actually competent companies.
Business secret: This is how the big names all make their money. You've found a fool, and a fool and his money are easily parted. If you play your cards right, you've got guaranteed contracts for years to come, because this "expert" will create more and more problems and all you need to do is position yourself right so you are the one who gets hired to fix them. The easiest argument is that you already know the system.
It's pathetic and borderline illegal, but it's how half the consulting industry works. That idiot is the pig that'll lead you to truffels. Just follow him and don't get in his way.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I've come to compare our field with that of doctors. Everybody has something bad to say about them and their field, yet everybody needs one at one time or other and will consult one then. At the same time, whilst everybody is commenting on the field, very few people actually really know anything about it or are confused by the fields complexity.
That makes it very easy for charlatans to gain traction and the trust of unsuspecting novices and puts a burden of an ongoing bad-reputation-influx on the useful workers in the field. That the field of IT is constantly moving and is still quite young on top of all that doesn't help much either.
This is a problem we'll have to deal with as the industry moves on. It's one of the downsides of the job. Just like being a MD and getting all kinds of BS from everybody all the time *and* having the odd quack, fraud or charlatan inbetween spoiling the reputation of medicine.
Professional organisations, advisery boards, certifications and tried and tested regulations and procedures are what helps lawyers and doctors deal with this kind of shit. ... Maybe we need more of that sort of stuff too? ... Just sayin'.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The best thing to do is communicate your doubts (with functional and technical arguments) and document every step.
Some years back I was hired as technical consultant for a public tender. I dealt with the head of the department that needed the solution and did my work independently of the CTO. After the usual pre-qualification round, we had about five or six companies lined up for the tender proper.
I wrote the Requirement Specification and sent it to the CTO for approval. It came back with exactly ten demands for changes and not one of them made sense, being purely technical requirements. I wrote a memo to the CTO countering each of the ten changes — with a copy to the department head. The CTO wanted a meeting to discuss the issues. The department head and I attended the meeting, which had seven people from the IT department attending (but strangely, not the CTO). I once again countered each change and the IT people seemed to come around in the end.
A couple of days later the department head called me in and said that I had to give the CTO something, at least concede on one point. After reminding the department head that all the changes demanded were for specific ways of solving the problem (i.e. purely technical) and that a Requirement Specification should be purely functional, I had to find the one that was least likely to cause actual harm.
In the end I chose to include one of the CTO's requirements, stating that "the solution should be based on a relational database", hoping that none of the companies would use other types of databases. I changed the wording, informed the CTO and the department head (in writing, naturally), still emphasizing that I thought it was not the best idea and that it potentially could stop one or more of the companies from bidding. The CTO now approved the Requirement Specification and it was duly sent off to the pre-qualified companies.
Shortly after, one of the companies told us they had to opt out as their database was not relational but rather object orientated. The department head sent me a furious note asking me why we had included that requirement. I calmly told him, with a copy of the previous correspondence, that it was the CTO's requirement and that I had warned him at the time.
It did, luckily, not have any influence on my future work for that department, but the CTO only lasted about six months in all before discreetly being replaced.
... and don't comment about the person. Find and document the mistakes of the supposed idiot (and make sure they're not actually brilliant and correct solutions), and the costs of fixing them. Hopefully, when the list gets long enough, the client will get the idea.
If you act like a prima donna, you'd better sing like one as well.
More importantly, how do you tell your boss that the consultant is an idiot!?
You don't. If you really need to, you come up with a strategy to make said expert out himself as an idiot to the client. But even that would be just some kind of satisfaction of your ego, which is something nobody but you benefits from. Then it's time to remember who pays who to do what.
Just set the price so high that he can't afford it. And if he still does want it, you have enough money to think up something that works around the greatest head aches.
web 2.0 and how the things on our site were rendered too small. One of the sonofabitches actually said, " When people see small things on your screen, they think small. Think BIG! 16-point text and 500-pixel padding minimum! "
Sounds those asshats went on to work on the nbcnews.com website. Have you seen that in the past week? Horrible.
And on the Engadget.com website (everything got giant when they redesigned to look like iOS7). And the google.com website when accessed from an iPad, now that they have **finally** disabled support for Google Classic https://www.google.com/webhp?nota=1 after 2-3 years of hiding it in a webhp option.
Either a lot of website designers suddenly think their audience needs kindergarten-sized text, or they are desperate for their websites to be readable by people using non-retina display 7" tablets...
Bravo!
If you're a consultant, you owe your customer a warning if they're being scammed. In the very few cases where I've had to deal with this and had the freedom to demur, I've formally entered a "no bid", with an explanation of the form "upon analysis, the proposed plan will take substantially more time than budgeted, and that failure will reflect on the competence of the consultants involved".
I just wish I'd no-bid on on "teach TDD to a PM", a few years back (;-))
davecb@spamcop.net
You know that smarmy look you have on your face when you talk to people who aren't programming experts? You don't? Well, there's your problem.
People who have conflated knowledge with intelligence--and that's way too many people in IT--have already cried wolf over the intelligence of people not exactly like themselves. They have condescension and derision in their voice and on their face and in their body language when they talk to people they don't respect. Which is just about everyone. They may not even know it, but the people they moderately offend every day certainly know it.
So now you go crying to your boss about the expert you think is an idiot. How is he to know this is any different than your opinion of him?
That is, you've cried wolf already. He's going to see your claim of someone else's idiocy as a weakness in you, not the idiot expert.
It's hard to imagine this situation happening at Google and Facebook, these places are pretty picky about who they hire. People who are installed as experts when they shouldn't be are likely part of a larger problem that has to do with a management team that's not on the ball. And if you're working at an organization that has this problem, better to just not mention anything because the truth shall not set you free, it shall get you fired. I hate to say it, but sometimes you just have to sit back and watch projects crash and burn. Logic and reason doesn't work on people who don't want to hear it, but a devestated project and its inevitable fallout always does.
As a consultant, part of your standard contract should include Project Risks. Amongst those risk it's typical to list things such as "Client provides timely access to data" and "Client provides timely access to Subject Matter Experts" and then you can track this on a risk management plan and identify mitigation strategies - which in this case could involve having a backup (or backups) of the "Expert" that can be called on. You'd want to word it carefully in a way that doesn't scream "Expert is an Idiot!", but it's pretty standard and I'm sure you can find examples out there.
Basically the article is "suck it up, shut up and drive on".
If you have an imbecile actively, if not maliciously, deep-sixing a project, you notify the client. PERIOD.
Sure, it may hurt feelings. Sure, it may alienate the client.
IT ALSO PROTECTS YOU FROM LIABILITY!
At my current job, my bosses have tried going the "suck it up and drive on" route several times.
Occasionally it works out, and we're able to educate said idiot.
Most of the time though, they're simply a millstone around our neck, damaging said project and making everything take longer and cost more.
What's worse is that if you simply do the "suck it up and drive on", you run the risk of said moron becoming the "liason" to your company for EVERYTHING.
At that point, they start blaming you for everything and anything they fuck up.
We've had multiple instances of this where the person promises a bunch of things, puts it off, puts it off some more, and as deadline approaches, FINALLY calls us, needing "just a quick thing" that's either:
A: Impossible
B: Possible but is going to take days/weeks/months of work.
And when you inform them of this, they get hysterical.
One of our clients was using a 3rd party consulting company to manage their backups.
Unfortunately, the app the client was using at the time would lock files if people left it open, resulting in error reports on the backup.
So what did these guys do? Did they draft policy to get people to shut down properly at the end of the day? Come up with an automated shutdown setup?
Nope! They simply removed the offending folders from the backup routine. No more errors!
Then, about 6 months down the road, the application ate itself and it's data after an OS update.
So we head in and go looking for backups, only to find none.
Did we softball it and get blamed for a defective product and get the shit sued out of us? You damn well BET we didn't!
Annoying and dumb? Yeah, you can work around that.
Actively dangerous to the client and project? You don't route around stuff like that. It comes back and bites you if you do.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Most problems in software are having people that think they need to show that they know everything when they don't. They answer in absolutes instead of taking actions to determine the correct answer.
The best course of action may be to tell the idiot that there is an answer of "I don't know". That's a fine answer so long as the idiot can then do the required research to turn the "I don't know" into an absolute answer. At this point, the idiot is no longer an idiot. The idiot is any person that can't use this process.
An idiot who believes he/she is an expert? You should advice him/her to run for office, extending your problem to the public and feeding it with public money. That's standard procedure.
You have to look at the manager and see if the idiot is his idiot regardless of who he is. I worked for a manager that hired his consultant friend who was an "SQL genius," so if I had any SQL questions I could go to him. You guess it. He couldn't even manage anything stronger than "SELECT * FROM ..." But he was my manager's idiot.
It came down to how I supported him. I learned quickly that if I supported this guy like I would someone I respect, i.e., not make a big deal when he screws up and help him, my manger would continue to think he's a genius. So I made a point of requiring this guy to go to the manager to get permission for me to work with him on an issue. If the manager gave him carte blanch to use my time, I let my manager know that I was spending a lot of time supporting this guy. If there's one thing managers understand, it's money.
First off, "idiot" is a very strong word to use when speaking about someone professionally. I would be very careful about using that word unless you have very strong evidence that its true. As a consultant I can tell you that reputation is everything.
Secondly, there is a good chance that your boss (or his/her boss) hired this "idiot". If you try to make the consultant look bad you are, in turn, making your boss look bad by inferring that they have bad judgement.
Thirdly, ask yourself what you have to gain by outing this person? Probably not as much as you think. Best case scenario, they get rid of the person and bring in someone else. What if they are worse? What do you do then?
So what to do? If it were me I'd try to document things that the person is doing that you know are bad decisions. Don't - under any circumstances - try to sabotage or impede the project. The blame will fall on you. When you think you have a very, very strong case then bring it to your manager. But if he/she takes the consultants side then you'd better be prepared to walk. Your boss doesn't have your back and you are finished at that company.
One last thought...I'm not suggesting this is true in this case but I have seen it many times before. Is it possible that you have a case of "consultant envy"? Envious of the money they make or the influence they have? If so, let it go. It won't change a thing and will only put you in a bad mood. Life's too short.
Consider this:
There are reason[s] why the idiot is in the position the idiot occupies. You may not agree with the reasons, you may not be able to work with the person, but you are a consultant and not internal.
And there are reason[s] you are the consultant there. It is doubtful that one of those reasons is because you need to pass judgment on that idiot, or that the employer wants your opinion about that person's competence.
So, suck it up and deal. If the idiot is truly an idiot, let their management discover it and handle it. If you are truly competent, you will either find a way to work with the person anyway, work around that person, or find a politically expedient way to exit the contract you're on in such a way it doesn't discredit you. Such is the life of a consultant. And, if you don't like that, then get hired as an internal somewhere, be exposed to the full office politics etc. and try to keep surviving... and you may become the same idiot you're complaining about.
People with technical prowess... are readily available out there. People with good people skills... are readily available out there. What makes a person truly valuable is to possess technical prowess plus the people skills. And if you had that, this question wouldn't have been asked. But good luck, as I'm still learning the fine arts of both of those, too!
It is the same with keys. The right one is the last one you pick, because after that you stop looking...
I've run into this situation a few times. Clear communication is key. Raise your concerns, bring all parties into a conference call, and it will be clear who the victor is. It may not be you, but it's better to clear the air.
Be direct, specific, and non-punishing.
I think someone told them that the only computer citizens will be allowed to
have after the last coal plant is shutdown are crank up Ipads.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I dealt with this from the reverse perspective. I was the sole programmer taking over all operations of a 300,000 user business and trying to prevent the business from shutting down because of the terrible job the previous consultants did. My life was triage. We had a lot of trouble hiring people because they saw what was going on and everybody was worried about jumping into an unstable situation.
In the middle of this year long "what were you thinking" style repair the boss decided he wanted a mobile app and hired a local company to build it. The only problem was that the company was pretty terrible.
They had 1 really excellent designer, 1 programmer who was about a green as they come and 1 sales guy who go in really good with a VP. The programmer wanted to make a mobile app that directly connected to our main database. His "alternative" was to have the mobile app send raw SQL over the wire to a single PHP page that would spit out the response.
Incompetent does not begin to describe it. I took this to my boss. Explained exactly what you have to have in place from an infrastructure perspective to create an API that a mobile app could utilize. Exactly how much time that would take and exactly what we had pending that needed to be done prior to implementing a mobile app. I also told him what I could rearrange in the timeline to get to it sooner, how much simpler it would be in the short term to implement a responsive design, explained the complexities involved with mobile app development and API versioning. Also mentioned that I was extremely concerned about the level of competence of their programmer but that their designer was extremely talented and knowledgable.
Deaf ears. I'd been selling out my life for the previous year saving this man from bankruptcy and "sales guy" convinced him that I was protecting my turf. All he cared about was "yes" and I found out later that he didn't think I was working hard enough anyway...
Eventually, I left for a much better opportunity, the company wasted a boat load of money on an app that never materialized.
Moral of the story, "going to management" only works if you have management that will listen to you. If they won't then they go with whoever tells them what they want to hear.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
Just do your job.
Casteism
Reading these threads I got the impression I'd fallen into a Dilbert strip. Hardly anyone here is talking about engineering - they're talking about engineering technicianship at best. Engineering is intrinsically a management discipline. It's about converting a concept into a functional deliverable that meets the client's expectations, and that means interacting with people effectively. So a real engineer would never talk about "dealing with idiots" - it's not the way he or she would think. That attitude stinks of the arrogance of one-subject IT techies, who despise anyone who doesn't know the latest acronyms but only operate with "dashboard knowledge" themselves.
When I run into this in re to Building and Renovating I share with the client as well as educate and inform them.
Jewish? The fuck.
I've been in this situation countless times. The advice I have is very simple, and very hard to do:
Be Patient
Every time this has happened... big drama in the team as everyone complains about "the new guy" - who is generally both an idiot, and dictatorial "my way or the highway" and on more than one occasion has threatened us, the development vendor, with his new found power that either we conform to his way or he will get rid of us, forever. And every time, after a few months... new guy is gone, and we are left standing.
So be nice to "new guy" - let hm hang himself. Don't create unnecessary drama - this is what drives managers crazy. Be honest about what's going on, don't exaggerate, don't appear to be emotional about it, hide your annoyance and frustration. And above all, just be patient, eventually the dimwitted ones figure out that new guy is an idiot too.
Murphy was an optimist
Two points:
- I've found, conversationally, that phrasing things as, "That would have been a really good solution -- a few years ago," asserts your expertise, acknowledges the other side's experience (FWIW), and points the higher ups in the right direction.
- Usually, whoever explains their position first, wins. The first position they hear is usually the position people adhere to from then on. (I call it the Jedi Mind Trick.) So share your pre-emptive concerns early, and then if the person says what you worried they were going to say, your boss already knows what you'll think. And because you told the boss first, (s)he'll be on your "side."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The may feel insecure with an outside contractor. Have lunch with them, get to know them, give them some ideas to pitch to the bosses, so that they feel that they are able to contribute. Once you can disarm them with this, they will be your biggest fan. This works.
Occasionally, within a very narrow spectrum, we're talking Kelvin.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I have this classic case. Idiot and he has social skills to talk and get listened to. Doesn't seem to matter that he's been slapped down multiple times for his gross incompetence by multiple departments. I thought we got rid of ours. Someone else's problem. Trouble is, they realized he's an idiot and fired him. Now "he's back!" (we started running).
Two things:
1) Whatever you do, don't do it by yourself. Enlist help from many different areas. Be overwhelming. Pull in help from other agencies/companies/entities if you can. Then lower the boom in a meeting. Your idiot should be in their place and out of the way.
Understand that you should make sure that you're not that idiot of course. You could be leading the way for the boom being lowered on you. I've seen that happen.
Your mileage may vary.
2) You can also just let things ride, help the idiot. Sometimes you can ride that idiot a long time. They get promoted up, you are brought along.
Yeah, you've always got to be careful when you decide to attack someone else's ability.
Credentials are a separate thing but have stacks of documentary evidence of them doing it wrong and what happened as a result before you raise it.
The boss does not need to know how to do your job. He just has to know how to help you do your job.
People only hire people for things they can't do, either because they're too busy doing other things or they lack the skill/equipment etc etc.
I had a situation where a major contractor had spent over $10 million developing a piece of test equipment and it wasn't working. Within 5 minutes of walking in the door, I knew their design had a fatal flaw and would need a complete redesign. So how to tell them. Basically, I put together a very basic tutorial on how the equipment they were trying to test works and how it can be tested. No reference to their equipment. Then, I presented the tutorial to their staff and almost immediately you could see that the senior staff saw the problem with their equipment but they said nothing. Then finally, a junior engineers raised his hand and said: " But if that's true, then our equipment won't work unless we do an extensive redesign."
ROTFLMAO @ "Chumpy" -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!, windbag...)
You aren't even on the leve of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR!
You certainly won't reply there in that 2nd link I posted either, as that would remove your downmods to my posts like this one you can't validly disprove or justify your downmod on -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm...
Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))
(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)
* :)
(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)
APK
P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - since you had to "eat your wrods" in the 1st link above flavored with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH + the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", lol...
... apk
You're modded funny? This is funnier - we're laughing @ you Lumpy... ROTFLMAO @ "Chumpy" -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!, windbag...)
You aren't even on the leve of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR!
You certainly won't reply there in that 2nd link I posted either, as that would remove your downmods to my posts like this one you can't validly disprove or justify your downmod on -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm...
Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))
(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)
* :)
(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)
APK
P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - since you had to "eat your wrods" in the 1st link above flavored with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH + the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", lol...
... apk
Hi you have an expert idiot!!
"You're an idiot" then ignore the expert and report him.