The world is full of irrational people

Recently I took a personality test where I ended up being classified as an analytical person, and I am that indeed. How can I thrive in a world where the critical thinking and the rationality are being attacked everyday?

Irrational people in software development

Our profession, software development, is full of irrational people.

First of all, we do not work in Science, and in software development there are multiple ways of do the same thing. In Science you can have an hypothesis, design an experiment, get the data, and hence, refute or corroborate your hunch. In more pure Sciences like Mathematics, it is even better, as you can give proof that your hypothesis is correct (or incorrect).

Besides that, people get attached to tools and customs in our profession in a way I could not have imagined. Discussions about programming languages, coding styles, packages or libraries usually end up being emotional and based on opinions.

Unfriendliness (sometimes) wins

After years of interactions with some unfriendly, arrogant, and rude software developers, I have reached to the conclusion that being harsh pays out at the end. Because I do not understand how can it be a lot of developers that behave like capricious toddlers when taking decisions.

I have the (uncorroborated) hypothesis that certain grade of unfriendliness and ego is seen as “power” by others if the person as enough level of competence in the workplace.

Let me explain that: I think that most people do not want to deal with this antisocial people, but they are competent enough to not be terminated, so they get their way.

Domain experts?

I need to create a post about this, but while the market rewards job hopping by salary increases, companies reward staying and working for a long time there by promoting them (even if there is no salary increase).

Companies feel they are captives of these long-tenured employees, as they have internal knowledge, i.e. the domain knowledge. However, do not confuse the domain knowledge with good skills, following good practices, having sturdy foundations or keeping up to date with the state of the art of our discipline.

The developer knows everything because they worked in the old projects, simply that, and they have a high self-assessment of their craft.

How to deal with this?

Dealing with people that only like their own opinions does not usually goes well. However let me suggest some strategies that could help you:

Do not engage

While it is tempting to engage with irrational people and show them that they are in the wrong, it is not going to change anything. First of all they are not going to change their opinions. Also, there is a high probability of the conversation going to be evolve in behavior that is not exactly civil.

Disengaging and deflection are the best strategies to avoid a discussion that can resolve to nothing but name-calling and shouting. These people are not rational and will behave in an irrational way.

Ask questions

Instead of just giving your opinion, try to follow a question-and-answer chain where you start at the beginning and reach to the conclusion you want to show.

Always have witnesses

This applies to most difficult interactions in the workplace. Do not assume that people are going to defend the rational person. Your experience and their experience of the conversation can be different and if they escalate the situation to HR or to your manager, you can be in mud waters.

Be prepared for being blamed

In case you engage with irrational people, some spectators of the discussion will blame you. Why? It does not matter. It could be that you are not liked as much as your interlocutor, that you are an outsider, or that your arguments are not as strong as you think they are.

Conclusion

You need to be extremely careful around irrational people. They are irrational but not stupid, and some of them have psychopathic traits.