You Know, "That Guy"

You know the one I'm talking about. He's young and brilliant, and he knows it. In fact, in his mind, he's the only one that knows what's going on, and how things should be. He started when the company was smaller and is used to having the freedom to do whatever needed to be done, because that's just the way it was back in the day.

But now the company is bigger. People have moved in, around, and above him. Processes have changed. And it's not that anyone hasn't told him that, he just wants to be able to do what he's always done, even if it's someone else's department now.

I had an argument with "That Guy" today. You see, we just migrated our entire current product code from Microsoft Visual SourceSafe into Microsoft's new Team Foundation Server, and while he used to have Administrator access to the VSS server and databases, he has not been granted that kind of access to the new TFS server. The reason is simply this: source control management is my department's responsibility. He's just a developer. A brilliant one, yes, but still just a developer.

To his credit, he has never done anything detrimental to any server he has had access to in the past. I wouldn't go as far as to say that he's careful about it, just that he hasn't done anything bad so far. But he is impatient, and often reckless in his "getting things done," at the expense of any consultation or accountability. And our department is all about accountability - we like having an email trail of everything so there are no questions later as to why something was done the way it was. Believe me, it has been nothing but pain when there is no trail, and has saved our asses more than once when there was.

But the argument went on, and it became pretty apparent pretty fast that he was both taking it personally, and and did not want to lose his unchecked control over the source control system only for the sake of having the power to do what he wants when he wants.

I know we've capitulated to this guy many times in the past, but this time I'm putting my foot down. I was hired to do a job and I'm going to do it at the level of quality that has become expected of me. I can't do that if someone else is mucking around unfettered and not telling anyone what he's doing, let alone asking permission first. He simply has to accept that as the company has grown, responsibilities have shifted away from him and into different departments. It's time for him to grow up and get on with his job, and trust other people enough to do theirs.