Not all preferences are reasonable.

I've seen multiple posts by the author of this piece and I wouldn't want to work with that person. I've worked with people who have similar personalities, and it's just not worth it. You can find competent people who are easier to get along with.

What does worth it mean to you? I worked relatively near the author of this post in the past, and she’s totally brilliant. Saved our company’s ass over and over again. I personally learned a ton from her and still look up to her immensely even though she left behind a mean (anonymous) complaint about me and probably thinks not very highly of me :p

How old are you? I’m in my thirties and if someone left a mean anonymous note about me I would be pissy about that for a few years before I’d find it mildly amusing. Congrats! (in case there is doubt: not being sarcastic)

Yeah, mean anonymous notes are childish. Be an adult and have a conversation with the person you have a problem with.

I understand what you're getting at here and my hypocrisy did cross my mind when I was typing my comment, but please recognize the power imbalance between somebody like me who is very junior in their career and a visibly-brilliant 20X Engineer with an established audience. It's terrifying to think of the reputational and career ramifications of being a War Story topic for somebody in that very influential camp. My late-night comment wording wasn't the best, and what I was trying (and perhaps failing) to get at was that Rachel belongs to a class of engineer so outstandingly capable that dealing with any faults they may have is still totally worth it. Definitely so on an overall-corporate-success level, but even so on the very personal level. I learned so much by just being in her orbit for a brief point in time that I'd still jump at the chance to be in that position again despite how scared I know I would be of fucking anything else up. The career growth via skill osmosis is worth it to me.

Or put your name on it.

John Hancock didn't sign "Concerned Former British Citizen"

Nah, I didn't mean it like that. I'm a big boy and can handle criticism. It was just hurtful to read a rant about myself from someone I considered kind of an idol before that. It wasn't incorrect or undeserved at all but I just wished I'd been asked my side. I'd rather not identify myself to explain more, especially since Rachel comments here. (Hi Rachel, keep being awesome and ignore the haters!)

> What does worth it mean to you?

Not the parent, not having a strong opinion on the author, but have felt similar about some people in the past. "Difficult to work with" is an issue, and I too prefer to avoid people that sort into that category. They'd have to be actually brilliant to make up for it, just being really, really good doesn't cut it.

Why? Because they add friction to things, and they poison the team's ability to get work done. Difficult people are not fun to work with, so everyone avoids them. And then they avoid using things the difficult person built because using it would mean you'd have to work with them if you run into issues, or want to improve it etc.

It's just much easier to find people that are easy to work with, and working with them is much more enjoyable. Even if they were not as good, my personal experience is that replacing one difficult person with two others is well worth it. A happy team is way more productive and makes up for it easily, so accepting someone that's difficult to work with is generally "not worth it" to me.

Uh... what?