Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Be Kind

briangilham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 458 posts

Re: Be Kind

#421

Post by qb45 »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #290
qb45 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original wording is ambiguous. I too read it as if OP had some issues with people coming from there.

I like figuring out how to look at a sentence how others do (like those images that can be viewed two ways). But I'm having trouble with this one. Amazon devs being generally bad would not be suitable for use as a defense ("in my defense") for his behavior. I think it would require the assumption that he thinks that Amazon devs are generally bad as well as the assumption that he thinks that laughing at them is someth…

> I think it would require the assumption that he thinks that Amazon devs are generally bad as well as the assumption that he thinks that laughing at them is something that's generally permissible.

They are so bad that laughing is permissible.

Maybe you just don't spend enough time around arrogant people to interpret this sentence this way :)

Re: Be Kind

#422

Post by sheepmullet »

enraged_camel wrote: post #418
sheepmullet wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you can understand the extremely negative impact firing someone over a simple mistake can have on culture. Laughing in this situation is merely inappropriate. Firing someone for being inappropriate once or twice is incredibly toxic behaviour.

I disagree. Firing assholes is never bad for culture. On the contrary, it increases morale and makes the workplace better. Keep in mind that I don't categorize laughing at someone's work as a "simple mistake." Bugs can be simple mistakes. Offensive jokes can be simple mistakes. Laughing at someone's work however is deeply troubling behavior that actively undermines trust and discourages cooperation in the workplace.…

> Firing assholes is never bad for culture.

Firing somebody based on your own subjective opinions is toxic for culture.

I've worked on amazing teams with plenty of good natured ribbing and I've worked on great high performing teams where you could say "this code is rubbish, you can do better". I've also worked on teams where saying that would really hurt people's feelings and impact moral.

Put aside your own pre-conceptions and look at how your team responds to an event/situation. That's the only way to build a high performing team.

Sometimes that will mean laughing at someone's code is toxic and needs to be addressed, other times it will be a non-issue and addressing it creates an issue, and other times it can even be a good bonding exercise.

Re: Be Kind

#423

Post by gd1 »

tomelders wrote: post #377
hodgesrm wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not unrelated that American air travel is very safe because there's a no-blame, learn-from-the-issue attitude to problems. More generally it is very difficult to build highly reliable systems of any kind without having a very open culture where you focus on exposing problems and fixing them rather than blaming the message.

I'm reminded of the time Tony Blair visited Silicon Valley to figure out how to replicate it back home. He was at a round table with tech royalty (Gates, The Sun guy, Schmidt etc etc). Steve Jobs was there too. Everyone was chipping in with their theories about why the U.S and Silicon Valley were so good at what they do when Jobs lost his patience and butted in in true Jobsian fashion. "Listen! Take a look around thi…

It's not

Re: Be Kind

#424

Post by enraged_camel »

sheepmullet wrote: post #422
enraged_camel wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Firing assholes is never bad for culture. On the contrary, it increases morale and makes the workplace better. Keep in mind that I don't categorize laughing at someone's work as a "simple mistake." Bugs can be simple mistakes. Offensive jokes can be simple mistakes. Laughing at someone's work however is deeply troubling behavior that actively undermines trust and discourages cooperation in the workplace.…

> Firing assholes is never bad for culture. Firing somebody based on your own subjective opinions is toxic for culture. I've worked on amazing teams with plenty of good natured ribbing and I've worked on great high performing teams where you could say "this code is rubbish, you can do better". I've also worked on teams where saying that would really hurt people's feelings and impact moral. Put aside your own pre-conc…

I already specified that this isn't just about laughing, but about laughing at someone's work in a derogatory manner. You seem to be saying "but a laugh can mean other things!" and it's kind of besides the point.

Re: Be Kind

#425

Post by heisenbit »

I think there are few professions where people screw up a little bit (sometimes literally) and it gets logged, measured and escalated so frequently than in SW.

Computers are unforgiving. Humans err. This really needs to be at the forefront when selecting personal - developers and managers. The answer can't be all forgiving. It can't be you are fired. And it probably should not be ad-hoc all the time. Company values matter if they are lived by.

Re: Be Kind

#426

Post by esafwan »

Being founder of a startup, I often get into position as this. I think there is alot for founders too to learn form this small story. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Be Kind

#427

Post by throw2016 »

Cmon. An article about kindness as top post on HN. This is taking the piss. This is a place that specializes in snark and dismissive discourse.

Everyone is a peacock here. The bumbling programmer should thank his stars his boss does not appear to be the typical agitatedly infallible HN commentator or monday would be a different day.

Re: Be Kind

#428

Post by sheepmullet »

enraged_camel wrote: post #424
sheepmullet wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firing assholes is never bad for culture. Firing somebody based on your own subjective opinions is toxic for culture. I've worked on amazing teams with plenty of good natured ribbing and I've worked on great high performing teams where you could say "this code is rubbish, you can do better". I've also worked on teams where saying that would really hurt people's feelings and impact moral. Put aside your own pre-conc…

I already specified that this isn't just about laughing, but about laughing at someone's work in a derogatory manner . You seem to be saying "but a laugh can mean other things!" and it's kind of besides the point.

No. I'm not. I'm saying people, cultures, and teams operate differently and assuming that laughing at someone's work is toxic rather than looking at the actual impact to the team is unprofessional and a sign of poor leadership.

I worked in a team where if you broke the build you had to put on a clown nose for the rest of the day. It worked well and was a bit of fun. We still catch up a couple of times a year even though I left that team more than 5 years ago.

I've worked in other teams where pressuring a team member to wear a clown nose would be harassment and deeply unsettling.

Re: Be Kind

#430

Post by HerraBRE »

doczoidberg wrote: post #396
gavman wrote: post #78

This was so nice to read. I think back to my very first coding internship after my freshman year of college when I messed up big time. I made a bad mistake that ended up forcing my supervisor to put down everything he was working on for a full afternoon and do an emergency fix. I so vividly remember sitting down in his office, trying to just calm down and keep it together. He never got upset or annoyed (at least he n…

when a supervisor gives a freshman work which can mess up erverything it is the supervisor's fault and not the fault of the freshman

Why do you need to assign blame?

My opinion is that trusting people and giving them responsibility is one of the best ways to let them learn and grow. The bigger the mistake, the bigger the lesson. As long as it is possible to recover, it's a calculated risk which may well be worth it.

Post reply on HN