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I am a dev in a big tech company.

My team has another developer, and we're managed by the director directly because there isn't a direct manager available.

So basically we're a team of two devs, that's it.

We were assigned to do two important projects (let's call them project A, and project B) in the period of 9 months.

We worked hard since September last year and only recently we finished the two projects. Sadly we can't see an impact because of Corona so very few users.

The other dev and me had never worked together before and we had lots of conflicts but we managed to finish the projects. It was painful. We both had escalated each other to the director previously.

Now it is time for feedback, I wrote for him a very thorough feedback emphasising all his efforts (in both A and B). I did not mention our conflicts, which I considered a normal team storming phase.

However, his feedback to me was extremely basic, he only mentioned project A.

His feedback in total was like 4 sentence, all basic things, like "XXX always on time for meetings"

I am very mad because he mentioned only one project and he didn't mention any thing about project B (nothing at all, if someone else read his feedback, they'll thing I didn't work on that project at all). It is true that he put more efforts in project B and I put more efforts in the project A, but we still worked on both of them. him 40% on A, and me 40% on B.

I am also mad because Project B is in a new programming language in the company and it is important for me to have a feedback about it because I am considering growing into senior.

I have two questions:

  1. What should I do? I have my 1-1 with the director next week (in fact that 1-1 happens like once a month though it is schedule weekly) Should I tell the director that I am pissed off of that feedback? and if yes, could you give me some sentences to say that? Or should I just keep my mouth shut up and hope that the director will appreciate my efforts?
  2. If I tell the director about this, would it feel like putting my colleague down?

To give you more context, his feedback to me didn't include any improvement points.

Update

By feedback I mean the semi annual feedback. My employer has a feedback cycle every 6 months

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  • Can you clarify the purpose of the feedback? Is it for your own personal improvement, or for management to evaluate you?
    – Llewellyn
    Jun 20, 2020 at 14:03
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    Have you talked to your colleague about this? I would advise against complaining about him, at least until you have more information. Maybe you simply have a different understanding of what needs to go into the feedback. If you ask him to also include your contribution to project B, maybe he could contact your manager and add that information.
    – Llewellyn
    Jun 20, 2020 at 14:04
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    Why are you so hung up getting feedback from this person? Why does it matter? Are you judged by management based on this persons feedback? Does you job or salary depend on getting his feedback? Maybe don't make an issue of it at all?
    – joeqwerty
    Jun 20, 2020 at 14:27
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    Do you think the people who read this feedback are bad at their jobs? Do you think they won't tell your colleague if the feedback provided is too short or otherwise not useful? Why do you want to manage your colleague as well as yourself?
    – Kate Gregory
    Jun 20, 2020 at 14:30
  • @Llewellyn I updated the question.
    – Nfgbfvwiarswk
    Jun 20, 2020 at 14:36

2 Answers 2

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... we had lots of conflicts

That is actually where you need to start solving the problems. Caring about a feedback being too short is not going to help you much.

Conflicts usually arise from lack of communication, or even bad communication. You should get rid of "being mad" and actually talk to this guy, to understand his point of view.

The fact that you "got mad" just because of the feedback being to short, tells me that you are not entirely innocent in this conflict.

Be aware, especially considering that you get mad quite quickly, learn as much as possible about providing and receiving feedback before talking with your colleague. If you do it incorrectly, you can do more harm than good.

I understood that you do not know the rules of the feedback from the fact that you needed to ask the question here, and that you had a very long conflictual state with your colleague.

Should I tell the director that I am pissed off of that feedback?

Definitely NOT before talking to your colleague. If you reach a good understanding with your colleague, your colleague might even provide to the boss an updated feedback, and then the discussion with the boss will simply be unnecessary.

If I tell the director about this, would it feel like putting my colleague down?

I feel that you would be putting yourself down, before putting your colleague down.

Or should I just keep my mouth shut...

Definitely not. But be careful to open it in the right place - to talk nicely and professionally to your colleague.

The simple fact that your colleague did not provide a bad / destroying feedback is a sign that your colleague might not be a bad guy at all.

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So your collegue gave you a brief but positive appraisal, despite having had numerous conflicts with you ? Seems like a nice guy/gal to me.

What should you do ? Nothing, except be grateful for having such a nice non-backstabbing collegue.

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  • "What should you do ? Nothing" - all things not completely clear lead to problems and eventually to conflicts. And as already mentioned, the number of conflicts is by no means small already.
    – virolino
    Jun 25, 2020 at 5:48

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