They're not crazy, and it only works if they have more political capital than you do. If I was forced to accept substandard work, and had no other choice but either maintain that bad code, or quit, I'd threaten to quit too.
No, they are crazy. Reverting someone else's changes without explaining why is crazy. No one is telling these people they can't explain their actions.
If any of these people has a disagreement with a co-worker over the co-worker's changes, it's their duty as a fellow employee to explain to the co-worker why they disagree, or at least explain to the manager why they disagree with the change, so that the manager can explain it to the co-worker. But just making the change and then threatening to quit... that is most definitely crazy.
Just want to clarify that my response here is not related to the GitHub story. I have no knowledge of the circumstances that aren't in the story.
> No, they are crazy.
That may be.
> Reverting someone else's changes without explaining why is crazy.
Not necessarily. There are times when you are so wrong you aren't even wrong.
> If any of these people has a disagreement with a co-worker over the co-worker's changes, it's their duty as a fellow employee to explain to the co-worker why they disagree, or at least explain to the manager why they disagree with the change, so that the manager can explain it to the co-worker.
Let's imagine a scenario where they had done this, and yet nothing had corrected the problem. At that point, it would be quite reasonable to revert someone's changes without explaining why, and threatening to quit if one wasn't allowed to.
> If you are so wrong you aren't even wrong, there are bigger problems at play and you probably shouldn't be working in that position in the first place.
Which is precisely why it would be eminently reasonable to quit, and therefore reasonable to threaten to quit.
> But in that scenario, whether or not you quit should not be contingent upon whether or not the change is kept, it should be whether or not you have to continue to work with that person.
Right, but anything less than reverting the change means you have to put up with the person, which again... is why one might threaten to quit.
