That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job • Hacker News Board

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#161

Post by scns » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

constantly wrote: post #4

I would have fired this person as soon as humanly possible for basically (actually) telling customers of the company to go F themselves, and making horribly insensitive and inappropriate jokes at their expense. imho the point of this article seems to be to tell the story where big bad VMWare or the target of VMWare’s employee’s ire stomped on poor VMWare employee, but I think it makes the employee look bad. I would a…

Well, i have to concur, but there is always two parties in a conflict. And in this case the other party looks even worse [0]. Would hire neither.

[0] https://www.oxebridge.com/emma/op-ed-usafs-chaillan-knausenb...

[edit] WAY worse! Intellectual Property Theft, Gifting Officials, Misuse of Position, Abuse, “Sabotage” of Competing Platforms, Improper Contract Award, Misappropriation of Funds

Zero excuse for the behaviour of the tweeter though.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#162

Post by bitwize » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #135

re-thc wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter wins. More traffic! Got to rate limit.

This is what people don't realize Your "hot takes" for the most part (especially when they're basically cheap dunks) on SM help only twitter. There's plenty of criticism that can be done about the parts mentioned, but those tweets are pretty much the definition of heckling. Honestly nobody cares, and nobody is there for that

The Great Banality Laser -- working as designed.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#163

Post by Apocryphon » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #119

grimgoldgo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great Mike Monteiro talk about contracting titled, "Fuck you; Pay me", so yes, it's not unheard of at all.

I’d like to see you actually using this as a sales pitch to your client.

Hilariously enough, here's some blog thought leader who's telling founders to do so as an exercise while writing up their pitch decks:

https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/the-pitch-deck-fuck-you-list...

> What is the fuck you list? Simply put, it’s what you tell Billy Bob to get him to shut the fuck up, and as someone who hates you, still make him think what you are doing actually makes sense.

> The fuck you list are 3-5 key points about why your business is amazing and you are going to win. They are the important points you would feel annoyed for having not conveyed when you leave that big meeting with the investor you really want to close.

We have arrived at peak HN.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#164

Post by grimgoldgo » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #119

grimgoldgo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great Mike Monteiro talk about contracting titled, "Fuck you; Pay me", so yes, it's not unheard of at all.

I’d like to see you actually using this as a sales pitch to your client.

You and I roll in very different circles. I've had clients who told me to go fuck myself (and vice versa) without any real damage to our relationship.

A New Yorker using the expression is just frankly a different reading than a Washington DC type.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#165

Post by wolframhempel » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:15 AM UTC

I very much agree with the general sentiment here, but I want to make a separate point about tech's relationship to defense which is also portrait in these tweets. Much has been written about the DoD's funding of early Silicon Valley companies - but today, this relationship has been largely severed with giants like Google refusing to provide their tech for defense and military purposes.

I THINK THIS IS A MASSIVE MISTAKE.

War exists. It is as old as humankind. We could wish it wouldn't, but it does. And history has shown again and again that the way to avoid war is not in de-arming, appeasing or otherwise refusing to participate, but in obtaining a level of military and economic strength that makes it unattractive for others to attack you.

Silicon Valley has the potential to generate this overwhelming strength, but it declines to do so. And the few companies that do, such as Palantir or Anduril are often shunned by their peers.

I believe that Silicon Valley could play a unique role in ensuring a lasting global peace and is held back by shortsighted sentiments. Or, to put it into fancy Latin:

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#166

Post by khazhoux » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:15 AM UTC

grimgoldgo wrote: post #74

parineum wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the rest of my comment, I don't actually have a problem with accusing people of war crimes. I think it's assinine to think one could do so and hope to continue to be paid by those people though. I would think that someone so ready to stand on this moral high ground wouldn't want that money but I guess when it actually comes to backing up her morals, she'll take the money instead.

So, free speech doesn't extend to criticism of the government? People should lose their jobs because they said mean words on Twitter?

She insulted one of her company's client. So yeah, you risk your job when you do that.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#167

Post by ralfd » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:15 AM UTC

squeaky-clean wrote: post #115

constantly wrote: post #4

I would have fired this person as soon as humanly possible for basically (actually) telling customers of the company to go F themselves, and making horribly insensitive and inappropriate jokes at their expense. imho the point of this article seems to be to tell the story where big bad VMWare or the target of VMWare’s employee’s ire stomped on poor VMWare employee, but I think it makes the employee look bad. I would a…

It makes them look so bad. Also that bit about their friend live-tweeting the private meeting with the VP??! I had to scroll up and check this wasn't fiction.

And did I understand it right, that the first “witness” who “lightly live tweeted” didn’t even work there?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#168

Post by galkk » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:15 AM UTC

grimgoldgo wrote: post #140

galkk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, you're of those people who say that phrases like "kill all men" do NOT mean "kill all men", but something ? At best this is extreme playing with words, and at worst this is just mental gymnastics Fuck you is fuck you, this is rude and as personal as it gets.

It's really, really not. Fuck you has a huge range of meaning. Carlin built several comedy bits around the word Fuck specifically because it was used colloquially so many ways.

Did he took some person, in audience or otherwise public and built entire bit around saying "Fuck you" addressing that person?

Carlin's sketches (at least ones that come to my mind, as I really loved to watch Carlin about 10-7 years ago) is irrelevant. When Carlin said "fuck you" he was speaking about phrase, not to someone in particular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDqaOLThPg4

There could be different Carlin bits that I don't know about, and I'm sure that he said a lot of fuck yous to all presidents at a time in same way as op did to DoD guy, but no, I don't buy your comment saying that Carlin's fuck you and screenshot from the post are same things. Especially given what followed.

Very rough analogy, just to illustrate the point and how I see your arguing (as, at this time, I'm already believe that you're arguing in bad faith). You cannot say: "this guy is not guilty in a murder, as murders are happening in nature all the time. Dragonflies are killing flies, birds killing dragonflies, humans killing birds, humans killing humans, ergo no one is guilty, those are just facts"

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#169

Post by kristiandupont » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:15 AM UTC

grimgoldgo wrote: post #123

kristiandupont wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it very hard to believe that you are arguing in good faith at this point.

I have had a different life from you. I've been homeless, I've been wealthy, I've lived in many cultures and communities from suburbs to communes. I've worked tech I've worked as day labor moving soil by hand. I guarantee you that language (and especially the use of curse words), varies wildly .

I have lived in many countries and had a wide variety of jobs and life situations as well. You are not impressing anyone with your knowledge about cultural nuance, everybody knows that any sentence can be interpreted in many different ways. And everybody that argues in good faith also knows that saying "fuck you" on Twitter, to someone that you don't have any rapport with, is going to be interpreted as an insult.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#170

Post by geocrasher » Wed, Jul 05, 2023, 7:16 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #134

seanthemon wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, as a self-employeed worker, do you find freedom in saying "fuck you" to your clients publically online?

They were not these person's "clients", they were the government clients of the company employing him/her. I would have expected the US employees to still have the freedom to say "fuck you!" to their government, even though said government might be on the list of one employer's clients. More generally, one shouldn't have to give up his/her personal rights to say "fuck you!" to the government once he/she enters an emp…

Just because you retain the right to say F U to your government doesn't mean you have the right to say F U to your employer's customers while acting in the context of such employment.