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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?"
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.
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.
Be as diplomatic as possible, but completely factual and provide as much evidence as possible. You never know what relationship the 'expert' has to the client/boss.
... wait, what?
Know the important facts before you start:
Is the idiot related to anybody? Does he play golf with the CEO? Does he have dirt on somebody?
You can bet the 'idiot' has something.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
it's been done before
You're facing a problem here:
Your boss hired this person, most likely for a lot of money. He has to justify that expense. Admitting now that he fell for a snakeoil peddler is not something that will further his career.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you bill for time and materials, the headaches turn in to more cash.
Not really, you spend all your time working on a project that's doomed to failure because the client wont listen. When it does fall through you cop the blame and the idiot client tells everyone at the golf club how useless you are. This is what I mean by "in the long term", what you're proposing is short term gain with no consideration of long term effects.
If you don't understand how important reputation is as a consultant, you've never been a consultant.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
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
...and doesn't know the first thing about the job the people under him do.
Actually this is NOT a reason to trash your boss. I've had a number of managers who didn't have a clue how to do my job who where extremely effective and great to work for. We had a mutual understanding and respect for each one's roll. With one, he didn't have a clue how to design a network and stand up the equipment because it was MY job to do that for him. He just pointed me to the project and we would discuss the details he needed to know (cost, schedule etc) and I did what was required. He knew I was going to tell him what I really thought about the cost and schedule and trusted me to do the work within the cost and schedule I gave him. I knew he would insulate me from the management garbage and wasn't going to throw me to the wolves if there was some unexpected slip or overrun. We did status reports on large projects and he would stop by regularly to talk about things, but he NEVER wanted to tell me how to do this or that, and if we where behind schedule or over cost I WAS TELLING HIM about it. We trusted each other to do their jobs and it worked great.
So, I actually think that the most effective bosses don't have to know all the ins and outs of what his employees do. But what they DO need is the ability to surround themselves with people who DO KNOW what needs to be done and empowering them to do their jobs. Bosses that know all the details are sometimes way to eager to try and micromanage their underlings and it takes a rare talent to let your employees do the work for you. I'll ALWAYS take a manager with the talent to delegate over one with perfect domain knowledge.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You're facing a problem here:
Your boss hired this person, most likely for a lot of money. He has to justify that expense. Admitting now that he fell for a snakeoil peddler is not something that will further his career.
Right, and for that reason asking your boss to choose between yourself and golden boy (aka, 'the expert') is a loosing proposition. If you feel you absolutely can't work with the new guy under any circumstances find a new job and then quit your current one. Be polite about it and don't tell them it's because of the expert if you can at all avoid it, just give them some blurb about 'personal reasons' or that you feel 'your career is stalling but that you have grown as a professional at this company... blah blah blah....' management loves that sort of verbal diarrhoea. Leave your boss to fall on his face with the new guy or succeed (it is after all possible that you are wrong). One thing is for sure, nobody will derive any advantage from an acrimonious dissolution of your employment relationship, least of all you. Another poster here suggested being blunt about your gripe. I have to disagree since I have always thought that making an angry speech where you go into details about how you feel other employees or management are a bunch of morons when you quit your job is a bloody stupid idea since I am generally not in favour of burning bridges. Of course other people's experiences with bridge burning may be more positive than mine.
Oh, come on, you made this up.
Nobody on slashdot would believe such a load of.....
oh, wait, ah never mind.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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