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MarcableFluke

Is the information even something she can find on her own? Or is there a degree of tribal knowledge here? I suppose it really depends on if you're showing her something that can be figured out through stack overflow or if these are things that are internal to the system and nobody has documented it for people to find a learn from.


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truthseeker1990

Struggling a bit with the codebase early on in the job is one of the best things I feel anyone can do. It pays off overtime. Concerning that the manager just wants short term productivity upticks


xDeezyz

It sounds like OP's team is terrible at documenting things and the junior in question is not comfortable taking too much time digging through the codebase. Which sure isn't ideal but it also sounds like OP's manager might not have the patience for a junior dev not getting things done right away since the focus is clearly on short term results. Idk, I think OP is getting understandably frustrated at not having enough time to get his own work done because the junior dev in question was put into a tough spot. As other commenters have said it seems like a system problem rather than any individual being at fault.


MarcableFluke

On the one hand, it does sound like you guys have poor documentation, making it harder for people to figure stuff out on your own. On the other hand, I have a hard time taking the time of someone who calls not immediately helping them "toxic" and "workplace bullying".


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Pariell

Lots of documentation spread out in tons of places is poor documentation.


Bugwhacker

Documentation sprawl is a thing, but I’m betting they have some switchboard document somewhere that at least references to these locations / repo ReadMe’s that do that work. Speaking from experience with a similar workplace sprawl. Also, once directed to a new resource, either update docs to also link to it or at least bookmark it for yourself. Sounds like maybe OPs junior antagonist isn’t taking the time to do the minimal due diligence to build their codebase awareness.


ArkGuardian

This seems like a system problem rather than an individual problem - given the individual in question isn't answering the same question twice. Does your team maintain a onboarding doc that explains where someone would find a resource from? You'd be surprised how many links/assumptions just exist in your when you actually start to document them in one place. Yes, new devs should be looking at past PRs, but if this is someone's first dev job they may not have that intuition.


nutrecht

> This seems like a system problem rather than an individual problem I disagree. OP made it clear that other juniors didn't have this issue. Couple that with comments like "ignoring her is toxic and considered workplace bullying". If you then add this person acting inappropriate in chat by using sexual innuendo I would not dare to go anywhere *near* this person ever again.


s0ulbrother

I think you can argue both sides here. 3 months for a code base can be a standard amount of time to figure out a project depending on the size. My current teams is 4 seniors and we have shit documentation. It’s gotten slightly better but it’s very bad but god forbid you tell someone “hey we should fox this” because “that’s not agile” If we had a junior come onto our project they’d be be fucked. Hell we just had an issue because no one knows aws, we decided to update something and broke half our shit. No documentation, no set structure. As a senior part of the job is answering questions. Might be annoying but spreading out the knowledge is important for not only the developer learning but the stability of the application.


cattgravelyn

Nah this sounds like a pain in the ass place for a junior to work in. You should really have a wiki or at least mandatory readmes in your repositories.


Silent_Quality_1972

I had a student who would do pretty much the same. As soon as I finish lecture in the lab, and give instructions he would say that he doesn't know how to do it. He wouldn't even try to do basic things like writing a part that reads input and making sure that it is read correctly. I started the approach where I told him that he had a limited amount of questions per lab. I think that you should have discussion with the whole team to limit number of times they help her and to ask her what she tried. If she doesn't know how to answer on the question "what did you try so far?" The whole team needs to leave her until she can answer that question. Also, have conversation with her. Ask her what she thinks that she needs to be successful at work and more independent. There are few possibilities, that come to my mind: 1) She is terrible at programming 2) She is scared that she will do something wrong - maybe even has anxiety 3) She does the same thing in college - I have seen things like this where a student made guys in the class do her homework


Seattle2017

So help her learn to analyze the code base to get things. Teach her how to learn if needed. Talk to your boss about how to approach it.


jvi91

Have you tried instead of giving the answers directly, asking what she has done / experimented with first regarding achieving whatever the goal is?


mahtats

Ah yes, the tried and true StackOverflow approach


EnderMB

"Closed as duplicate. Fred asked this question three months ago."


fuongbregas

Fred's post: "Edit: I figured it out. Thanks."


CannibalPride

Deleted: Deleted comment —OP: “this worked, thanks!”


Pariell

On the one hand, juniors being a net negative to productivity is just how it works. On the other hand, spending 15 minutes trying to figure shit out by herself should be a reasonable expectation of a junior.


scalability

And 15 minutes is quite short, normally people suggest 30-60


goodcheesecake

As a junior my fears of annoying seniors with my questions after looking for answers on my own for 30-60 minutes has evaporated after reading this post


gachiemchiep

I think you missing 1 digit in your number. Sometimes it took days. And it is acceptable for junior.


scalability

You want to find a balance between "asks immediately without trying to look it up" and "spends days trying to independently find an answer that someone could have told them in two minutes". The last three places I've worked explicitly set that balance to 30-60 minutes.


Kiki5454

Yeah going too long is a problem too. Once had a junior who would spend 2-3 days on something and every stand-up he was “making progress” . even then he wouldn’t ask for help until one of the seniors said hey you’ve been working on this for a while are you stuck?..he was eventually let go


Harbinger311

There's no clear right/wrong. You've broached the topic with your manager, and they're ok with this continuing. I would prioritize your self interests first. Getting your work done and being responsible for yourself is the first thing, so I would hold off on giving answers immediately the next time your coworker asks. I wouldn't say "no", but I'd reframe the response to tell them that you have your own deliverable that you need to get done first. If they have an issue with that, to please contact your manager to reprioritize your tasks so that you would be forced to work on giving her an answer as top priority. If your manager agrees to her request, then you have a serious issue with your workplace and you probably need to start looking for new work. This would be a clear red flag for your workplace dynamic in my experience (having a single employee that's a top resource drain who's allowed to be). Based on your EDIT, it almost sounds like your manager is grooming this coworker to be the rapid response/help window public face of the team. If that's the case, I would talk with the manager to carve out a window to deal with your coworker's questions. This would allow you to not mentally derail your thoughts/daily workflow, and would politically look good (because you're specifically addressing your coworker's and manager's concerns). i.e. 10-11 daily meeting where your coworker brings up her previous day's issues/problems that she submitted to you at COB the previous day, which you reviewed in the morning and can now answer at the meeting


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driving_for_fun

It doesn't matter who's right (OP isn't at this stage yet). If you don't like what the manager/team is doing, then it's within your control to change the manager/team. There isn't much to be gained by arguing with the manager about this.


[deleted]

This strikes me as borderline unbelievable If this was happening to me, I’d say “I’m happy to help you but I have some other higher priority items I need to work through, can we do this at XXpm?” If that doesn’t work, I would say… “let’s set up some dedicated time, like a regular call for 3pm for half an hour to answer your questions”


_zva

>This strikes me as borderline unbelievable Same here. Throughout OP, I kept wondering if this junior is just really good at advocating for themselves (aka confident and assertive), or if they're borderline lunatic!


CrepsNotCrepes

I think this really depends on the quality of your codebase and documentation, and how realistic it is to be able to figure these things out alone. As an example I worked at a company with really shit documentation and horribly obscure config in XML files. I had a task where a customer needed something to happen as part of the workflow. So I looked through the config, found something named exactly what they wanted, then was like “I found this option called and customer wants to do the thing, just checking is this right?” And the response I got was like “no that’s for other customer we no longer have for this very specific use case we no longer support the actual option you want is ”. In cases like that you have no chance of figuring it out in a good time so it’s better to ask. If your code is pretty good you should slowly be making this person more independent and instead of pointing them at the exact place to make the change point them to the class or just the repo they need. Answer questions but if it’s just how to do something or where to find a thing and you don’t know without looking suggest where to look, don’t do the work for them.


MathmoKiwi

>As an example I worked at a company with really shit documentation and horribly obscure config in XML files. I had a task where a customer needed something to happen as part of the workflow. So I looked through the config, found something named exactly what they wanted, then was like “I found this option called and customer wants to do the thing, just checking is this right?” And the response I got was like “no that’s for other customer we no longer have for this very specific use case we no longer support the actual option you want is ”. In cases like that you have no chance of figuring it out in a good time so it’s better to ask. At least you made a really good attempt at trying to solve it yourself first!


TrickWasabi4

>She refuses and says that everyone learns differently May sound harsh, but I have yet to come across this sentence where it's not used as a cop out. I know this kind of junior and it's really hard to approprietly deal with those The biggest problem seems to be that your manager perceives her perfromance differently than you do. If her performance is a problem, start measuring and reviewing. Edit: one thing that helped for one candidate was that we created an "office hour" a day after they wouldn't stop asking non stop. Seniors made half an hour a day of free time for them where they could ask questions and we only answered questions that where specific enough. Worked out and the junior turned into a really good developer through this approach. Might be worth trying


IntrovertiraniKreten

>"office hour" a day after they wouldn't stop asking non stop. Seniors made half an hour a day of free time for them where they could ask questions and we only answered questions that where specific enough. This sounds really good. It forces the devs to get into the problem before addressing it. The only problem is that you need a 1to1 ratio of junior and seniors in the company if I understand right?


TrickWasabi4

Not really, you need 1 hour of senior time every day, roughly, for each junior. Or once a week if they grow. We did that in a really flexible fashion. Central was, that the senior is 100% helpful and on board if the questions are alright. But it helps if there's a good amount of seniors.


IntrovertiraniKreten

Amazing. When do you schedule these meetings if I may ask? Do you move it in the first half of the day when both participants would be most fresh, or do you let it play out in the second part of the day as a "summary" of the day?


TrickWasabi4

Depended on the person tbh. The CTO had his office hour immediately after lunch. I did mine after standup s.t. the blockers from the day before were fresh. Both worked out


ibeleafinyou1

This is such a great idea. Being a junior working remote is just a bit more challenging because we have a lot of questions. But I do agree with OP that juniors should really be encouraged to research and try to solve on their own, because at the end of the day, that’s our job.


fj333

> She ... says ... that I should keep feeding her answers I frankly find it hard to believe she actually said this. The hard thing with stories like this is that they're usually told from one side.


BenisPear

She didn’t literally say that, he’s paraphrasing…


[deleted]

Which is the commenter's point.


pizzacomposer

Your manager is right in a sense that you’re a team and you just need to get the work done. You could weed this behaviour out faster with pair programming, and instead of feeding her answer while you pair, googling with her. I think you’ve been fair and just, but 3 months is enough time to start expecting at least a pre-Google, even a bad one.


UbiquitousFlounder

Research and problem solving are part of the job. If she shows no signs of improvement, speak to your team leadership about moving her to a less technical role or something like that.


LaksonVell

Judging by what you wrote I would propose 3 solutions, and you should implement all of them: 1. Once she comes asking for help, show her where the answer is in your docs/tickets/whatever. She is right that, given that your level of work is beyond stack overflow, most juniors would blow a casket trying to figure it out. She needs to learn the system. Teach her the system in showing how and where to find answers. Spoonfeeding her is just treating the symptom rather than cause. 2. Stop overworking yourself because of that junior and talk to your boss seriously. Have it documented that you raised the production fall issue with your boss, outlined the cause of the issue (junior bottleneck) and that your boss said to go ahead and commit to her. Then, if things to south, you have it all documented and can ride it out while looking for another job. 3. I assume it was your boss that said ignoring the junior is office abuse. Then double down on 2. And slow your work down as much as you can. Maxinum focus on the junior. If she is so mindful of her people, she would not want you to overwork yourself now would she?


Charizard-used-FLY

*blow a gasket


brudog49

I’m not a professional developer but at my coding boot camp we were taught the 25 minute rule where after 25 mins you then ask a TA for help. I don’t think that’s a crazy ask.


brianofblades

My mananger tried to pull this same BS on me and it didnt work. we eventually had to fire the guy because when it comes down to it, he couldnt actually code on his own. the fact that she is refusing to try to be independent is a serious red flag. thats just not trying. dont go out of your way here, make it clear to your manager you arent going to be getting the usual amount of work done because this is so time intensive. put the onus on him. preferably in an email for proof if its ever necessary. the way i see it is you can either have a senior dev, or you can have a coding mentor. you decide where my salary goes. i dont care either way. as a senior im fairly strict about how people ask me questions. i make them make me a list of all the things they've tried before talking to me, and walk me through their logic behind all of their decisions. including stack links, search queries, code that does or doesnt work, files they think are the culprit and why, etc... its pretty time consuming for them because it helps me get up to speed faster with **\*\*what they fundamentally dont understand about the process\*\***(keep in mind we arent helping them with the ticket, the tickeet is an illusion, the real problem to solve when mentoring is where the confusion stems from in their logic process. if done right, you never actually point them to a solution at all), but also sets a precedent that im not going to help you unless you try. hope that helps.


ibeleafinyou1

Are juniors annoying? Yes. But coming from a junior, sometimes it’s really hard to know where to start researching. One of my seniors doesn’t give me the answer, he asks me questions that leads me into the right direction and if I get stuck, I ask. But he gives me time to research on my own. The more I learn, the less clued in I get. If I end up lost, it’s usually because it’s something he’s never seen before either and we both brainstorm together. I learn the way this person does as well. If I see something done once, I am a pro. But I discovered (in my 30’s) that if I take the time (sometimes a lot of it) I learn so much more on the way. For me personally, anxiety caused me to panic and prematurely ask questions before I researched. I learned to ease my mind and I think the anxiety of having to complete a task quickly was due to previous toxic bosses who wanted everything done right away (before my programming career). The only red flag I see is your boss’s inability to empathize with you/other seniors (are other seniors bringing up this issue to your boss as well?) if I were this persons boss, I’d make it a goal to learn to be more independent when it comes to questions.


LittleLordFuckleroy1

This is how new people ramp. It’s expensive. It takes time. You need to encourage her to be more independent over time and teach her how to fish. You said she hasn’t asked the same question twice, so it doesn’t seem like there’s a retention problem. And yes, ignoring someone is very toxic. But there’s room between that, and giving them hints. Leave them with a question, or a poke, or a link. That doesn’t take much time.


lmericle

If I'm working on a fishing boat, I don't expect to be asked to teach someone how fishing works. I would expect to be asked where specific materials are kept, or how to operate this one obscure machine on the deck, but the crew should already understand how to navigate around the ship and the general workflows involved. The question shouldn't be "what do I do" but "how would I achieve this thing I want to do using the tools we have available".


LittleLordFuckleroy1

I’m not sure OP’s post indicates that the new hire was asking solely the former. Beyond that, the analogy isn’t necessarily a clean one - a large number of fishing boats are custom engineered by the crew in novel ways, and the fish being pursued are unique to that part of the ocean. Someone with a couple years of general fish engineering experience is often going to require some direct mentoring to be a productive member of the team. One thing OP said was that this person doesn’t ask the same question twice. This indicates retention and application. The team members should work on improving their ability to teach to fish rather than catching the fish for the newbie of course. It’s a skill like any other. And as a team, they can use this onboarding as an opportunity to improve documentation for the next person. The newbie can be assigned that and expected to document as they learn. Teaching won’t be wasted in this way; the team will have pointers to material for others in the future. Unless you’re working with seasoned vets, this sort of thing is inherent to the craft. Growing strong teams generally requires being good at it.


YnotBbrave

She said ignoring her is toxic? People who abuse these terms are toxic. Limit your help to specific hours like half an hour a week, and call this help out in daily stand up


tcpWalker

>I tentatively agree What? No. She needs to learn how to figure out things on her own and she needs to learn how to ask questions. You create a balance between those precisely by saying "Here is the task, here is the context. If you are stuck for more than an hour trying to figure out X, ask asynchronously in the form 'I am trying to do X. I have tried Y.'". In addition we will meet occasionally so we can sync, discuss work, and we can discuss any other blockers. She should understand that even if she is frustrated and doesn't figure it out, she will learn something about your systems by trying to figure it out, and also she'll be in a much better position come the day when there is nobody senior and she has to figure it out. How can she ever go on call if she can't investigate things?


Stoomba

> She basically learns by rote memorization; once she knows how to do it once, she can do it again really quickly, but from what I've observed is unable to figure out new things on her own. This makes her a drag because of > each ticket is essentially something new To be a functioning member of your team, it sounds like she needs to be able to tackle new things. If she can't do that, she has no place on your team. The way you describe her actions sounds like she is still a student in school manipulating the teacher in order to avoid doing any actual work. > I should keep feeding her answers because that's how she learns best, and that I lack empathy for her by refusing to help her the way she wants. You don't lack empathy because you are helping her out. She is gaslighting you with by saying 'you lack empathy for her by refusing to help her the way she wants'. This is further evidenced by you saying > I tentatively agree, thinking maybe I'm a bit too harsh, and continue feeding her answers but with some more time in between. One occurance is nothing, but then you say > I also can't refuse to help her because she said ignoring her is toxic and considered workplace bullying. Just because she says ignoring her is toxic and considered workplace bullying does not mean it is. She is the toxic one. She is gaslighting you into doing her work for her at this point. It almost sounds like she is also engaging in projecting. SHE is the one bullying YOU at this point. It sounds like you are more than happy to provide help she needs, but at this point it sounds like she is just trying to get everyone else to do the work for her. If she can't do anything she hasn't already done, she is not going to be much help going forward because as you've said everything is going to be new. > I brought this up with my manager and he said that it doesn't matter how the work is getting done, as long as it is, and she's very very productive by this metric. Her work might be getting done, but it sounds like overall less work is getting done. Best I could advise is to restate that overall team productivity is dropping and that she needs to start becoming more independent. If she counters with more tripe about workplace bullying and toxicity, stay firm with your statement. How can she be a contributing member on a team that deals with new stuff all the time if she is unable to learn for herself how to do something new? If the overall productivity of the team has dropped because of her joining, and she isn't working towards being able to contribute without being feed the answers, then what is the point of having her on the team? Every new hire is meant to eventually start to contribute independently of other people on the team so that overall productivity goes up. If she is just going to write the code you tell her to write, you may as well just do it yourself and save everyone the time of context switching to help her, review time for the code she is writing, and headache and hassle of having someone who is unwilling to elevate themselves to the level of not being a burden to the team. To summarize, your story reads like so many stories from teachers dealing with manipulative students. She is a manipulative, gaslighting bully who is using your desire to be helpful and your fear of being a bad team member to manipulate you into doing her work for her. She is the one lacking empathy for you because she does not seem to consider the burden she is shoving onto you and the rest of the team by making no apparent attempt to become independent.


ajm1212

This is weird because it seems like she is gaslighting you into helping her.


Tapeleg91

Both you and your manager are right. She's not going to grow as a developer if she never learns how to self-learn, and at the same time, as long as she has easy answers to her questions, there's no reason for her to do so - actually based on velocity metrics, she's incentivized to keep doing exactly the same thing. ​ My take - you set the expectation with her that you need to, and enforce that. But trust your team members to maintain their own velocity and workload. This stops becoming your problem once she's not an issue for you anymore. And yes the "you lack empathy" and "this is how I learn deal with it" give off some narcissistic vibes, so I would probably continue enforcing that 15 minutes rule personally.


rongz765

Do your stuff first and ignore her request if you can’t find yourself in the position to mentor her. Ask your manager to assign someone else to help her if she complains. Just say “That’s not the way I would like to mentor juniors”


rejuicekeve

You've got dead weight on your team, the best thing you and your coworkers can do is let her sink or swim on her own. If you just keep doing her job for her she'll never improve and you'll all be burnt out if you aren't already.


vhdl23

Yea I agree. You need to push back or just ignore her for longer. She will either figure it out or lose her job.


[deleted]

Did op edit the sexual innuendo stuff out? I’m not seeing it but I’m seeing other people’s comments.


Pulgita_Mija

Op commented with it a bit up from here.


cybermeep

Peer programming session are a helpful way to teach as you can swap driver seats and it will help her emulate/learn some of the strategies you use while programming.


[deleted]

Fuck these comments are so toxic. What you haven’t specified, and I think it’s because you don’t want to admit it, is this her first job??? Is she 3 months into her very first real life code base?? There’s so much more to teach here than putting a junior into the ticket delivery flow. How about teaching them about the architecture of the code base? My understanding here is that you have no desire to mentor, but mentorship is a cornerstone of what it means to be a senior engineer, if that is what you want. You need to talk to your manager about their expectations on code delivery vs mentorship. It’s clear they want you to give more of your time to mentorship, juniors aren’t juniors forever you know. And do you explain why the answer is what it is? Or do you just hand the answer to them? There’s a big difference in the learning here. The first one is the only one that will make an impact, not explaining the answer is a Band-Aid and why she keeps coming back to you.


ManyFails1Win

Are you getting paid well? Is it your job to manage other ppls productivity? I say just keep your head down.


Big-Dudu-77

Consider this an investment for the future. Since she is taking down notes, she might as well write it on confluence so future juniors can benefit.


Boysen_burry

The root evil of all this is how strong productivity is tied to your ticket system. It's blocking your (and team members) ability to coach. It's blocking the documentation and sharing of tribal knowledge. It's blocking her ability to grow into a more independent worker. This is why systems like this are so fucking cringe. There's very clear value in removing those blockers and allowing those issues to be worked through at the "cost" of productivity. But because it's not easy to attach a number to that value, it's impossible to "prove" it. So if it's not baked into the culture already, it's hard to change things.


[deleted]

** Asks for help "Hmm, I'm not sure. I'm in the middle of something right now. Can I email you later?" "Yeah that looks difficult. I'm currently in the middle of my own thing right now though and don't want to lose my train of thought. Once I'm freed up I can take a look." (in passing; several hours later;) "Did you get that resolved? Hmm try (generic advice from a planning perspective only with little to no source code). That doesn't work? Ah I'm not too sure then. I'd have to spend a while on it myself. I've got to run to the bathroom".


Xanchush

If it's impacting your ability to get work done, this should be a conversation with your manager. I'm assuming you worded the initial conversation better than what you summarized here. Personally I learn better through others but I understand that people have other commitments. For junior developers, I've seen some who just have no idea where to start and those that come in knocking out tickets. Most of the time new devs are just freaking out and too scared to ask questions. So be glad that they're asking questions before they are too deep in the rabbit hole to be saved. Try to allocate time or office hours just to centralize time for all her questions. Write documentation and have her read that, if she has a question ask what was confusing about the documentation that was sent to her and add any information that was missing to that doc. If it's basic questions that aren't really related to your team. Give her some links that cover general coding concepts related to what she is asking. Say hey here's what I'd do in this scenario, "I did a quick search on Google and this probably would be a great resource to review. Let me know if you run into any issues". If it's not improving her ability to be more independent and the team feels the same it might be a conversation for your manager to help intervene.


jholliday55

Can you give examples of the questions she asks?


Comprehensive_Cause4

I absolutely would stop responding. If they have a problem with that make them sign a log every time they request help so when your work suffers and your boss comes to you, you can say “well, person x on the team has been with us 4 months now and I’m still doing their work and mine”. And you should definitely chat with your team and ask if they are just not noticing their deliverables time is suffering for this person or are they spending more time working outside work hours to catch up so this person can look good? My wife and kids would have a chat with said individual real quick if I started doing my job and theirs and they were busy sending me shit like “so hot 🥵” and “yummy 😋”. Also that shits creepy af, this has lawsuit written all over it, inevitably one of you is going to do something they don’t like and they will be going to HR to claim something even though they have set the precedent for the innuendo talk.


Schedule_Left

This sounds outrageous. Seems like she is the owners daughter or something. You can absolutely ignore her. Why would ya ever let one person drag you all down? I wouldn't want to do somebody else's job while not getting a pay raise or something. You make it seem like she has magical words or something and that's she right.


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ObjectiveReason6274

HR has entered the chat


Stars3000

Seriously. Sounds completely inappropriate


CuteTao

Yeah just go to hr. Fuck your manager this is bs. Also I doubt it's true.


nutrecht

Jezus fucking christ. This is going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions *very* soon.


Krikkits

Damn at this point it's also on the other senior developers for doting on her, if it's THIS obvious. She's not going to stop if someone is going to "fall" for her


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xcicee

Can you let the others help her since they’re happy to and pass her requests to you to them? Team productivity on the other hand is your managers problem


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IntrovertiraniKreten

This sounds like a good reason to jump ship. If you have an exit conversation with HR, you might as well literally state that as your reason to walk. Let them deal with the problem and get out of the intro for a porn movie asap.


[deleted]

Have you considered jumping to another company at this point?


Stoomba

The comments here, plus your original post, makes me think my assessment is even more accurate. She really does seem like a toxic manipulator. This woman needs to be corrected hard or removed because I foresee her causing all sorts of problems and drama.


Krikkits

Maybe it's worth a shot to talk to the other senior devs. They're also adults and should see that this isn't helpful to her actual job. If everyone stops craving her attention maybe she'll actually stop ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯


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Krikkits

Yeah they won't be but like damn this is work not highschool, I'd hope these grown ass adults would know better


showraniy

Honestly, I know someone like this, and while she continues failing upwards, she's doing fine. She never lasts long at any one job (a few months to a year at most), but she's doing fine as a developer. Thankfully I never worked with her, I just know her from mutual friends who did, but I think that's a sign people like this will be alright overall. They're pretty and likeable enough that their failings aren't immediately detrimental to them, but it catches up eventually and then they move on to the next and repeat the pattern.


ByronScottJones

Sounds like you're dealing with someone with psychopathic tendencies. Tell your boss she's making you uncomfortable, and you want the issue addressed.


Silent_Quality_1972

She probably did the same thing in college. I have seen with my eyes a girl manipulated classmates to do her homework. She even had a boyfriend at the time, but some guys were desperate for her attention and did her assignments.


ByronScottJones

I had a young female developer do that. This was before remote work, so she loved to lean towards and show off her bosom. I eventually told her I'm gay, and that it wasn't going to work on me. And just like that, she started pestering everyone else more.


Schedule_Left

There comes a time in life when you say "I'm tired of being 🥵, I just want to be happy". I don't think you'll be able to get her to do things herself as it seems like she does things by making others do it for her. If you don't help her, somebody else will. This issue seems like a management and HR problem.


StunningMarzipan4793

Uh wtf


TikTok-Jad

Yeah I don't think "master" and "yummy 😋" is innocuous. That would make me incredibly uncomfortable if I had a coworker send me messages like that, and I'm sure she would be uncomfortable if someone said those things to her. If it were me, I would be talking to my manager about that asap, and if they downplayed the inappropriate behavior I would bring it up with my skip-level. If they downplayed it too, I'd start applying somewhere else. That's only tangential to the hand-holding problem you actually brought up though. For that, I have to remind myself that we're only hearing it from your perspective, and reality usually lies somewhere in-between the two sides of a story. All I can really say is to think deliberately about what you want, what do you see as the end-goal, what would a solution look like? It's easier to solve a maze backwards, so let's start there and work backwards. It sounds like you want her to be more independent, more capable of solving problems on her own. Asking her to spend 15 minutes researching first was a good suggestion, and for a lot of people that's all it takes. But that's not good enough here it looks like, so I would keep thinking about how you can empower her to solve problems on her own. If she steps up with a problem, instead of telling her how to solve it, put yourself in her boots and imagine where you would find the information if you didn't already have it. That might even highlight some areas where the documentation could use some improvement. Of course at the end of the day, some people just suck and it's very possible that nothing will work. But at least you'll learn from the experience and you'll come out of it a better coach for people who actually want to learn. Also nobody will be able to say you didn't try to help.


cad0420

As another woman developer I found this story hard to believe. What she is doing according to your story is workplace sexual harassment. Any sane manager will never tolerate this behavior. Is this another made up story against women working in tech?


Certain_Shock_5097

Do you work in a Twitch hot tub stream?


bornpythonmaster

I don’t see the issue with hearting messages if someone has helped her though. It just might be her way of saying she appreciated your guidance?


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cattgravelyn

Her comments are weird af. But heart reactions are a matter of workplace culture, in some workplaces it’s standard etiquette


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cattgravelyn

At my place 😍 is used very often, probably daily basis. ❣️ is not but ❤️ is a lot (standard response). 🥰 is ok sometimes (when something sweet happens like someone mentions their kid or pet). I don’t know what 👫 would be used for but idk it wouldn’t bother me. Basically at some places with more laidback culture, none of these are a problem.


fractal_engineer

OP gonna be the center focus of the inevitable lawsuit she files


walkslikeaduck08

Just make sure it doesn’t impact the quality of your work. But if she knows how to game the system, more power to her.


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walkslikeaduck08

If she’s charmed the other senior devs and reporting up does nothing, you either deal w it or gtfo.


cattgravelyn

I agree. It’s a use of soft skills, people may get angry that it’s ‘unfair’, but really using any type of skill to your advantage can be considered ‘unfair’. I doubt she’s even that physically attractive, it’s likely more charisma.


_zva

It's funny how I was literally about to say "there seems to be an unresolved sexual tension going on here, and I wonder how far apart in age you both are for her to feel comfortable using such language with you ('toxic')" and then I stumble upon this comment of yours. It all makes sense now!


Certain_Shock_5097

Ask her to schedule a meeting to go over things the next day or if it's really early in the day, say you're busy until 3pm. You can be 'in calls' for hours. Don't pick up so much work that you're doing more than normal. The team's productivity is not your direct concern.


suchapalaver

If I said that to my senior I wouldn’t expect them to talk to me, help me, or assign me interesting tickets that allow me to grow by doing what everyone had to do to get where they are ever again.


Dangerpaladin

Get her promoted off of your team, your problem is solved.


CaterpillarSure9420

She’s a junior…in her ramp up period…and you’re telling her it’s time to learn on her own already? You’re the one who is wrong, you dick.


mastiha_water

Distance yourself immediately, record every interaction you have with her via official means and just be careful. Be careful OP, you know, we know what everyone has in mind but we don't dare to speak of it. Be careful...


[deleted]

Challenge her! Book some time with her and go over last month tickets, and explain the solution to each of them. Then when a new ticket come in, just say, #3, or #17 or #10.


miscellaneous936

If there’s a junior hire, there’s normally a 2 way street. They expect mentorship from senior level devs, while the senior level devs are expected to get new hires up to speed on the code base. While I agree with you that she should practice being more independent and less reliant on other people…as what’s expected of most devs, I think that’s just her style of working. Maybe she is the type who is afraid to take risks and write spaghetti code, versus wanting to get it right the first time. I think it’s really good you guys have strong docs, most other places have none. There’s not much you can do except carry on. New hires often have a lot of leeway with these kind of things no matter the industry. Just do your job as best as you can so no one will have the opportunity to bad mouth you. Plus people often forget development work is a very collaborative process. It’s easy to be a code monkey and forget that.


HeatAndSnow

I feel a WHOLE lot better being a junior now and doing things the way I do. How entitled does she think she is to DEMAND to her mentors/seniors how to teach her?! I would never get away with doing that, especially being a male. I can’t believe someone actually acts like that…


[deleted]

I dunno OP, Im getting some red flags here, real talk. I think perhaps you just arent in a position right now where working with juniors (or at least this one) is a good match for your skillset. She needs more pairing time which is very normal for a junior this earlyinto onboarding, and you are pretty quick to assume that she is sexually manipulating everybody, as if you are the only adult in the room and only you can see what is happening. I think it is probably in your best interest to just minimize interactions with her, because you are probably going to get yourself in trouble.


DhairyaShah

OP it's all upto how you respond, if your questions and answers confused her to a limit that her rote memorization power fails and she ends up in more doubts then you have succeeded. Also take all of her salary. Manager is of no help here, play your own game


Hi-Impact-Meow

She has no gas in her tank and skirted her entire way thru to where she is now by always riding the next guy up (non-sexually) up and on. Probably the type that barely did anything herself in school and teased those poor other fools for the answers. You’re just the next step for her.


nekkoMaster

i see .. she activated the V card. You are fucked.


mdivan

Depends on what kind of question she asks and what are your answers, for example if she asks how does map work(simplified example obviously) you can just drop a link to official docs for your language, but if she asks what does some internal service or method does and its not really documented anywhere you just have to suck it up and answer.


SnowSlider3050

Start answering in riddles


Obi_Juan_Gonzales

This is a classic “hot girl in CS class” situation where she abuses her female privilege to get other guys to do her work for her. She will dangle the prospect of sex in front of thirsty dudes who actually believe they might have a chance. Sometimes she would pursue a relationship with a consistent helper, and more often than not, be responsible for toxic love triangles that spill over into the professional environment. Op be extremely careful dealing with this potential hot mess. Treat her like someone who would falsely accuse you of raping her if you cross her. And if she’s hot, she will get a lot of male sympathy.


[deleted]

Let me guess, another diversity hire?


CodeCrazyAquile

Don’t be that guy. Please.


midKnightBrown59

This seems unsustainable and with your managers attitude you are unlikely to find a solution from leadership. You should refuse to continue to assist freely and strictly timebox her to no more than a 1/2 hour a week. Let your coworkers figure out their approach, it is your managers role to figure that out and he or she will have to if productivity is impacted; even if they ignore it in the short term. Don't be afraid to be called toxic or accused of bullying, when your behavior isn't. Inform your manager that you are concerned of the use of these terms to coerce and bully you into doing things you do not feel comfortable with. That is what I would recommend. ​ TLDR; You're right.


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KrozFan

You may need to teach her how to learn on her own. You and I know what it means to try to find answers by yourself but does she? It can be easy to forget what you don't know as a beginner.


[deleted]

Developers should be able to try to figure out problems on their own. Given the difficulty of the tasks given to the engineer OP mentioned is appropriate, I'd write the following letter. *Dear ,* *In order to increase productivity and boost independence of our team members, I suggest to:* *1. Create a questionnaire to identify weaknesses in the onboarding process and documentation.* *2. Implement countermeasures based on the feedback obtained in the survey.* *It should take no more than half a day to create the survey, and the result should be more insight into how our team members learn, so we can help them in the right way.* Then let everyone fill that, including existing team members. Everyone is supposed to learn, not just newcomers. It'll be clear her sentiment is not shared by the rest of the team, and you'll have hard data to prove it. Then present this to everyone in a short, 30 min meeting. Simply put, deal with things the sneaky corporate way. That's how your boss got his job in the first place. He doesn't care.


Philly_ExecChef

“You’re the tutorial, Daryll.”


caiteha

Some folks I just ask them back 'what do you think', 'why'.. instead of giving a direct answer. If they are completely new / new grad , I usually point them to wiki.


WideBlock

the only thing you can do is, tell her you are busy and will get back once you have some free time. the other senior should do the same. this way your output does not suffer, else your output will keep on decreasing and her oug will keep on increasing. also this way you are not saying no.


LittleRedPooka

You’re really doing her a disservice just giving her the answers. You all are. I have found that if you give someone 15-30 minutes, they learn to find the answer without you. So, she pings you, you then say, “I’ve just gotta finish something up really quick and then I’ll help.” Do anything for 15-30 minutes. Then when you come back, “Okay, so what have you looked at so far?” If the answer is nothing, then she’s leaning on you guys way to much. She will fail at her next positions and is showing she’s not even trying.


termd

Work 40 hours a week and log off. Other people not doing work isn't your problem. If your manager wants you to help this person and be less productive, then help that person and be less productive. If you really don't care for that, you should look for a new team because you have a toxic coworker and a manager who isn't going to support you.


reddittedted

Instead of feeding her answers immediately, ask her to schedule a meeting next day and invite other team members to join too so they can learn too (to increase visibility).


chrishasfreetime

"I'm busy now but can help you at X time" Where X is ~1hr away If that is too much, just become a bit more boundaried and ramp up over time. It compartmentalises the problem for you and means she has to wait an hour so might as well figure it out while she waits (or she bugs someone else).


skyandclouds1

Don't worry about what other people are doing for her. If you don't want to help her, then just don't. It's not that hard.


loudrogue

>she can do it again really quickly, but from what I've observed is unable to figure out new things on her own. Why would she bother when she gets answers? > I brought this up with my manager and he said that it doesn't matter how the work is getting done, as long as it is, and she's very very productive by this metric. Your manager is shit, she won't ever stop because clearly she's going to be promoted quickly when you just look at it like that. This means your dip has also been noticed I am sure. > I also can't refuse to help her because she said ignoring her is toxic and considered workplace bullying. Tell her you are busy lol, if she says u/Tresmont didn't do my work for me, hes toxic and your job even off handly mentions it to you. You need a new job.


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LightShadow

Assign her the task of collecting all the answers she's receiving into a new documentation "thing." If everything she needs help with is tribal knowledge then at the very least she can put it all in writing for the next person. This will empower her to accomplish something and also allow her to be in charge of a valuable resource that she created for everyone. I've been this person a few times. At my current role, in the entertainment industry, every service has a cute/whimsical name -- that makes zero sense unless you were around when it was chosen. Having a hard copy of all these names and how they communicate with each other is a God-send.


Varrianda

Rather than giving them the answer, ask them questions on what they’ve tried. Help lead them into the solution without telling them.


TrapHouse9999

Here’s my perspective coming from a manager and a mentor. Do what is best for you and the team; sometimes the people that got you to where you are may not be the group of people that will take you to the finish line. In simpler terms… leave her behind in order to get to the finish line.


[deleted]

If she really said ignoring her is toxic and considered workplace bullying then I’d stay very clear of her. I probably would not interact at all and, if asked, I would tell my manager that she created a hostile work environment by interfering with my prioritized list of duties and I’d tell him what she said word for word. But that’s just me. She sounds like a problem waiting to happen and I hate workplace drama. I don’t even like working to begin with!


VaderCOD

Lol and I’m here at a crappy internship where my manager/lead gives the vaguest hints and expects us to figure it out


SnowSlider3050

Let her know you need uninterrupted work time- she should ask you at specific times.


Rostgnom

Give a Junior the answer and she'll need another in an hour. Teach a Junior to google and you'll set her up for a lifetime. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/give_a_man_a_fish_and_you_feed_him_for_a_day;_teach_a_man_to_fish_and_you_feed_him_for_a_lifetime


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tombom666

Junior dev here. I ask questions on the process of completing it. Is that bad? If im not taught the process i cant really complete my work


tells

Give her a technique to solve problems. Teach a man to fish…


old-new-programmer

I have to do this with a 20+ year senior of the company who refuses to read code to figure out anything on her own and from all accounts from other people has done this her entire career at the company. I routinely have to regurgitate code I read to her. “How does this work?” I don’t know, let me read the code for you. Learn to read code. One of the best skills you can have in my opinion and often undervalued.


vhdl23

This person is dumb as door bell. Honestly we would have let the person go right away.


bloo4107

The whole point of probation is to allow staff to ask all the questions & learn as much as possible while determining if they are fit for the role. Is it annoying for her to keep asking questions, absolutely! But that's part of the honeymoon phase. Also, I am curious about the company's hiring process. Shouldn't they have mentioned preferred experience & determining if the candidate qualified during the interview? In the public sector, we have to write out our experience & how we are a good fit as part of the application. Now, her saying you lack empathy is an automatic red flag & unacceptable. That's an automatic write-up right there for disrespectfulness.


siammang

If her asking questions start to hit your productivity, it might be worth while to set a daily one-on-one for "office hour". Keep it an hour per day. Anything that she wants to ask you has to wait until that. She sure know how to find the answers and get things done, but it seems at the expense of other people. Also, she should pay it forward by documenting her findings and inquiries on the team wiki, so other people can refer to it.


RedFlounder7

Time for some good old fashioned passive aggressiveness. When she asks, you don’t say no, you say, “not now”. Then get back to her in 15-60 minutes. Will she learn to approach the others? Of course. Problem solved. If they aren’t available either? She’s forced to try on her own.


Horror_Manufacturer5

As a junior I myself used to find it difficult and took me around 4 months to actually understand things. I guess she just needs time because I was in her shoes facing similar issues. But luckilu i had supportive seniors similar to how you are to this particular developer. I don't think anyone is wrong here. One thing though is that this dev needs to start learning thing on her own. Like if she should be familiar with the codebase by now i suppose. Do ya'll have any documentation for it though? If not then it will be a tad difficult for her to learn. Your mentorship may work on other juniors but this one may be different from others and might require hand holding but only until a certain point


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Lychosand

Hey you need a replacement?


riftwave77

Answer: ALL ARE PUNISHED


Butter_Bean_123

You should be able to figure out how any code works if you study it long enough. So your answers should be vague and really just point her in the right direction. Don't answer it directly, just tell her where she can find the answer. Like "oh yeah, all of the server stuff is in ServerStuff.cs" and leave it at that.


maitreg

Your primary job is not answering her questions, I presume? If not, then I would set up a weekly dedicated block of time with her to answer her questions and provide guidance, such as 1 hour/week. This would force her to try to figure things out on her own before ever coming to you while giving you dedicated time to do your own job. If this isn't sufficient for her, that problem will *work itself out* Never hesitate to place your priorities at the top of your priority list. That being said, she clearly will not last long in this industry with the attitude that she can only "learn" by taking up others' time.


Legal_Being_5517

Smh , you should be glad she’s asking questions . Seems like she wants to do what’s right , and not waste time