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PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

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Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#101

Original MLK quote: > The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

I guess it is a petty thing to complain about I the context of such a shitty misuse of a quote, but also:

> ‘the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy,’

The use of brackets like this seems a bit dishonest. At least, I’ve usually seen them used to insert clarifying context about the original quote (because it might not be fully reproduced). The original quote seems to have not much to do with leadership, but instead be about personal virtue.

The brackets aren’t used to clarify at all, but to change the meaning of the “quote.” It isn’t a quote, it is another sentiment that is just written in the same shape as something MLK wrote.

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#102
post #78
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What other shape do you suggest for a vehicle meant to escape Earth's gravity and reach space? I know it's not your main point, but every time I hear the "oh look at these nerdy space men playing with their phallic toys!" comment I get curious about the alternative.

> I get curious about the alternative

Perhaps it's less about the shape of the rockets, and more about the unnecessary (space) travel?

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#103

I'm really happy for her. Worst CEO has typically been a male dominated category. It's nice see some diversity in lacking empathy and having over inflated egos.

Nonsense, they’re exceptionally well represented here by Marisa Mayer, Mary Barra, Carly Fiorina, Elizabeth Holmes etc.

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#104

I'm really happy for her. Worst CEO has typically been a male dominated category. It's nice see some diversity in lacking empathy and having over inflated egos.

Speaking about diversity. We need some diversity among men who collect garbage and plumbers. Why? Because diversity is good. /s

You say that like it's not the goal. Yes, women are more vocal about male dominated careers that they're actively trying to enter but you're missing the forest. For adult women the damage of "has never even thought about a career as a plumber because that's a boy job" has already been done. You could probably name 20 careers that are like this for both men and women off the top of your head. That doesn't mean it's not the goal to change that.

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boy does this remind me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 Scheduling is more complex than just an IAM list: there are escalation policies, the actual phase of the schedule, dealing with additions/removals, overrides, and not to mention the entirety of routing pages for which PD's solution isn't even powerful enough for our needs … because the problem is more complex than they bargained for! Not to mention…

I was in a pagerduty rotation for ~3 years at a profitable SaaS software firm and am fluent with the product as a stakeholder in my current role (we are in the process of replacing it for cost savings reasons). I am aware that it isn’t as easy as writing comments, but lets not kids ourselves this is going to space. Software is work, but it isn’t magic. It’s not a weekend project, and I never said it was. It’s likely…

>but lets not kids ourselves this is going to space. Software is work, but it isn’t magic.

Putting strawmen in people's mouths doesn't make for a good argument.

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#107

Here's what a layoff email should include: - Broad specifics on who is getting laid off (numbers, teams/areas, geography). To help everyone understand the scope/nature of it. - Specifics about when people impacted will be notified by (ideally as short as possible, so people aren't e.g. waiting over a weekend to hear on Monday). Also, exactly how they will be notified. - Specifics on severance/support/benefits and or…

I write emails and then feed them to chat gpt and tell it say it nicer.

It does a great job.

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#108
post #78
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What other shape do you suggest for a vehicle meant to escape Earth's gravity and reach space? I know it's not your main point, but every time I hear the "oh look at these nerdy space men playing with their phallic toys!" comment I get curious about the alternative.

Have you seen the Blue Origin rocket? There's rocket-shaped, and then there's... that.

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#109
post #28

Hanlon's Razor and all that, but this reads as intentional to me. She wanted attention; she got attention. Specifically, she wanted people to know about items that she believes will increase her company's valuation, and she found a way to get attention in that area (the giveaway is that she even boasted about some elements of the company's financials and reports in the very same letter). She knew damn well that this…

I'm not!

Re: PagerDuty CEO Quotes Martin Luther King Jr. In Worst Layoff Email Ever

#110
post #8

> Nonetheless, it all starts to go downhill when she decides to use the same email where she announces layoffs to celebrate recent employee promotions, reveal good financial results for the fourth quarter of last year, and state that the company expects to end the year strong. The MLK quote: > ‘the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] sta…

The original MLK quote doesn’t actually seem, to me at least, to be much about leadership at all. More about personal virtue or something. The brackets were used to totally change the meaning rather than clarify the context (which is what they are conventionally used for).

This is not really a quote at all, it is a new sentiment written in the general shape of something Dr. King wrote. This makes it seem even tackier, IMO. It is like trying to grab some emotional gravity through osmosis or proximity rather than reflecting on the meaning of the quote.

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