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Ask HN: How to deal with unwanted coworker requests?

8 points by jquery ↗ HN
After submitting a change today that added a JavaScript dependency to the header of a web page on our site, I received an unsolicited email from a coworker on another team asking me if I could do it another way. He provided the justification that it would improve performance.

Unable to think of anything else to say, I replied and told him it was a good idea (without committing to make the change). In reality, making the suggested change the right way would require at least two hours of refactoring and testing. While the change would cause an improvement in performance, it was my judgment that the benefits of the change did not justify its costs given the number of visits the web page receives and other project priorities.

I realized I've been dealing with this general situation for years with no personal guidelines on how to handle it in the most productive way. I feel such requests are disrespectful because they imply that the requestor's time is more important than the requestee's. I don't want to bruise his ego or cause a conflict, especially because I am fairly new at this company, and he's the lead of his team.

HN, what do you think is the proper professional response?

13 comments

[ 817 ms ] story [ 1183 ms ] thread
patio11
Thanks for your comment Dave. The performance of that web page is not high on our list of priorities at the moment, but I'll be happy to revisit the issue after we clear the critical blocking issues off our plates. If your team has an urgent need for a repriorization of this please feel free to send a request to $MANAGER.

Regards,

$YOU

jquery
Thank you patio. Well done. I'd be worried he thought that was condescending, but I am probably being paranoid. And sorry if I'm being dense, but what's the general principle behind that response? Be assertive yet gracious?
gridspy
In most cases, your job is to execute tasks. Your managers job is to prioritise / filter them.

Put your manager between you and any unwanted feature requests.

jason_tko
I agree with patio11, but I'd probably find a slightly softer way to say it, especially if you're new to the company.

Keep in mind, if he's from a different team, he has no authority over you. If he keeps asking you to do things unrelated to your teams priorities, this becomes an issue for your manager.

In any case, your first priority should be to your own team, so I would find a friendly way to say this.

"Hey X,

Thanks for your mail, it's good to hear from you.

I understand where you're coming from on your request. I'll discuss it with my team leader the next time we have a meeting.

I should also let you know that I've got a set of high-priority tasks in relation to (my team) at the moment, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to you on this. If this is a critical request, I'd be grateful if you could speak to (my manager) about this.

Thanks very much"

General principals :

* Be friendly and clear on your priorities. * Set expectations correctly. * Communicate that your priorities are defined by your team/manager. * Explain that if changes to these priorities need to be made, they should go through your manager.

I hope that's helpful. Good luck !

patio11
1) I value your opinion and will acknowledge where it is correct rather than getting defensive. We're all professionals here and can discuss our professional specialty without egos getting in the way.

2) I am the person responsible for this feature, and as such decisions about weighing competing priorities are my responsibility. That is, after all, why the firm hired me. It is not impolite or inappropriate for me to reach conclusions different than yours: professionals such as ourselves routinely disagree on many issues.

3) I understand that other groups have competing priorities and will gently remind you that we have a mechanism for resolving those competing priorities.

salaaami
It is condescending.

The problem is we don't know how friendly you and Dave are and how he handles things. This could suffice as well.

"Nice, didn't think of doing it that way. Once my plate is clear I'll change things. -You"

patio11
You've just said "Yes, I will change this" instead of "No, I will not change this, but I am open to the possibility of changing this at a later date if you feel strongly enough about it to bring it up again." Six months from now if this is not done yet it is because you have not done your job.

With my mail, Dave should understand that I consider this issue resolved unless Dave continues to make an issue of it. That is a critical thing to communicate to Dave if you do not, in fact, plan on changing this.

pbhjpbhj
"but I'll be happy to... if/when..."

translation:

I'm trying to avoid doing what you suggest.

patio11
And Japanese people think Americans can't do nuance. :)
rue
"Patches welcome."

Edit: That is, if you work with professionals.

meunierc
Keep in mind, you might very well be facing somebody who feels the need to prove himself. If this is the case, then the issue is marginally technical; his need to be right is his prime motivation.

Your first response was perfect IMO.

In situations like this you need to manage a person, not software nor a project. If he's in a sibling reporting branch, you may want to discuss the situation with your lead. He may decide to go ahead with the modification in the interest of good relations. If he does, you must understand this is not a judgment from your lead on the quality of your work.

sunkencity
Yeah I second that it might well be someone who wants to prove himself, or a geek with poor social skills who want to befriend you by commenting on your work.

It is pretty rude to just ask outright of anyone to rewrite their code, a writing such a request as a suggestion or opening to discussion is much friendlier. It would not be rude if there's a critical problem, but just a small performance increase is way out of line.

The correct way to deal with this is of course to add the script tags at the bottom of the page ;) (apart from your coworker not noticing - it's better for performance as (most?) browsers completely stop doing anything but loading javascript when they encounter a javascript tag).

amazonfx
I must say I sympathize. We have a pretty stringent code review system where I work and people are always coming up with nitpicky type of things.

Whenever I get technical comments from people that seems to me like they put alot of thought into, I always approach them for a quick chat, ask some questions even if you don't have any. It's a great way to build relationships, especially if you're new. And you tend to find that in the end it's not really important that you guys agree, but that you guys understood each other's technical perspective. This is an opportunity for you to network with this particular engineer, you should take advantage of it.