I used to work with a guy who was a tech lead on a project. He was getting constant pressure that he app he lead simply did not work. The problem all came down to a database connection that was being used in multiple threads.

I told him what the problem was. He said, great let’s make a meeting to talk about it. I wasn’t allowed to solve it just yet. I made the meeting. Everyone understood. The lead told me to then make a prototype, but still not allowed to just fix it. I made the prototype. The lead said we needed a meeting to talk about it. Still not allowed to just fix it.

Meanwhile we still get pressured to make the damn app work, the lead keeps saying that none ever bothered to read documentation and that we need to sit down and talk about how we are going to to solve.

This went on for several weeks. When I was finally allowed to solve the issue (not by him), I took only one day.

“Mock function calls untill no original code runs”

Sad Uncle Bob Noises

Some other ways:

Cultivate bitterness.

Find the pessimists in your organization, and disappoint them.

Make mean cynicism a part of your workplace culture. Do this by example: Promote mean cynics and put them in charge of things. But do it also by conversion: Behave in a way that makes mean cynics’ view of the world correct.

Reward bad personal habits to create internal conflicts between work and health.

If someone skips sleep to finish a project, give them a bonus. This gives them an internal conflict between approval and health, and teaches them that they can sacrifice their health to receive a reward.

Encourage a hard-drinking culture in teams that have stressful roles that demand team cohesion, like SRE or Ops teams with on-call requirements. This gives them an internal conflict between their support network and health.

If someone is sick, injured, bereaved, or otherwise suffering: Make it clear how much their condition is inconvenient to their coworkers, and how much their projects are impacted by their absence. Assure them that all will be well once they can conclude their personal problems and commit to the team. Do not, however, offer them any specific help; if they express specific needs for accommodation, disregard them as idle and unrealistic wishes.

In the spirit of “-10x is dragging everyone else down” I offer my take on +10x:

It’s not about personal productivity. It’s about the collective productivity that comes from developing and implementing processes that take advantage of all levels of skill, from neophyte to master, in ways that foster the growth of others, both in skill and in their ability to mentor, guide, and foster the growth of others. The ultimate goal is the “creation” of more masters and “multipliers” while making room for those whose aptitudes, desires, and ambitions differ from your own.

Recompilation should take at least 20 seconds… I wish my job’s source could compile in under two hours