There’s one guy in my team that always wants to portray himself positively. So he loves talking, and, in my opinion, he basically keeps taking credit for other people’s ideas; or at least wants people to think he had some contribution to them.
So here are some clichéd phrases that he reels off in every meeting:
When someone says something good:
- “I was just about to say that”
- “I agree with that”
- “I was just thinking that”
If he thinks someone knows more than him:
- “We need to touch base”
- “We need to arrange a catch-up so we are on the same page”
If he says something stupid:
- “I’m only asking the question for everyone’s benefit”
- “I just wanted to call it out so the decision is documented”
Becky did a similar thing the other day:
Becky: “a menu option disappears until you log out and back in again. Do you think that is a feature?”
Sean: “Sounds like a bug”
Becky: “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking”
Sean: “If we introduced it, this will need to be fixed before the release goes out”
Becky: “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking”
No, you were thinking it was a feature like an idiot.
It turns out she was just logging in with a different user profile. So the feature wasn’t there to begin with on the first profile.
It annoys me when people just pretend to agree. If you don’t understand something, then someone needs to explain it to you more. In the first example, he does ask questions to get the information, but he also claims he agrees in an unreasonable number of situations. If someone comes up with an awesome idea, let them have their moment of glory rather than using phrases like “I was just about to say that”; because that devalues their contribution.
Stranger Coding Tings 