They weren't equals organizationally. The manager was failing at his job, and the contractor was calling attention to it. While it can be argued this is unprofessional, the question is what is best for the company? Professionalism in this case would amount to coddling an incompetent manager, and creating more damage down the line.
The actions of the manager shows someone incompetent with a fragile ego feeling threatened and lashing out. The actions of the contractor shows someone guarding himself, searching for higher ground, and some teasing.
They are both failing in professionalism but there is a significant difference in magnitude of their failures.
I’m under the impression they’re writing that the actions they took weren’t great either.
I find it really interesting that the perspective on HN seem to be so split. There seems to be a group of people trying to defend the author, and a group of people that seem to come down on him for being unprofessional.
But then why post the company name publicly and not conclude with summary of what went wrong? The way it's written and ended, it felt more like a bash at Spotify with minor introspection instead of a honest story of a bad situation.
Actually, it is worse as he was a contractor, not an employee. Even though he mostly behaved as one. I think this was his key mistake.
Being viewed unfavorably by potential workplaces because of telling this story is a great fear, I admit.
The appropriate response to the (obviously) unhealthy manager in the situations described is to tactfully de-escalate while beginning the process of switching teams. Instead, the author seems fixated on “winning” every disagreement. If you think you can undermine your manager and backseat drive their processes, however flawed they may be, you are not going to produce positive outcomes for yourself or the team as described in the article.
A common misunderstanding of less mature employees is that only one person can be in the wrong in an interaction. The author writes as if the manager’s wrongdoings are a free pass for them to respond however they felt like, but the described responses come off as petty and unprofessional. Both parties can be in the wrong in interpersonal conflict situations, and these writings are a good example of what that looks like.
Going so far as to create a website publicly defending one’s behavior while seemingly oblivious to the fact that the described behavior is not a good look is an immature move. If I found this person’s resume in our application queue I would be extremely hesitant to hire them anywhere except maybe under the close guidance of a very strong manager who could mentor them closely and who wouldn’t hesitate to remove them from the company if they started demonstrating signs of combativeness or being a disgruntled employee. Advertising your “disgruntled fired employee” status online is not a good look, especially when you describe your own unprofessional behaviors in the process.