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I work for a big corporate in the software industry in the UK, so we have hierarchies and everything. About a year ago I was promoted and moved to a different team. In this new team (which I already used to interact with) there's a team mate who essentially is a pain to work with. I'll give few examples to give the picture but without going too much into details.

Example 1. The project leaders are usually the ones dealing with our client when we receive requirements. When they share information so we can discuss the technical details more often than not the conversations rails towards how the project leaders handled the agreed work, and in a constructive but with an excessively negative attitude (almost bullying). My line manager himself raised the issue once with me in confidence, but I don't understand why apart from giving him bad scores two years in a row he doesn't actually take more drastic measures.

Example 2. Like everyone we do code reviews, I'm quite a pedantic engineer. I look whenever I can through all the lines of the relevant code, I ask questions because I want to understand, I give what I believe are some good suggestions and I test it. We usually require two approvals in order to merge a patch, and as a rule unless the code doesn't work I never block anything and he's free to ignore my comments or suggestions. The attitude in this case by him is very hostile, he takes any review very personally like someone is insulting him. I remember code reviews where comments/discussions really looked like a chat and I had to walk away from the conversation. More than once I had to ask my PL whether or not my reviews are harsh and if I should limit my comments per review, I was never told off and actually told my reviews are reasonable with valid points in general.

Example 3. His technical knowledge is very limited (like to very single and specific technologies that actually aren't very re-usable for the kind of projects we work on). He's been encouraged suggested many times to be "open minded" towards more tools and libraries, he refuses to do so as he's of the belief we should develop everything from scratch and more often we have to shape our projects/tasks by taking into account his technical knowledge (he's been working for our company for two years and I personally have never seen him growing skill wise. My understanding he has a very specific interest and I'm personally fine with it but what I'm not particularly happy about is him forcing his own ways in our work.

Example 4. Very aggressive, when he has a point he wants to raise he doesn't just raise it... he becomes obsessed with it to the point that people within my team (including my manager) have defined him as "bully". He also patronizes everyone which personally irritates me, but I'm learning slowly how to let it go which I confess is very difficult (and not just for me).

In my opinion, and not just mine, we should let him go. He clearly is not happy at this workplace for whatever reason. The only thing I'm aware of is that he's been given bad scores for the last couple of years.

He's being very toxic and very difficult to work with. What I want to suggest, but not sure this is appropriate, is either:

  1. We simply let him go
  2. He needs some sort of formal training to manage his attitude and build on this to improve himself.

I can't see any other way around this and I want to push to sort this out ASAP. What can I do? should I raise this with HR? what sort of information/proof should I provide?

The way I see this is simple... if he doesn't like the way the company works he simply should leave and not make everyone miserable... or if he wishes to stay (and so far he's been given such opportunity) he needs to learn how to professional interact with people.

Any advice or useful information?

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    Who is this "we" of which you speak? Are you in a position to fire this person? Has management asked you whether he should be fired? What on earth makes you think people who don't like their jobs should "simply leave" as though they don't have rent to pay and groceries to buy? If you can't stand working with this person, your question should be "how can I tell them to move me off this team to get away from him?" or "how can I learn to put up with an awful team mate?" But asking us if you're right that he should be fired - what's the point of that? Feb 8, 2021 at 2:40
  • @Kate Gregory, "we" is my team. You're right I have no right to let a person who doesn't like his job to leave. But if he's bullying work mates I think it should be raised and dealt with. If you read my question at the bottom I'd like to suggest some form of training to manage his attitude because again is unbereable and sometimes slows people down. I'm not expecting workmates to be like soldiers but excessive negative attitude, bullying and resistance to changes either... Feb 8, 2021 at 9:36
  • Also the advice I'm asking is whether or not I should raise this with HR. The firing OR training is my opinion on how to deal with him. Because regardless of my opinion he's definitely an issue affecting my work and somehow I want to sort it out. I don't wanna leave my team cause I like my team except for this character. I wasn't asked by management whether or not to fire him, but they shared their concern more than once with me (which clearly indicates frustration). Feb 8, 2021 at 9:38

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You want to complain about a colleague whose faults are already well known higher up the hierarchy. Don't make a formal complaint. Despite the lengthy question you have nothing new to add to what people in actual positions of authority know and are working on mitigating against already.

Your colleague is digging himself a hole, do not try and help him dig, or hinder his excavation ambitions. You gain nothing by doing so except personal enmity. Just soldier on with your work and don't let him affect your morale. You're not responsible for more than that.

In general you should never let the actions of others dictate your morale.

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  • But having to work with a colleague like that makes getting up and going to work a punishmentt not a pleasure. So it does affect one's morale.
    – Solar Mike
    Feb 8, 2021 at 5:47
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    @SolarMike if you let it I guess. I've cheerfully worked with much much worse. My morale is kept under my control, not dictated by others. This chap is bad news, but he's not singling out the OP, he's bad news to everyone including the hierarchy. Let them deal with it, no need for the OP to draw a target on his back. And there's nothing the OP can do that guarantees a positive personal result without potential repercussions.
    – Kilisi
    Feb 8, 2021 at 5:59
  • @Kilisi I'm the senior colleague. Feb 8, 2021 at 9:24
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    How does that work? Here's been there twice as long and has no respect for any authority you may think you have
    – Kilisi
    Feb 8, 2021 at 9:58
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    @Kilisi Not sure I understand. But he doesn't respect anyone it doesn't really matter if you're more senior than him or not. That's honestly what I see as a problem. I understand the point of all your answer is that essentially I need to let this go. Which is kind of what I suspected anyway. It's not up to me to decide what to do with him and in the meanwhile I have to deal with it. Feb 8, 2021 at 16:28
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OK long question which has a lot of context but seems more like a rant. Let me look at what your actual questions are:

What can I do?

If there are problems with you working with this individual then you can only comment to your manager what the problems are after that it's the managers responsibility.

should I raise this with HR?

That would be going around your manager and would generally be a very bad move for you. This would break any trust you have with your manager and they may start to become much harsher with you.

what sort of information/proof should I provide?

Provide proof only to your manager and just proof of what your accusations are. So if you say he's nasty in a code review then take screenshot of the nastiness. If these bad interactions are verbal it's more difficult but I assume with the code review you have written details.

Any advice or useful information?

Working with toxic co-workers is actually very common and it's something that you'll have to learn how to deal with. Going straight to HR is definitely a bad option for you.

Also you seem to be very keen to have this person fired depending on how long they have worked at this company and the size of the company there will be quite a few procedures to jump through. It's not very easy to fire someone just because they don't get along with you. I'd go as far to say that if they did fire this person they would quite easily win an employment tribunal.

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I like the other answers here but I want to add in something. Based on your question, I see that you are merely a team member and this is your co-worker. He is very annoying and you don't like it. You want him fired because you believe he's incompetent and you want to notify the management that you believe he should be fired. You have nothing direct with him and you're merely a bystander observing his behavior.

Let me say that whenever you are a bystander, you feel like you have to join in on the issue. This is a very, very bad idea. You have nothing connected with this person other than him being a team mate and you don't like him. So you want him to get into trouble and you want to go to management to say your piece.

This is a very bad idea and will surely backfire you in ways that won't look good. My thought is you should just continue on and mind your own business. It's not your problem what this guy does or does not do. If you ever have to interact with him or if he needs something, simply say you are waiting to hear back from that person and let management decide if that's something they need to escalate.

For example, suppose you're waiting on him to give you a piece of work and you never heard from him, even after emailing him. Your boss ask you what's the status of a project and all you need to do is reply with, "Boss, I'm waiting on X from from [insert team mate's name] and I haven't heard back from him. I'll touch bases with him again to see his status." Then from there just CC your boss in a follow up email to this person to ask what's the status on whatever you're waiting on.

Remain professional. Don't say "that guy" or "you know who...." or "here we go again." As others said, let him dig his own grave and don't help him or otherwise both of you might fall in.

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  • To be honest, that's all I wanted to know. So no point in going to HR or to anyone else as it might just backfire me. I guess this is one of those situations where I can't really do much about it. Feb 8, 2021 at 16:14

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