This morning I had to deal with a rather problematic situation. Basically this guy logged an issue and I was assigned to investigate it. So I asked him for the details.
Guy: "You press this, do that, then the failure happens."
Leo: "Wait, can you explain to me this feature."
Guy: "You don't know this? Then how to investigate?"
Leo: "That's why I'm asking you. You can tell me."
Guy: "You don't even know the basic, better go and ask your seniors first. I know nowadays they are hiring a lot of new people. I don't want to waste my time. You better ask your boss to assign this issue to someone else."
Leo: "Ok, let me tell him."
So I wrote a short email, stating that Guy suggest to assign the issue to someone else because he deems it too time-consuming to explain to me. And he replied. "Yes, you should send Leo for training. I don't want to waste my time explaining to him when he DON'T EVEN KNOW the basic. If I tell him, he won't be able to understand." And copied his bosses.
Well, I was still trying to save his face when I composed that mail in a neutral way. Too bad he copied his boss and wrote in that tone! The US boss wasn't happy at all with that email reply. But he told me, "Don't take it too personally, don't worry about this issue, and go enjoy the holidays." ;)
Unfortunately in the organization, there are and will be people with such behavioural problems. Usually, these are the younger engineers who have picked up a little bit of skills here and there. That's when they start to get big-headed. Learning is a life-long process. We must always be humble to learn and not think that we already know everything. In fact, the more you learn, the more you feel there is so much that you don't know.
What now? Get angry at him? The words didn't hurt, but being treated like this hurts. I believe we should not. In fact we should embody the very ideal we believe in. When they see that it is fine to ask questions and it is actually a privilege that someone asks you a question, perhaps one day it might change their mindset, just as it did mine.
Guy: "You press this, do that, then the failure happens."
Leo: "Wait, can you explain to me this feature."
Guy: "You don't know this? Then how to investigate?"
Leo: "That's why I'm asking you. You can tell me."
Guy: "You don't even know the basic, better go and ask your seniors first. I know nowadays they are hiring a lot of new people. I don't want to waste my time. You better ask your boss to assign this issue to someone else."
Leo: "Ok, let me tell him."
So I wrote a short email, stating that Guy suggest to assign the issue to someone else because he deems it too time-consuming to explain to me. And he replied. "Yes, you should send Leo for training. I don't want to waste my time explaining to him when he DON'T EVEN KNOW the basic. If I tell him, he won't be able to understand." And copied his bosses.
Well, I was still trying to save his face when I composed that mail in a neutral way. Too bad he copied his boss and wrote in that tone! The US boss wasn't happy at all with that email reply. But he told me, "Don't take it too personally, don't worry about this issue, and go enjoy the holidays." ;)
Unfortunately in the organization, there are and will be people with such behavioural problems. Usually, these are the younger engineers who have picked up a little bit of skills here and there. That's when they start to get big-headed. Learning is a life-long process. We must always be humble to learn and not think that we already know everything. In fact, the more you learn, the more you feel there is so much that you don't know.
What now? Get angry at him? The words didn't hurt, but being treated like this hurts. I believe we should not. In fact we should embody the very ideal we believe in. When they see that it is fine to ask questions and it is actually a privilege that someone asks you a question, perhaps one day it might change their mindset, just as it did mine.
3 comments:
Yeah, I agree with you that:
"Learning is a life-long process. We must always be humble to learn and not think that we already know everything. In fact, the more you learn, the more you feel there is so much that you don't know."
zhihou
Sifu,
We missed your guidance here :D
May the force be with you......
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