Espionage was not in the job description

I think it's time for a skip level. We're talking to Bart's boss. That's what I'd do.

Would you do that 3 weeks into a new job?

I would tell Bart that he was micromanaging me. I would tell him the impact of the things I've done. And if Bart's still on my neck, I absolutely would go to his boss. Yeah. You're listening to Off the VPN.

The show where two work besties get real about working in tech.

You've done the homework for, I think, the last couple episodes and you have another story for us this week.

Okay, so I have a story for you.

Okay.

And today's story is about instincts.

Instincts.

Or yes, first impressions, if you will. This story centers around a fellow software engineer who who we're going to call Lily.

Ooh, hey Lily.

What's up Lily?

Short for Liliana.

Short for whatever you want it to be.

Lil, can I call her Lil? Lil Instinct? Call her Lil. That's her, her, um, rapper name. Lil Instinct.

Yeah, that's a good one. Hold on, hold on to that for this story. So Lily, fellow software engineer, gets laid off in 2023.

RIP.

And yeah, rough. But like most people in this situation, she's like, all right, gotta bounce back. She gets on the job search right away. Out of all of the places that Lily interviews at, there's only one that really stands out as a place where she genuinely clicks with the entire team, loves most of the people she meets. Keyword being most of the people she meets. Oh, so she talks to you.

Who is Beef Whit Little Instinct?

Who is me with Liliana, Lil Instinct. She talks to a bunch of other engineers at the company, like while she's interviewing, thinks they're great. The company itself is working on problems that she's really interested in. They are working in an area that she has expertise in. This is probably gonna be a great fit. She loves the director of engineering, which I feel like is really important to sort of, you know, be bought into your leadership team. The only person that Lily's unsure about during this interview process is one of the engineering managers that she meets.

Is it her engineering manager or just engineering manager?

It's a engineering manager. She doesn't know at the time of interviewing her manager will be, but they set her up with just me with an EM on the team, that type of thing. So this guy is like impossible to read, and I think that's why Lily's really struggling because everybody else, she just immediately clicked with them and like, you know, had a rapport almost immediately. This guy, she's like, just like so unsure about him. He's saying things that, you know, like the words are quite arrogant in nature.

Oh no.

But the way that he's saying it is like lessening the blow. So she's just like, I don't, I just like don't know what to do.

Like nefarious. Like it's giving something seems off, but it's not outright.

Right. Right, exactly. And she's just like, I'm getting a bad vibe, but like, I don't know how much of this is him or like I'm reading into things, right? Like, she's just like, I'm just so unsure. But whatever, she leaves the interview. Overall, she's feeling mostly positive. A few days later, Lily's offered a position as a staff engineer.

Okay, come through, staff.

Yeah. So what, like, what are you thinking so far? Put yourself in Lily's shoes. What, what are some things you'd be considering?

I mean, we're coming in staff, it's a big job. I mean, with staff, right? Like you're like a technical leader. You might not have people reporting to you, but you're probably gonna work a lot with folks like EMs because on the like org chart, you guys are parallel, right? Or in similar levels, just down different tracks. Yeah. So I imagine like given that everything seems good. Like, she's like happy with everybody else. Don't let like one bad apple kind of, um, sour the pie. I don't know, I'm just making up— that's a, that's a new metaphor.

That is a saying though, don't let one bad apple— is it sour the bunch?

Girl, I have no idea.

I like, I like sour the pie though.

Sour the pie. Although I think if you let it in, it will make the pie gross, so I don't think it's an effective metaphor, but It's fine. The point is, like, you might have to work with that person given you, you might be peers there, basically, is what I'm trying to get about.

But it's not like a make or break for you?

Um, no, no, but I think— no, I don't think so. I mean, it all depends. Like, you, you might have to work with that person, but you can always work around them and things.

And also at this point, Lily's like, there's a chance that they're not my manager. There's other, there's a bunch of other EMs, so yeah, I might be fine.

There's also a lot of people that the first time I met them and I got like a weird or uncomfortable, I ended up liking them down the road. Sometimes when you meet someone and you have a first impression, they mirror something or you project something based off of like the absence of something or your own, like, I can't figure this person out and I feel uncomfortable. There can always be something there and then. I actually find like trying to, when you eventually build a relationship, it's not always true. Sometimes you'll beef. We got beef, we got beef forever. Like that's definitely a thing.

But that's this Cardi B, uh, that's a song.

Um, but ever, but yeah, you either beef forever or you might even become friends. I don't know. What do you think? What are you thinking?

I like to believe in second chances and you never know, like someone could be having a bad day or a weird day, or I don't like to base my opinions on anyone's character off of one conversation. And especially I think interviews are just really difficult and weird and contrived even on both ends, even if you're the one interviewing and not being interviewed. So I definitely think I would, I would give that person the benefit of the doubt and I would recognize like, yeah, I got a weird vibe and I'm unsure, but If I loved everybody else and I really enjoyed the company and what they work on, I for sure would go for it without hesitation.

There's also this exact reverse. Have, have you had that happen to you where you actually really dug someone the first time and then after a few times you were like, oh, I don't know about this. Like, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. But it goes both ways. No one's safe on the first, after the first conversation.

Yeah.

1000%. We need more data. We need more data. We're data people. We can't just like sample size of one meeting. Like that's not gonna work.

We need more vibe data.

More vibe data in the, in the dataset. Yeah. So that's like essentially what Lily does. She's like, we're gonna accept this offer. This is a great offer. And she ultimately obviously hopes that her manager is not the one that she was unsure about. There's other managers to choose from. And she accepts the offer anyway. Like, what could go wrong here? Day 1 at the new job, her engineering manager is, of course, the man that she was unsure about. First weekend, she gets brought into a rescue mission to save a project that another developer on the team she joined has basically bungled. It's just not going well. We're going to call this other developer Tim. Tim is important to the story. Lily's read on the situation is that Tim just sold himself as a principal engineer and then like very quickly started to flounder a bit and needed a lot of guidance and honestly developed some pretty poor habits. And so Lily's first task was really to just like force her way into this project with the other, with the principal engineer and get things back on track. As she's doing this, she immediately notices red flags. Obviously, there's friction between Tim and the EM. Oh, Tim doesn't have all the context he needs, and yet the EM isn't offering Tim this information either. So Lily's just, this is a mess. And by the way, Lily likes Tim. She thinks that he's just been like not set up for success. She's like, sure, he's not really a principal engineer. Not sure how people got that misconception in their head, but like, he's a smart guy. He's really good at what he does. He just needs a little bit more support than what he's been given. She's like, the EM should really be supporting him. But then the engineering manager shifts his attention away from Tim specifically and how that project's going and focuses on, Lily.

Oh no. What's up? What's the EM's name? Are we not personifying them?

We did not personify them. Would you like to?

We're gonna go with Bart.

Bart, love it.

I was thinking Bartholomew, but Bart for short.

Yeah, I don't want to have to say Bartholomew like—

yeah, no, I figured. But that was the first word that came to my mind.

Bartholomew. See, I can't even do it once. Bart.

Okay, all right, so Bart— Bart is our— Bart, who should be focusing on Tim because that's literally his job, is now looking at our girl Lily, AKA Lil Instinct.

AKA Lil Instinct.

Now, now, now, why? Because like clearly you got bigger problems. So I'm curious, why is it because Lily's stepping on his territory with this project? I wonder if there's some, hey, I got this, even though they clearly don't got this. Which, by the way, before we even get to this, yeah, the— I thought it was really interesting, something that you said, that they sent Lily to go fix the situation. Yeah. Do they know that? Because it feels like there's some, like, this is, you know, I'm so anti going around and loop-de-looping. I'm like, I go straight through them. Like, listen, I'd be like, we're sending Lily, she's gonna help move this thing forward, here's what I'm seeing, direct feedback, period. So this feels contorted.

Does the EM know? Yeah.

Yeah. Whoever sent Lily, like whoever the powers that be that sent Lily to go fix, save this project over there, should have said that. Makes it clear.

I think the E, EM, Bartholomew, Bart, is, Bart was part of that. Bart was part of that decision-making process. Oh, okay. Lily, new staff engineer, you're coming in. I need you to go over there. And join this project? I need you to—

Okay so Bart tip!

Bart knows what's going on or he knows that the project was not doing well okay?!

And then there we're sending Lil Instinct Lily over there just making sure I understand all right yeah now it has turned into his eye of Lilly for some reason but see yes... So turns him onto me and proceeds monitor her oh no nonono barbless That word "monitor" like ughh my godness And remember what I said earlier, they're essentially peers. Yes.

Yes, they are. This is relevant. This is a relevant point, Jasmine. You're on to something here.

Oh, ho ho. All right, what happens next? Tell me!

Here we go. So Bart is literally what it feels like he's watching Lily's every move. He is full-blown, like, surveilling her calendar. I am upset that this is like the second or third time we've talked about calendar surveillance on this podcast. Why is this so common? Someone let me know.

That just says busy. Yeah.

Make that shit private, everybody. Keep people out of your—

You're like busy doing none of your business. That's what it is.

Oh my gosh. You should make that change. So it says that for everybody.

Can I? I wonder if Google would let me do that. It just says none of your business. Look at your own calendar.

Let's put a, let's write to Google's product team, whoever manages Calendar and say that's a feature request we'd really, really appreciate. Custom strings for busy statuses. So, Bart is looking at Lily's calendar and he basically is like, who are you meeting with? Your meeting should be limited. Your meeting should be limited.

What?

Because remember, Bart is like, I need you over here on this project that's failing. What are you doing over here meeting with all these people? But Lily, she's no junior, she's a staff engineer. She's over here like, what do you mean? This is not my first job. I know how to onboard myself.

Oh, nah.

I know.

Oh, she said this? Did she say this?

Or she thinks she said it to him, but these are Lily's words. Lily's like, I gotta go talk to people. That's how I'm gonna ramp. And by the way, she's not just talking for the sake of talking to build relationships. She's like meeting with stakeholders directly related to the project that she was put on within the company. She's talking to partner teams, like the—

yeah, that's— she's staff.

Yeah, she's staff. She's like, what concerns have you run into with, within like the code area I'm working with? She's gathering information. She's gathering data to do her job. Yeah. She also wants to meet people and start to like build relationships. But like Lily is lit— she's also going around to other eng teams, like where she can, and it's like sourcing quick wins for herself and for the rest of her team. She's like, oh, you have a thing over here that's slightly related to what we do. Like, we'll just add, we'll take that on. That's okay. No problem. So like she's literally being. She's onboarding herself.

She's a multiplier. That's, that's what she's supposed to do.

Yeah, be extremely proactive. And her engineering manager Bart cannot stand it.

Bart is the hater. But that's not even her manager though, right?

No, Bart is her manager.

Oh, I thought Bart was just Tim's manager. No. Yeah, I mean, he's just micromanaging her. Yeah.

Yeah, that's essentially what it is. And it, it just feels, it, I don't know, it just, it feels ridiculous. Like he got upset that she spoke to a product owner who was about to leave. He got upset that she was speaking to the core infrastructure team, that she met with other EMs, other tech leads.

Like, what is this guy's problem?

Yeah, Bart has major problems and, but it doesn't fit you.

I thought you were raised better than this.

It literally doesn't even end there because he's also pissed that Lily has delegated some tasks to Tim. Yeah. What? And yeah, he also is pissed that she like actually pairs with Tim on a few things just to see how work gets done. Like Lily has literally been at this company for 2 weeks. It's just part of her job. She knows what she needs to do to learn and she's doing it really quickly and she's doing it herself. It's all self-initiated. Apparently that's a good thing.

Like, what's his tea?

Well, apparently Bart was like, you're giving Tim too much leeway. Things that don't make sense to Lily, but he's all over the place and seems unhappy. Genuinely, Bart is unhappy about everything. What are you thinking? What are you thinking?

I think it's time for a skip level. We're talking about Bart's boss. That's what I'd do.

Would you do that 3 weeks into a new job?

I would tell Bart that he was micromanaging me. I would tell him the impact of the things I've done. And if Bart still on my neck, I absolutely would go to his boss. Yeah, 1,000%. And if they fire me, like, if he already, like, doesn't matter how good I'm doing, like, we're, like, some people would be like, oh, I'm worried about being fired and that's why I don't want to tell your boss. If he has it in his head that you're not performing or you're not doing it, you're already done. It doesn't matter how good you do your job. And that's why, again, like I'm super straightforward, which, you know, some people don't like that. Some people appreciate that, but sometimes you need to go and just handle the problem right away. I'd be like, Bart, what's the tea? Like, you keep, I'm doing all of these things. It seems positive. Here's the impact I'm making for the company. And you know what, if Bart, depending on what it is, I don't know if it's— if he has actual reasons why there's maybe misalignment, you can raise that. Or if what I'm thinking, it's like some insecurity here, or he's projecting, when you call him out on it, he's gonna ask himself, why am I being so upset? Why am I staring at your calendar? So make him start thinking things. You gotta start asking, Bart, explain to me, why do you think that makes sense? What do you think I should be doing with that time instead? Well, don't you think if I would pull the book at him, I'd be like, staff level here. I would be sending him highlighted things. Like, I would not— Bart, if you think you bullying me, you got another thing coming. I'm staff level. I could take my talent elsewhere. Like, listen, don't, don't, don't play with me. Don't play with me.

Yeah, 1,000%.

I started looking at his calendar is the next escalation.

Oh, I guarantee you, I'm like, Bart, what did you do this week?

Start flipping it over. I've done that. I'm like, why don't you tell me what you're up to? Pro move is ask your boss what they do. It's fun. Sometimes it's actually really illuminating and you can learn a lot, but I feel like people are too afraid to ask questions.

Oh yeah. 1000%. Yeah.

And I say you should.

Listen, you should ask questions. That is always, I think asking questions is always a safe thing. Curiosity is a good thing. Depends on how you ask them, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.

Of course. But, well, like, Lily, she's a little— she's in a little bit of a different situation because she just started this job. She was let go, you know, just a few months prior from her previous job. However, Lily is like, oh, I fucked up. Meanwhile, Lily is like, oh, I, I messed up. Like, I messed up big time. And it's basically now been a month of this, whatever, calendar surveillance, micromanagement. She's working with another engineer and some other people on her team. Project is going sideways. The boss is not handling it well because he's micromanaging everybody, right? Like she, she's been like a month into this mess. She's, I messed up. I'm probably gonna start looking for a new job again. So she goes the route of, I'm just gonna start putting feelers out there rather than I'm gonna go do a skip level.

So it's avoiding the problem.

She's avoiding the problem at this point. Yes, I think she is like, my little instinct, this is far beyond what I want to deal with. I would rather leave.

I respect that. At least she's doing something about it though. Yes, like even though she's avoiding the conflict, she is at least not sitting in it. That's something.

Exactly. So, you know, it's now we're like 5 weeks in. Lily shows up to work and finds out that one of the engineers on the team is being let go.

Is it Tim?

It's not Tim.

It's one of the other engineers, but Tim's being paid a principal salary without principal skills.

Yeah, it's not Tim. It's another engineer on the team. And, uh, you know, Lily sees that and apparently it is because of, right, it's under the guise of this project is going sideways. We had to let go of, so, and Lily's like, 'Oh yeah, I gotta get out of here.' This is now urgent. She feels she is on the chopping block next, especially she has like lay—

layoff trauma. This is feeling like this has all happened before. I, I see the signs, like you're, you're looking everywhere. Layoff trauma is a real thing.

Oh, 1000%.

I've been fortunate not to have to do that, but I've met people where it's— or even, you know, you know, you that you start to see little signs and you start to get anxious that, or even just being fired or something, you start to get anxious that's gonna happen. Then you get paranoid. I'm not saying that's what's happening to Lily, but it's definitely not helping her right now.

No. And I would say that she described it that way herself, where she was like, yeah, this is not looking good. I'm seeing signs and like, why wouldn't I be next? I think that's definitely a little bit of what's happening here. So another few weeks go by and you guessed it, somebody else gets let go. Tim's gone, man. Your boy Tim, our principal yet not principal engineer.

Yeah. And see, and this is also why I say titles don't matter when you're hiring. Yeah. Because people will be slapping titles everywhere, but it doesn't mean they have the skill that fits the bill. But shout out to Tim cuz he got principal salary, like I, I respect it.

Wonder how long it lasted. Yeah. A little bit of respect for that.

But that's rough. That's rough.

It is rough. And you know what, like Lily, over the course of whatever, the 5 weeks now that she's been there, like she grew close to Tim, right? Because that's sort of who was owning the project before she joined. Right. And so she talks to her manager about this and she's, cuz she's just rightfully upset. Like she wants to understand what happened and she conveys, I just don't think Tim was really set up for success. And that arrogant energy that Lily picked up on in the interview with Bart immediately comes back. This guy is lowkey like smug about getting rid of Tim.

Oh, Bart.

Yeah. And Lily, Lily now is like, okay, I really, really, really have to get the heck outta here. This is bad.

My thing is like, you have all these engineers, you have this project, like the thing's not going well. There is like a singular thing connecting all of them. There's a common denominator.

What is that, Jasmine?

And it sounds like a 16th century character. Bartholomew.

Uh-huh. Yes, it's a very good observation.

I'm just saying, like, I don't know if leadership is being held accountable here.

I love where your head is at. Absolutely love it. Shall we continue?

Yeah.

So the team absolutely falls apart.

Like it's literally, I mean, clearly like you start chopping people off. Do you think that's gonna make the project more successful? Like, no. In what universe did we think that was going to help?

No, it's a disastrous situation.

Who's making these choices? This is all Bart. Does he not need to get those approved? Like, how does that even work?

There's a, there's a director of engineering, so we're— he—

I thought we like him, the director.

We do like him.

Lily likes him, right?

Lily likes him. He will enter soon.

And so, yeah, stage left, stage left.

He will, he will be here in a few lines. Basically, the director of engineering, all the EMs, there's a discussion, right? And they decide to bring in a another established staff engineer from one of the other teams to join the team to work with Lily to help out. Because obviously this team is a mess. This is a, it's a literally like, it's a heaping pile of shit.

And I'm like, do they know what the problem is? Are they just throwing out like reorgs here? Like, is that like, I feel like that's like the button that you click. Like what else? Like they just throw people at that and think it's gonna solve it versus this is literally the EM's job.

I know, I would literally— I would love some technical details on what happened here, but I don't have—

Bart has some, has some blackmail on the director of engineering or something, like, I don't know.

Lily's like, okay, great, at least I'm like not carrying this load entirely on my own shoulders. We have another staff engineer who comes in. Basically, this is like Tim's This is the replacement for Tim and the other engineer. As they're going along, Lily is still like, this is just an impossible situation. I'm still new to this company. Two people have just been fired from my team. My manager doesn't let me go and talk to anybody to gather context or like do my job how I know how to do my job. The project is just like still going downhill.

It's what I wanna know. What I wanna know is Bart looking at this staff level's calendar? That's what I wanna know.

The new staff person. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, probably.

Bart seems like he's looking at everybody when Bart needs to be looking at himself.

You have a lot of time on your hands to be staring at my calendar. This is, this is stressful.

I feel for Lily, and like, I absolutely would be putting out feelers and interviewing in my stuff.

Yeah, she's, she has those conspicuous lunch hours where she's actually interviewing in the middle of the day, and we know Bart's looking at that, so whatever. Yeah. Oh my God.

Yeah!

Oh Bart—

Another few weeks go by and some good news—

she has a job. Bart's fired?

Word is made public that Bart has been fired.

Oh my God finally but wait what do you mean Lily gets called into a meeting with an engineering director no no no no no no no no uh nooo! No, don't tell me. No, no, not Lil Instinct.

Don't do it to her.

Don't do it to her. No.

Yeah. So Lily sits down with the engineering director, and this guy basically goes, listen, I am so sorry for all of the turmoil that you have been experiencing. I need you to understand that other staff engineer that we just put on your team, that wasn't a replacement for Tim. He was a spy. He was put there to spy on you. Oh, what?

What? He was double 007 the whole time? Wait, what?

He was put there to die on Bond. Yep.

Wait, 007 was looking at this calendar. Stop. Wait.

Yeah.

Wait.

Yeah.

Hold on, I'm processing.

I know, I know. Okay.

So you're saying up to this point. Yeah. So Bart's like, all right, team's not doing well. I have a principal that was his, he managed principal who's not really principal material. And then I hire a new staff engineer to come fix the problem because I think that's the resource problem is we need more staff. Well, and they think they spent more money on that team and then it's still not working. So they're like, actually it's because we need, we don't need these people. And there's maybe he's like, oh, it's bloat or something. Bang! Other engineers gone. Bang! Tim's gone. They're the problem. They're still not performing. All right, director of engineering's like, something seems up. And honestly, I know that I can't be the one to do this to my golf buddy, so it's time to send in 007. So he sends in an op into the team. Like, everyone's thinking, oh, this is going to be the new reorg. Like, really? We just need two staff level? Psych! I'm trying to see what the real problem is. And then he had to go off and fire his golf buddy, Sip and Paint, secretly his cousin Bart, AKA Bartholomew, 16th century EM.

Wow. Yep, you have it all right. That is exactly what happened.

That's crazy. It be, it be your own. It be your own.

It'd be your own. Yep. Double O came in and was like, listen, Bart is the problem. Bart is gone after that happens.

Wow. But does Lily still have a job? That's what I'm nervous about.

Lily is not getting fired. In fact, the engineering director—

yay! Oh my gosh, I know these never happen in our stories. They're already— they're always so depressing.

I know, no, we're ending, we're ending on a good note. We're ending on a good note for once.

All right, all right, Lil Instinct, let's go!

He's not getting fired. In fact, the engineering director is extremely apologetic. He asks her, he's like, please give me a second chance. He literally just assumes that she's looking because it's been such a shit show that he's just give me a second chance. Just give us a second chance. Like we're, we will fix this. I genuinely apologize. Bart is gone. We understand what happened, but this won't happen again.

The Wicked Witch of the West is gone.

The—

you, Ariana Grande.

That's the situation. And you know, Lily's like, holy shit. She decides to give him a second chance. Crazy. And like I said, she just ends up like really, really liking this director, has like just the utmost respect for him. And Lily's—

who does she report to? Does she report to the director now?

Unclear.

Because that's how it should be. I think. Yeah, I'd be like, you know what, I'll stay, but you're my boss now. Thanks.

She has some room for bargaining there, but, um, wow. Yeah, she's still there to this day. I am—

the spy, the spy line got me. That's actually— put that in the books. More directors of engineering need to— they need to take a playbook, this playbook. Sending a spy. Yeah, that is genius. I love the grand reveal too. This is validating though. I want to take a moment to like think about this and like, yes, the dynamics in just the tech industry and specifically in engineering product teams. This is real. Like, this is like not totally crazy. This is validating to me of politics and like work industry stuff that just happens on a day-to-day basis and like Also why, like, understanding, like, defining what productivity means and, like, having good leadership, like, means. And wow. Like, I think this is very validating that it's legit like a movie. Like, I feel like I was watching, oh, this is like a psychological thriller, but this is everyday life. No. Yeah.

This, these were people's lives. And honestly, like, the sad thing, like, the quiet part that no one's saying out loud is like 2 people had to be fired when really it was like Bart who was sort of the one messing up and responsible for all of the chaos and not all of it, probably there are other people contributing, but most of the chaos. These are people's lives. Ultimately at the end of the day, like it's a good thing that the engineering director came around and decided he needed to turn to corporate espionage. Is that the right—

corporate espionage.

Is that the right term?

That might be the name of our episode actually.

But like, Yeah, this, it, it sucks that like 2 people had to, had to be fired when it was just like Bart messing up the whole time. Rough.

I mean, I hate that it took so long.

Yeah.

But yeah, I do think like more leaders need to be like made accountable. And I think that's true of what if it was the director this whole time's fault, who's gonna hold the director accountable? Yep.

Yeah, you know, 1,000%.

But do you remember what I said earlier? What was the first thing I said after I said I'd tell him what's up? What did I say? I said I would have a skip level immediately. I know, that was 2 weeks in. Yeah, if she like brought that up to this director of engineering, this probably could have went a lot faster. Yep. I'm not blaming her. No, to be clear. But I do think that's where she could have already moved this, and maybe he would have listened, maybe it wouldn't have worked out. But I do think trying is so important. Like, I do think communicating feedback is important because who knows, maybe Bart could have had his issues corrected before it got this far.

It's very true. It's a very—

probably not because he sounds terrible.

But, but to your point, like, it doesn't seem like anybody called Bart out. I'm not defending him at all, but if somebody brings things to you about your behavior, like, there is a chance that you just literally are so in it that you did not step out to see what you were doing. Bart could have, in his head, had all sorts of logical reasons for why he was trying to limit Lily's meetings and who she was talking to. But until that's called out to him as like, bro, you're micromanaging me, here's the effect that it's having— maybe not in those exact words, but get that point across— like, he might just be like completely not self-aware. So like, you, you do have to raise those things, whether it's directly in a skip level, like somehow that feedback has to come through. And you're right, maybe there could have been some intervention point. Not blaming Lily, but it's just a good lesson in like, well, now 3 people lost their jobs because nobody was talking about this. We had to bring in double 07 because there was a hunch maybe that this project's not been going well. Like it took a long time to get there.

I feel like this is so common and I don't know if it's just like a people thing or an engineering culture thing. I feel like people struggle so much with feedback and sharing how they feel about things, or even just setting boundaries. I do feel like it's a learned skill. Like I can tell you when I was like baby junior engineer, like this, I didn't, someone told me that I would just probably follow what they were doing and cry every day. But now, like I would be more responsive to those things. But I feel like as a staff level, I'm really surprised. That's something that she should learn. I think that's like a good soft skill that is really important outside of your technical skill to develop so you can advocate for yourself. And I thought it was crazy cuz she went to advocate for Tim, but not for herself, right? Hey, Tim got fired. Like, why?

Let's do this.

She's so easy to do that for others, but I think it's just as important, if not more important, to be able to do that for yourself.

That's a very good point. She did, she really went and immediately was like, we need to talk about Tim. Why did this happen? But We have no evidence that she tried to address the situation with herself.

Yeah. Be like, I'm a staff engineer. I know how to manage my own priorities, but thanks.

Like, you have something specific.

Like, you literally pulled me on because this thing is to save your, save everything.

Yeah.

Like, get, get out of my, oh my God. I actually hope, this is a terrible thing to hope, but I want someone to tell me they've been looking at it. You have no idea. Like, I'm ready. I'm so ready. I'm like locked and loaded. Someone's like, oh, I'm looking at your calendar. Oh my God, Allison.

Oh, I'm pretty sure the only person who like deeply looks at your calendar is me.

Oh no, for sure. You're low-key a calendar stalker. Like, that's why this is actually fun. I wasn't gonna say it, but you kind of are.

Well, I'm only—

I'm—

I only stalk calendars when I'm trying to schedule meetings with people. You have to do it. You have to do it. Some people just start—

we should start doing that, being like, why are you meeting with this person? To see what happens. That's like so— like, that would give me so much paranoia.

I would feel so violated. Like, that's what I would feel, is I would just immediately be like really uncomfortable. Like, I wouldn't even be able to hide that. Well, we ended on a happy note today. Oh, you said Lil Instinct thriving, hopefully.

Instinct.

Yeah, Bart.

Bart's probably just doing damage somewhere else because no one gave him feedback. I just remember, tell your bosses what's up.

Tell your bosses, or if you need to, your boss's bosses. Give feedback, get help. Don't deal— don't deal with shit like this. Don't do it.

Don't—

it's not worth it.

It's really not. It's really not. There's tons of ways to do it in a way that they might even appreciate.

Yes.

Yeah, you never know.

All right, I'm gonna go make sandcastles now, so— oh, that sounds so nice.

No, I need a nap, but I actually have a lot of work to do today. Yeah, a girl can dream.

Let's go do our jobs.

See ya.

Bye.

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