Section 2: Social issues

2.1: My hacker doesn’t fit in well with our corporate society. She seems to do her work well, but she’s not really making many friends.

This is common. Your hacker may not have found any people around who get along with hackers. You may wish to consider offering her a position telecommuting, or flexible hours (read: night shift), which may actually improve her productivity. Or, even better, hire another one.

2.2: My hacker seems to dress funny. Is there any way to impress upon him the importance of corporate appearance?

Well… let’s look at your view of clothing first, so that you’ll have a better chance at understanding how your hacker sees things differently.

You believe in showing respect for the company and those you work with. To you, much of that respect revolves around little details. These details are to you much of the substance of respect–such as that classy suit you wear to the office. So when a hacker wears jeans and a t-shirt to work, he must be showing disrespect, right?

Not really. Those jeans–kneeholes and all–are what he wears to see his best friend, whom he respects deeply. If your hacker happens to be a Christian, he may wear jeans and a T-shirt to church on Easter. I sometimes do, and when I dress up for church, it is more to avoid distracting other churchgoers than any need of fancy clothes in order to worship God. Hackers look past appearances, and it seems strange to them that you think they need uncomfortable clothes to work well: if it’s what’s inside the clothing that matters, why not wear something comfortable and be able to concentrate better?

If your hacker isn’t dressing up, how can he still respect your company? He works hard, solves problems, and probably thinks about ways to help your company be more productive–even when he’s at home. If he wants to wear comfortable clothing at work, it’s not disrespect; he just understands what IBM, Microsoft, and Ford all recognize: employees are most productive when they choose what to wear–not their company. If you ask your hacker respectfully, he’ll probably wear clothing without any holes, and might even dress up for a few special occasions.

Your suit is a professional asset. It helps other people see your professionalism. Your hacker’s t-shirt is also a professional asset. It’s part of a culture that judges a person by what’s inside his clothing, and he works better when comfortable. He doesn’t try to get you to dress like him; why don’t you extend the same courtesy to him?

2.3: My hacker won’t call me by my title, and doesn’t seem to respect me at all.

Your hacker doesn’t respect your title. Hackers don’t believe that management is “above” engineering; they believe that management is doing one job, and engineering is doing another. They may well frequently talk as if management is beneath them, but this is really quite fair; your question implies that you talk as if engineering is beneath you. Treat your hacker as an equal, and she will probably treat you as an equal–quite a compliment!

2.4: My hacker constantly insults the work of my other workers.

Take your hacker aside, and ask for details of what’s wrong with the existing work. It may be that there’s something wrong with it. Don’t let the fact that it runs most of the time fool you; your hacker is probably bothered by the fact that it crashes at all. As your customers will be–consider your hacker to be an early warning system. He may be able to suggest improvements which could dramatically improve performance, reliability, or other features. It’s worth looking into.

You may be able to convince your hacker to be more polite, but if there appear to be major differences, it’s quite possible that one or more of your existing staff are incompetent by his standards. Note that hackers, of course, have different standards of competence than many other people. (Read “different” as “much higher”.) Is this necessarily appropriate? All people have weaknesses. It would perhaps be nicer if hackers were more charitable to people who can’t match their talent, but you’re lucky to have someone on staff who’s competent enough for this to be a problem.