HN Explorer

The new team member that bothers me every day

3 points by balahumbug ↗ HN
So I recently moved back to a project that I really liked, but now there is this new person in the group. He constantly comes in to ask questions. It wasn't like that initially but as more days passed it seems like the frequency has increased. I won't say I am necessarily irritated by it but rather sometimes I find him amusing asking questions and testing my knowledge. Do you guys have similar experience at work?

11 comments

[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 46.3 ms ] thread
bootload
"The new team member that bothers me every day"

So you let others be the driver of how you feel?

joejev
It is not that simple to _not_ be affected by the actions of others.
bootload
"It is not that simple to _not_ be affected"

True, divorcing emotion from decisions and action is a skill. From my point-of-view, once the bozo-bit has been flipped you can filter this kind of distraction out, re-checking it's state each loop.

kleer001
With a 30 day exponential weighted average on that state?
vvSaKvv
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said you moved back to a project, and there are new person. It seems like you are now the new person :)

I think he feel competition from your side, and want to know your level of knowledge and confidence to feel more secured.

twunde
This really depends on what exactly he's looking for. He could be asking questions in order to understand the code base and design decisions. This can be solved by running some training sessions. However if the person just seems to be testing you that is unusual. It might be worth asking other co-workers about the behavior.
xavian
Many many years I was this annoying jr team member that came and asked other people tons of questions. In my case, the other members of the team has something like 10 - 15 years more experience than I. Ultimately what worked was it was requested that I try to find out the answers on my own for a minimum of an hour before I pop up and ask a question of another dev. If I had questions that were non-blocking, I was asked to write them down and email the set at the end of the day instead of having multiple interactions. Nowadays, we use ticketing systems and have watchers and stuff on active tickets and any questions that come up generally get asked within a ticket and other team members are able to respond with timing that is convenient for them. If I am working on something, an interruption could cost me 15 minutes to get my "working stack" back into my head if I am working on something complex. I now have folks that report to me. I basically tell them if they are hung up to work on it for at least a couple hours trying to solve it but consider reaching out to a team member if it takes longer than that. If they are utterly blocked can cannot work on something else, my door is open at any time, but if its just curiosity, gather questions and email and I will get back to them when I can. Ultimately, I try to cultivate as much autonomy as possible on my team so folks can, for the most part, solve most issues on their own. :)
vvSaKvv
One thing is 10-15 years ago, Internet was wasteland and people have to ask questions to learn.

But now, when someone unable to spent 5-10 minutes to find answer on SO on their own, make me wonder if they choose profession correctly.

gesman
Solution is simple - stop answering.