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So, it occurs to me that I'm feeling guilty because I don't seem to be able to know how to reach one of my developers to get them the help needed to finish a project (that has gone on WAY longer than necessary). My developer is contractor from India (I believe) and when I hold his hand and help him every step of the way, he's very good. I just don't have the bandwidth to do this for every project.
The latest one should have taken 3 weeks to a month, at the most. Even for someone who is new and doesn't know our system, the modification was extremely straight-forward. This developer pretty much re-invented the wheel with his code; instead of taking advantage of existing functionality, he added a lot of (unneeded) bells and whistles to do the same thing the code was already doing.
Now, I've never done contract work (and I don't know that I ever want to), nor do I have to work in an environment where my native language is not the norm; I have the utmost respect for folks who are multi-lingual and have to function in a non-native environment. That just makes me wonder if my inability to coach this guy is a language-thing or a cultural-thing or if he's truly just not getting it.
I find myself getting frustrated with him and then feeling guilty about it. I pretty much have a say as to whether he continues to do contract work with us; he's a good developer, but it feels like it's only when I pretty much spoon-feed him the solution. Is it the right call for me to let my boss know that he's not cutting it? Or do I just give the guy projects that aren't time-sensitive or that are just the low-hanging bugs that no one has ever gotten to because no one really cares about them? Going that route would at least take care of our backlog of issues, but what do I say if/when he asks me for more challenging stuff?
I just kicked back the code that he's been working on for close to 3 months now (the 3 week project) and I'm very tempted to take it from him and give it to one of our other developers who I know will have it fixed within a day. Is that the right thing to do? Or do I give him the chance (again) to make it right?
Ugh!
The latest one should have taken 3 weeks to a month, at the most. Even for someone who is new and doesn't know our system, the modification was extremely straight-forward. This developer pretty much re-invented the wheel with his code; instead of taking advantage of existing functionality, he added a lot of (unneeded) bells and whistles to do the same thing the code was already doing.
Now, I've never done contract work (and I don't know that I ever want to), nor do I have to work in an environment where my native language is not the norm; I have the utmost respect for folks who are multi-lingual and have to function in a non-native environment. That just makes me wonder if my inability to coach this guy is a language-thing or a cultural-thing or if he's truly just not getting it.
I find myself getting frustrated with him and then feeling guilty about it. I pretty much have a say as to whether he continues to do contract work with us; he's a good developer, but it feels like it's only when I pretty much spoon-feed him the solution. Is it the right call for me to let my boss know that he's not cutting it? Or do I just give the guy projects that aren't time-sensitive or that are just the low-hanging bugs that no one has ever gotten to because no one really cares about them? Going that route would at least take care of our backlog of issues, but what do I say if/when he asks me for more challenging stuff?
I just kicked back the code that he's been working on for close to 3 months now (the 3 week project) and I'm very tempted to take it from him and give it to one of our other developers who I know will have it fixed within a day. Is that the right thing to do? Or do I give him the chance (again) to make it right?
Ugh!
