So this is a situation many of us here must have faced before, unfortunately:
We have a colleague in our office, who tends to fly into a rage at the hint of any criticism of his work and takes every little judgment (even that of the client) very personally.
The background here is a little complex, though. Said gentleman is actually closer to the bosses' age (close to 60) and the other designers (us) are much younger. As our office is a small, pretty loose organization, there is not much hierarchy, and everyone tends to pick up the best parts of the job and mostly, everything works out.
In the recent past, the said individual has not produced any inspired work that we could actually use for the project, but hates to take criticism and starts getting angry at any hint of direction. So much so that he starts thinking that we are disrespecting him.
Any ideas on how to deal with such individuals? As i mentioned we have a small setup and all the 'tension in the air' is really unhealthy and makes for a very bad work environment.
Either you hear it from your peers before it goes out the door or you live with it after it gets built. This situation sounds like a mad alpha ape in your hierarchy. Said alpha male ape rampages about while dragging a big branch. It can be said that apes share a majority of their DNA with humans and often demonstrate parallel behaviors. To counter this behavior you and you coworkers grimace, make shrill screams, and beat your chest while hanging from the light fixtures. If you can determine the appropriate parallel human behavior you will win. If you can't get the team together try gifting him with a bunch of bananas.
the office should dump this guy. if it's not working and everyone knows it then why continue to languish in a bad environment created by one uproductive individual?
he is old we are young
he is angry we are cool
he is not good we are good
he is more experienced we know more
he goes to client meetings we don't
he can fend for himself we have to post
he is we are
Let me play devil's advocate for a second and express some sympathy for this guy:
For whatever reason, in architecture you're often putting your ego on the line by presenting your ideas. When he puts an idea out there, he's not only looking for validation of the idea, he's looking for validation of HIMSELF. And every time one of his ideas is rejected, he's feeling as if he himself is rejected. So his trigger mechanism is to get angrier and angrier.
It doesn't help that he's being shown up by a bunch of people half his age.
I'd recommend actually taking him out to lunch and listening to him a bit. Validate his points and his perspective before rejecting it. Respect him. That's all people really want. He may feel that the young guns don't respect him enough. You don't have to accept his ideas, but respect them.
It's true, though, that ultimately it's the principal's job to address this issue if it's affecting morale. But everyone else can help by not immediately crushing the guy's ideas.
I agree with the devil's advocate thing. If the guy is older and has a lot of experience, chances are his knowledge of the profession and architecture in general is vastly superior to any of you younger architects.
I am a young architect and I certainly know my place among my superiors and treat them with the respect that they deserve. And just like that they have returned that respect to me.
Now it sounds to me like the guy might have personality issues. It may or may not have anything to do with his abilities, but it's his own personality that is his shortcoming. We have a lot of talented people here both full of experience and newcomers to the profession. Some of them have been real jerkoffs in terms of their personalities. A lot of younger people of the "Gen Y" (I'm one of them) are extremely talented but are extremely full of themselves and are nothing but disrespectful to their superiors.
Has the guy been at your firm for a while? What is his relationship to the principals.
I'd also like to point out that using terms like "said individual has not produced any inspired work" can be subjective.
If what you are saying is "he doesn't have enough blobs in his architecture" then you need to chill and look more at the string of devil advocate posts.
If what you are saying is "he doesn't have enough thought and responsive design in his architecture" then I would say you need to find a way to first talk to him (you need to figure it out 'cause what you are saying now clearly only pisses him off - start by leaving out verbage like "your work is uninspired") and if after you try that and nothing changes then (and only then) you need to talk to the person above him.
Additionally, while not everyone is smooth at this, sometime a client's idea can be wrong and, would I have the time, I could probably search through here and find 100 threads where a lot of people here (including maybe even you) have agreed with that sentiment. I can also tell you that if a client gets pissed off at a project architect, he or she has no compunction about calling the principal of the firm about it.
Send him a link to this thread...he'll get the message.
There is something to be learned from the old-timers (And ancients), so don't disregard him completely - he's probably seen more than you can imagine.
Sometimes "inspired" work is not in the best direction. The conservative 60 something's often see through the fluff and opt for rationality. His Rationality is not necessarily "uninspired".
Or, maybe he's surrounded by a bunch of twits who, collectively, have created this climate?
Strawbeary: of course you can get fired for sucking at your job. We just gave the "bad news" to somebody yesterday, after months of pep talks and performance reviews and remedial training sessions - all of which got us nowhere but more frustrated with an employee who is bad at his job...
Of course the principals' views of what constitutes competence at this job might differ substantially from the original poster's views on the matter. The principals may not even be looking for "inspired" work at all, and may be looking at other qualities...
Still the thing I find most problematic in the first post is that the employee in question has a tendency to "fly into a rage". That shouldn't be acceptable in any office, and if the employer is aware of that then immediate action should be taken to clarify this policy and make it clear that it won't be tolerated. Perhaps the firm should offer to sponsor the employee's attendance at some anger management or stress reduction workshops. In any case if the rages continue the employee should be terminated. That type of behavior is at the least bad for the overall office atmosphere and for clients' perceptions of the firm, and in a worst case scenario scary and dangerous and a potential exposure to liability for an employer who doesn't address it.
Yeah. Well if you don't draw things out like that and give the employee every opportunity for improvement and every benefit of the doubt then you end up with a reputation for being a capricious and uncaring boss (and you can end up feeling like one too, which is worse!) We do want to give people the benefit of the doubt, make sure they understand where they're falling short of expectations, and give them time and resources to improve...
Anyway it's expensive to hire and train people and every time we lose one we've lost that initial investment AND we have to go through the whole searching/hiring/training process again. It takes 6 months to a year to get a new person really fully up to speed and knowledgeable about the firm's projects and procedures. I'd rather put in a few months of time trying to "rehabilitate" someone whose performance is marginal than start from scratch.
Plus, you can end up with the terminated employee coming up with some sort of discrimination case if you don't document clear reasons for dismissing him. On the one hand the laws of all but a few US states say you can fire anyone for any reason - even just because you feel like it - as long as the reason is not discrimination against a protected class. But in reality you really have to have a paper trail of documented shortcomings and performance reviews to fall back on if the person turns around and claims you fired him because of age, or because he suffers from depression, or anything like that...
I agree with farwest... I think it's often true that hidden under even the worst ideas are the remnants or beginnings of good ideas. Maybe all the guy needs is a little help digging them out, some validation of what the good points might be, and a little understanding. I think Archmed is right, too.. even if the guy's design ideas are bad, his professional knowledge is probably worth quite a bit. So I think appeasing his bad ideas by seeking out any good points in them might be a good way to resolve the issue, Maybe.
I've recently worked with a crew of Gen Y cad monkeys and I must say, there were quite a few of them with a real lack of interpersonal skills when it came to dealing with anyone over 30. The majority of them seemed uninterested in learning from older people or even being civil.
Gen Y'ers just cut through to the bullshit and wanna resolve it through email, text, or chat.
Can't wait for the day when we no longer have in person meetings and where each project is solely judged primarily by quality alone rather than how well they are able to "play the game."
so this knoll rep just brought these mini cookies in and they were down at the desk. and this one young interiror designer was complaining to the receptionisht about these mini cookies and how she liked the middle of the cookie etc... and i said you sound like howard hughes. and she just looked at me like who the hell is howard hughes???and i had to explain who howard hughes was and his obsession compulsion disorder with cookies etc. and finally i gave up. this is probably what this guy is going through.
Good thoughts in there (i include the bananas one). We've have had an 'explosive' situation this morning with said individual and had to deal with it. Following which, no one is in a real mood to get any work done today.
I think this thread is quickly divulging into a old guard vs. new guard issue, but our specific situation is really not. Let me try to condense this into a few points:
1. "Inspired Work": (Probably that was not the best way to put it). This gentleman is slightly conservative in his design attitudes and that, of course helps keeping us in check. Mostly. On this specific very high-profile project, the whole reason the client hired us is to push that boundary a little and create a product that was a little iconic and contemporary. We are really not talking blobs here though, that would not be accepted by the client.
The work that this gentleman produced on this project (this was a very conceptual, throw-ideas-around phase) were truly regressive. I would post them here, but for the sake of project secrecy, I cannot. The fact though, is, does this not happen to all of us? You generate many scraps of thought, most of it gets thrown out, but you get somewhere in the process. Is that not the whole point of team work?
2. Seniority in the office: There is NO real hierarchy in our office. When a project comes in, the person who relates most to the project jumps on it, and manages (for lack of a better word) everyone else. In a lot of 'real' projects, he has been the Project Manager and we, including the principals work with him, as its accepted that he is the design lead on the project.
One caveat: ours is NOT an architectural office. We do more of large-scale planning and vision development, but of course, we hire architectural designers (like me).
When a project has more of an architectural component, I jump in to be the lead and i have a feeling this gentleman does not like that. Which is really too bad.
3. Talking to him: The principal has, in the past talked to him many times. This behavior is probably bi-monthly. He has also started huge altercations with our clients and consultants in the past. Every time it was agreed that he would do self-reflection and 'fix' things.
4. Today at work: Mr. X (im tired of the gentleman phrase) starts announcing that this last bit of work (where we did not use his stuff) was the worst work he had seen in his life, in an attempt to insult the others and me who worked on it. Now mind you this was a 6-day effort spanning over 15 hours/day work on everyone's part, except him. Not only that, he called the boss names, on his face, proceeded to call us the 'golden boys' and started fuming. Boss tells him to take the day off (im really surprised how patient and lenient our boss is). He goes away, returns and demands an apology from everyone! Then fumes out again saying he's been fired (although he was not)
Now, we are wondering how to cover ourselves legally, since we've never had such a situation before, and hopefully never will. The whole atmosphere is sour and tense. Thankfully there is not a huge workload now.
Gosh i feel like Im working at a fricking costco loading dock now.
i agree that there's two sides to every...but i think that some of the earlier posts are dwelling too much on the relatively minor detail of of generation gap.
my read is that the main point is this guy can't take criticism and is unwillingly to change. he's being incredibly selfish and is acting as if he is entitled. unfortunately this is a competitive world and we must be willing to work with others...or at least negotiate for what we want. it sounds as if this man has become a complete failure with regard to that and has become a very significant liabitity to the firm and his co-workers.
it would be best to let him go for your sake (obviously) and for his sake (so that he could feel the extant of pain caused by his inconsiderate behavior when he's trying to find a new livelihood)
i've had the good fortune to work with at least one genuine nutcase. i left before the situation resolved itself and everyone at that office was concerned about how it would turn out. for whatever reason, our principle at that time seemed to love this guy and was willing to tolerate his shenanigans. i believe that a few year later the nutcase attempted to start his own firm by stealing clients from previous firm. lawsuits ensued and i have no idea how it was finally settled.
for me, the generation gap issue is the most interesting part of this thread.
there is a truly fascinating generation just entering the work force right now. whatever you call them. okay, call them gen y.
these kids (obviously i am older) have grown up and still growing with some of the most challenging situations that were ever revealed to mankind. the world they are living in, is more populated, more unsafe, more desperate in terms of resources and supplies, more expensive and so on. and interesting thing is, all these issues are on their face everyday through the communication advance like internet. this is no marginal change. it is making things possible that were impossible only few decades ago in the high speeds.
they have to deal with most wide spread vicious marketing and material world, see the gaps between good living and desperation everyday. a lot of these things are also dealt with endless virtual escapades, artificial personalities created on internet, games played without actual physical involvement. arguments constructed via wikipedia or you tube or google information. information is out there have never been in these quantities and they were never this available for simple clicking.
i am fascinated by looking at the impact of all these on the new generation, world, society.
generation change has always happened but this time there is something truly strong, mass manipulated like never before in global scale. the world is very vulnerable out there. there are a lot of unknown impacts and results of our actions today. it will be really interesting 30 years from now and i hope i am around to see all this and how this generation y is going to take getting older. what they would have created by then, and what mistakes they have made.
with the exception of few, i find my own generation totally uninteresting, conservative and faded out already. poor guys, a lot of their lives were short changed for few home entertainment centers, suv's, remodeled homes, group holidays packages and retirement plans for the few short sunset years.
i hope the new generation gets to discover this trick and truly starts to ponder about better ways to exchange labor for life, dignity and joy. and simply don't buy into what has been nicely narrated here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywU1-UsgWHs
ironic to cap it off with a you tube essay but i am not about to deny it either.
oh, for the 'old guy' in the office,
collect some money among yourselves, send him to vegas and get him laid by a hot stripper in circus circus... just a suggestion..
What I would say is to let your bosses and clients deal with any "uninspired" design or general performance issues. What you can deal with is how he treats you, and in situations where you are the lead, how he treats your team. I think that what your boss did in telling him to take the rest of the day off when he was fuming was great- it shows him that he is unwelcome in the office when he is acting in that manner, and the rest of you are not subjected to it for the rest of the day. While you probably don't have the power to do such a thing, what you can do is put a stop to a conversation that is unproductive. Try suggested that you table a discussion when he behaves in this explosive manner, and see what happens. If that does work, try being direct by saying something like, "This is getting us nowhere while you are being so defensive. I am going to go take care of (insert email, consultant phone call, or equally attention demanding activity here), so feel free to drop in on me afterwards if you feel up to taking another shot at this issue."
Recognize that as an employee in a flat hierarchy system you have no power to address the root problem, only some of the symptoms. If your boss ever asks you how you thing a project that he is working on with you is going, be honest but constructive about it so that they know this is a continuing problem that is bothering other workers, not just something that they happen to notice twice a month.
orhan, i dont know about the stripper part, since that might make him feel that we are suggesting something, but your observation on the younger generation makes perfect sense. Even to this situation. The reason Mr. X probably gets all mad is he just does not get all this...
Thanks rationalist, you'd actually make a great firm-owner!
Another problem with our kind of setup and the work we do is that its mostly always very intense and done in a very compressed time-frame. Meaning the deadlines are very imminent, everything is due yesterday etc. But thats just the way it is...if the gentleman in question cannot deal with this, he is probably better off somewhere else.
I, for one am really concerned about his wife and kid.
not so funny "I'm concerned about his wife and kid" Just last week
I picked up a local newspaper and there was an article about a guy who had been arrested because he had a stash of guns in house, which he was not allowed to have by some previous court order. His wife had a restraining order against him, because she was scared for her life. The judge set his bail at a cool million dollars, and damn if he wasn't able to come up with it. It dawned upon me that this was the same guy I had bidding as a general contractor on a project I was
doing about two years ago. I'm kinda glad he didn't get the job. I guess he has a tendancy to get a little ballistic when things aren't going his way.
very angry coworker
So this is a situation many of us here must have faced before, unfortunately:
We have a colleague in our office, who tends to fly into a rage at the hint of any criticism of his work and takes every little judgment (even that of the client) very personally.
The background here is a little complex, though. Said gentleman is actually closer to the bosses' age (close to 60) and the other designers (us) are much younger. As our office is a small, pretty loose organization, there is not much hierarchy, and everyone tends to pick up the best parts of the job and mostly, everything works out.
In the recent past, the said individual has not produced any inspired work that we could actually use for the project, but hates to take criticism and starts getting angry at any hint of direction. So much so that he starts thinking that we are disrespecting him.
Any ideas on how to deal with such individuals? As i mentioned we have a small setup and all the 'tension in the air' is really unhealthy and makes for a very bad work environment.
What's Frank Gehry's shrink's phone number? ;-)
That's tough. I wish you the best in helping everyone move forward. It cannot good for him either...
Either you hear it from your peers before it goes out the door or you live with it after it gets built. This situation sounds like a mad alpha ape in your hierarchy. Said alpha male ape rampages about while dragging a big branch. It can be said that apes share a majority of their DNA with humans and often demonstrate parallel behaviors. To counter this behavior you and you coworkers grimace, make shrill screams, and beat your chest while hanging from the light fixtures. If you can determine the appropriate parallel human behavior you will win. If you can't get the team together try gifting him with a bunch of bananas.
I like the bananas idea:
not only do we think his current work is totally irrelevant, but even the client hates all of his work...so its really just not working.
i like bananas
What about celery?
Have you brought the issue up to the principal?
the office should dump this guy. if it's not working and everyone knows it then why continue to languish in a bad environment created by one uproductive individual?
I'd love to hear this guy's personal life.
is there a reason you guys cant have an intervention of sorts and start calling him out on his horrific behavior?
if no one sets the boundaries he will continue to abuse them, perhaps unknowingly...
typical cad monkey complaint
he is old we are young
he is angry we are cool
he is not good we are good
he is more experienced we know more
he goes to client meetings we don't
he can fend for himself we have to post
he is we are
crowd
dump him dump him
Let me play devil's advocate for a second and express some sympathy for this guy:
For whatever reason, in architecture you're often putting your ego on the line by presenting your ideas. When he puts an idea out there, he's not only looking for validation of the idea, he's looking for validation of HIMSELF. And every time one of his ideas is rejected, he's feeling as if he himself is rejected. So his trigger mechanism is to get angrier and angrier.
It doesn't help that he's being shown up by a bunch of people half his age.
I'd recommend actually taking him out to lunch and listening to him a bit. Validate his points and his perspective before rejecting it. Respect him. That's all people really want. He may feel that the young guns don't respect him enough. You don't have to accept his ideas, but respect them.
It's true, though, that ultimately it's the principal's job to address this issue if it's affecting morale. But everyone else can help by not immediately crushing the guy's ideas.
Barabbas! Barabbas! Barabbas!
I agree with the devil's advocate thing. If the guy is older and has a lot of experience, chances are his knowledge of the profession and architecture in general is vastly superior to any of you younger architects.
I am a young architect and I certainly know my place among my superiors and treat them with the respect that they deserve. And just like that they have returned that respect to me.
Now it sounds to me like the guy might have personality issues. It may or may not have anything to do with his abilities, but it's his own personality that is his shortcoming. We have a lot of talented people here both full of experience and newcomers to the profession. Some of them have been real jerkoffs in terms of their personalities. A lot of younger people of the "Gen Y" (I'm one of them) are extremely talented but are extremely full of themselves and are nothing but disrespectful to their superiors.
he is suffering from the lion in winter syndrome. i am suffering from housecat in winter syndrome.
Has the guy been at your firm for a while? What is his relationship to the principals.
I'd also like to point out that using terms like "said individual has not produced any inspired work" can be subjective.
If what you are saying is "he doesn't have enough blobs in his architecture" then you need to chill and look more at the string of devil advocate posts.
If what you are saying is "he doesn't have enough thought and responsive design in his architecture" then I would say you need to find a way to first talk to him (you need to figure it out 'cause what you are saying now clearly only pisses him off - start by leaving out verbage like "your work is uninspired") and if after you try that and nothing changes then (and only then) you need to talk to the person above him.
Additionally, while not everyone is smooth at this, sometime a client's idea can be wrong and, would I have the time, I could probably search through here and find 100 threads where a lot of people here (including maybe even you) have agreed with that sentiment. I can also tell you that if a client gets pissed off at a project architect, he or she has no compunction about calling the principal of the firm about it.
Isn't it ironic that if you suck at architecture, it doesn't matter? I mean, you can't get fired for sucking at your job.
I'm sorry, but how many of us haven't had a client get pissed off at us from time to time?
Send him a link to this thread...he'll get the message.
There is something to be learned from the old-timers (And ancients), so don't disregard him completely - he's probably seen more than you can imagine.
Sometimes "inspired" work is not in the best direction. The conservative 60 something's often see through the fluff and opt for rationality. His Rationality is not necessarily "uninspired".
Or, maybe he's surrounded by a bunch of twits who, collectively, have created this climate?
No country for old men?
Strawbeary: of course you can get fired for sucking at your job. We just gave the "bad news" to somebody yesterday, after months of pep talks and performance reviews and remedial training sessions - all of which got us nowhere but more frustrated with an employee who is bad at his job...
Of course the principals' views of what constitutes competence at this job might differ substantially from the original poster's views on the matter. The principals may not even be looking for "inspired" work at all, and may be looking at other qualities...
Still the thing I find most problematic in the first post is that the employee in question has a tendency to "fly into a rage". That shouldn't be acceptable in any office, and if the employer is aware of that then immediate action should be taken to clarify this policy and make it clear that it won't be tolerated. Perhaps the firm should offer to sponsor the employee's attendance at some anger management or stress reduction workshops. In any case if the rages continue the employee should be terminated. That type of behavior is at the least bad for the overall office atmosphere and for clients' perceptions of the firm, and in a worst case scenario scary and dangerous and a potential exposure to liability for an employer who doesn't address it.
"after months of pep talks..." OK, you can get fired for sucking, but it's HARD.
Yeah. Well if you don't draw things out like that and give the employee every opportunity for improvement and every benefit of the doubt then you end up with a reputation for being a capricious and uncaring boss (and you can end up feeling like one too, which is worse!) We do want to give people the benefit of the doubt, make sure they understand where they're falling short of expectations, and give them time and resources to improve...
Anyway it's expensive to hire and train people and every time we lose one we've lost that initial investment AND we have to go through the whole searching/hiring/training process again. It takes 6 months to a year to get a new person really fully up to speed and knowledgeable about the firm's projects and procedures. I'd rather put in a few months of time trying to "rehabilitate" someone whose performance is marginal than start from scratch.
Plus, you can end up with the terminated employee coming up with some sort of discrimination case if you don't document clear reasons for dismissing him. On the one hand the laws of all but a few US states say you can fire anyone for any reason - even just because you feel like it - as long as the reason is not discrimination against a protected class. But in reality you really have to have a paper trail of documented shortcomings and performance reviews to fall back on if the person turns around and claims you fired him because of age, or because he suffers from depression, or anything like that...
give him some EMO pills
I agree with farwest... I think it's often true that hidden under even the worst ideas are the remnants or beginnings of good ideas. Maybe all the guy needs is a little help digging them out, some validation of what the good points might be, and a little understanding. I think Archmed is right, too.. even if the guy's design ideas are bad, his professional knowledge is probably worth quite a bit. So I think appeasing his bad ideas by seeking out any good points in them might be a good way to resolve the issue, Maybe.
post some of your inspired designs and some of his uninspired designs and we'll take a vote.
I've recently worked with a crew of Gen Y cad monkeys and I must say, there were quite a few of them with a real lack of interpersonal skills when it came to dealing with anyone over 30. The majority of them seemed uninterested in learning from older people or even being civil.
"can't we all just get along?"
Send the old man out to the fields and shoot him...
Young whipper snappers need to learn respect..."with a dance off"
I sure hope the criticism is actually sensible...and not just hip versus timeless architecture.
Gen X'ers were conditioned for politics
Gen Y'ers just cut through to the bullshit and wanna resolve it through email, text, or chat.
Can't wait for the day when we no longer have in person meetings and where each project is solely judged primarily by quality alone rather than how well they are able to "play the game."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2005-11-06-gen-y_x.htm
I'm probably gonna have to play dodgeball now.
that might be the best post i've ever seen on archinect
OldFogey can we have that printed on t-shirts?
Yes, can we!?
FUCKIN' YUPPIES WHO GAVE US THE GEN Y
WHAD'YA EXPECT BUNCH OF CHE GUEVERAS?
DUDE ARE YOU THE FLOB WHO FUCKED MY MOTHA?
yes can I get two of those t-shirts? One in green the other in black?
so this knoll rep just brought these mini cookies in and they were down at the desk. and this one young interiror designer was complaining to the receptionisht about these mini cookies and how she liked the middle of the cookie etc... and i said you sound like howard hughes. and she just looked at me like who the hell is howard hughes???and i had to explain who howard hughes was and his obsession compulsion disorder with cookies etc. and finally i gave up. this is probably what this guy is going through.
Good thoughts in there (i include the bananas one). We've have had an 'explosive' situation this morning with said individual and had to deal with it. Following which, no one is in a real mood to get any work done today.
I think this thread is quickly divulging into a old guard vs. new guard issue, but our specific situation is really not. Let me try to condense this into a few points:
1. "Inspired Work": (Probably that was not the best way to put it). This gentleman is slightly conservative in his design attitudes and that, of course helps keeping us in check. Mostly. On this specific very high-profile project, the whole reason the client hired us is to push that boundary a little and create a product that was a little iconic and contemporary. We are really not talking blobs here though, that would not be accepted by the client.
The work that this gentleman produced on this project (this was a very conceptual, throw-ideas-around phase) were truly regressive. I would post them here, but for the sake of project secrecy, I cannot. The fact though, is, does this not happen to all of us? You generate many scraps of thought, most of it gets thrown out, but you get somewhere in the process. Is that not the whole point of team work?
2. Seniority in the office: There is NO real hierarchy in our office. When a project comes in, the person who relates most to the project jumps on it, and manages (for lack of a better word) everyone else. In a lot of 'real' projects, he has been the Project Manager and we, including the principals work with him, as its accepted that he is the design lead on the project.
One caveat: ours is NOT an architectural office. We do more of large-scale planning and vision development, but of course, we hire architectural designers (like me).
When a project has more of an architectural component, I jump in to be the lead and i have a feeling this gentleman does not like that. Which is really too bad.
3. Talking to him: The principal has, in the past talked to him many times. This behavior is probably bi-monthly. He has also started huge altercations with our clients and consultants in the past. Every time it was agreed that he would do self-reflection and 'fix' things.
4. Today at work: Mr. X (im tired of the gentleman phrase) starts announcing that this last bit of work (where we did not use his stuff) was the worst work he had seen in his life, in an attempt to insult the others and me who worked on it. Now mind you this was a 6-day effort spanning over 15 hours/day work on everyone's part, except him. Not only that, he called the boss names, on his face, proceeded to call us the 'golden boys' and started fuming. Boss tells him to take the day off (im really surprised how patient and lenient our boss is). He goes away, returns and demands an apology from everyone! Then fumes out again saying he's been fired (although he was not)
Now, we are wondering how to cover ourselves legally, since we've never had such a situation before, and hopefully never will. The whole atmosphere is sour and tense. Thankfully there is not a huge workload now.
Gosh i feel like Im working at a fricking costco loading dock now.
Would this be Generation 'Y' or Generation 'Z' ?:
Youth
vado, no, i see you're sympathetic towards his plight. This dude is just totally off his rails. (and meds, i think)
And although we appreciate all the work (lets say, waterproofing) he has done in the past, he thinks all of what the others are doing is BS.
OMG Pocz that's disturbing. That's Generation F'd up.
i agree that there's two sides to every...but i think that some of the earlier posts are dwelling too much on the relatively minor detail of of generation gap.
my read is that the main point is this guy can't take criticism and is unwillingly to change. he's being incredibly selfish and is acting as if he is entitled. unfortunately this is a competitive world and we must be willing to work with others...or at least negotiate for what we want. it sounds as if this man has become a complete failure with regard to that and has become a very significant liabitity to the firm and his co-workers.
it would be best to let him go for your sake (obviously) and for his sake (so that he could feel the extant of pain caused by his inconsiderate behavior when he's trying to find a new livelihood)
i've had the good fortune to work with at least one genuine nutcase. i left before the situation resolved itself and everyone at that office was concerned about how it would turn out. for whatever reason, our principle at that time seemed to love this guy and was willing to tolerate his shenanigans. i believe that a few year later the nutcase attempted to start his own firm by stealing clients from previous firm. lawsuits ensued and i have no idea how it was finally settled.
for me, the generation gap issue is the most interesting part of this thread.
there is a truly fascinating generation just entering the work force right now. whatever you call them. okay, call them gen y.
these kids (obviously i am older) have grown up and still growing with some of the most challenging situations that were ever revealed to mankind. the world they are living in, is more populated, more unsafe, more desperate in terms of resources and supplies, more expensive and so on. and interesting thing is, all these issues are on their face everyday through the communication advance like internet. this is no marginal change. it is making things possible that were impossible only few decades ago in the high speeds.
they have to deal with most wide spread vicious marketing and material world, see the gaps between good living and desperation everyday. a lot of these things are also dealt with endless virtual escapades, artificial personalities created on internet, games played without actual physical involvement. arguments constructed via wikipedia or you tube or google information. information is out there have never been in these quantities and they were never this available for simple clicking.
i am fascinated by looking at the impact of all these on the new generation, world, society.
generation change has always happened but this time there is something truly strong, mass manipulated like never before in global scale. the world is very vulnerable out there. there are a lot of unknown impacts and results of our actions today. it will be really interesting 30 years from now and i hope i am around to see all this and how this generation y is going to take getting older. what they would have created by then, and what mistakes they have made.
with the exception of few, i find my own generation totally uninteresting, conservative and faded out already. poor guys, a lot of their lives were short changed for few home entertainment centers, suv's, remodeled homes, group holidays packages and retirement plans for the few short sunset years.
i hope the new generation gets to discover this trick and truly starts to ponder about better ways to exchange labor for life, dignity and joy. and simply don't buy into what has been nicely narrated here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywU1-UsgWHs
ironic to cap it off with a you tube essay but i am not about to deny it either.
oh, for the 'old guy' in the office,
collect some money among yourselves, send him to vegas and get him laid by a hot stripper in circus circus... just a suggestion..
generation RX they have been drugged if not by the water by their parents and psychologists
What I would say is to let your bosses and clients deal with any "uninspired" design or general performance issues. What you can deal with is how he treats you, and in situations where you are the lead, how he treats your team. I think that what your boss did in telling him to take the rest of the day off when he was fuming was great- it shows him that he is unwelcome in the office when he is acting in that manner, and the rest of you are not subjected to it for the rest of the day. While you probably don't have the power to do such a thing, what you can do is put a stop to a conversation that is unproductive. Try suggested that you table a discussion when he behaves in this explosive manner, and see what happens. If that does work, try being direct by saying something like, "This is getting us nowhere while you are being so defensive. I am going to go take care of (insert email, consultant phone call, or equally attention demanding activity here), so feel free to drop in on me afterwards if you feel up to taking another shot at this issue."
Recognize that as an employee in a flat hierarchy system you have no power to address the root problem, only some of the symptoms. If your boss ever asks you how you thing a project that he is working on with you is going, be honest but constructive about it so that they know this is a continuing problem that is bothering other workers, not just something that they happen to notice twice a month.
orhan, i dont know about the stripper part, since that might make him feel that we are suggesting something, but your observation on the younger generation makes perfect sense. Even to this situation. The reason Mr. X probably gets all mad is he just does not get all this...
Thanks rationalist, you'd actually make a great firm-owner!
Another problem with our kind of setup and the work we do is that its mostly always very intense and done in a very compressed time-frame. Meaning the deadlines are very imminent, everything is due yesterday etc. But thats just the way it is...if the gentleman in question cannot deal with this, he is probably better off somewhere else.
I, for one am really concerned about his wife and kid.
is your coworker named HoWaRdBeAlE???
btw "project secrecy" is very funny.
not so funny "I'm concerned about his wife and kid" Just last week
I picked up a local newspaper and there was an article about a guy who had been arrested because he had a stash of guns in house, which he was not allowed to have by some previous court order. His wife had a restraining order against him, because she was scared for her life. The judge set his bail at a cool million dollars, and damn if he wasn't able to come up with it. It dawned upon me that this was the same guy I had bidding as a general contractor on a project I was
doing about two years ago. I'm kinda glad he didn't get the job. I guess he has a tendancy to get a little ballistic when things aren't going his way.
lol that's actually funny in a sick twisted Pulp Fiction kind of way snook
snook, i just had the IT tightened up a little in the office, looks like we should also invest in Kevlar vests
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