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That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

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201–210 of 492 posts

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#201
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I reiterate that you’re all confirming that contributing to corporate capitalism is incompatible with personal freedom. Nah, she should have quit and exercised her personal freedom to work for an employer she doesn't think is a war criminal. _That's_ how capitalism works, vote with your labor/dollar. Instead, she fought tooth and nail to keep that corporate job and the blood money that came with it.

Yes, the implication here is that having to give up something that is comparatively very valuable to you (your livelihood) while the consequences to the company of plucking it away from you are tiny (a line item on a budget somewhere) in order to exercise your freedom is a flaw of capitalism.

Your livelihood isn't your job. Your livelihood is the skills you have to offer other people that can provide value to them.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are allowed to discuss workplace conditions. That's like, protected concerted activity 101. If the business was uncomfortable with their treatment of their employees being public, maybe that activity wasn't ethical.

It's the "live-tweeting" aspect. You're not showing a basic level of respect to the nature of the conversation.

She wasn't live tweeting her hr warning, her witness was. (Who was likely not a participant in the conversation).

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#203
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Like, yeah, the guy was being thin-skinned and over reactive but publicly accusing your employer's client of war crimes should get you fired. If you're upset that your employer is dealing with these people, quit. Work for someone you don't hate.

If you think what your employer does is unacceptable you shouldn’t work for them (even if this happens via an acquisition). But most people are extremely hypocritical, and will gladly ignore their “ideals” in the name of the holy fat paycheque.

Every person has their price. I have lots of ideals too but also have my price. Given enough money I could literally shun society and create a small oasis where said ideals hold true. If given even more money I could lobby governments. The power just keeps expanding the bigger the payment.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your point?

[flagged]

I don't necessarily disagree with the substance but I think the logic is very sound here. Saying "you are free to choose another industry to work in." if you don't like a specific aspect of an industry is I think a quite exclusionary and condescending view. Nothing ever improves if everyone just leaves everything ranging from jobs or even entire fields when they don't like some of it.

There are many people who want to improve things instead of leaving.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#205
> . And when he publicly resigned in 2021 he worried about how in the future “China has the drastic advantage of population over the U.S.” I invite you to draw your own conclusions about this guy.

I don't know anything about this guy, but if this is an attempt to portray him as a racist, it's a pathetic one at that.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#206
post #94

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…

I'm not a free speech absolutist[0], but if there's one speech one ought to be free to do, it's to write mean things about a government body (or deals with one) in a country that has a constitutional right to free speech. [0] neither is the US, despite what it says; I am however a free-speech maximalist , and the differences between these positions includes but is not limited to acknowledging that some speech chills…

On your personal Twitter, on your personal time, absolutely.

If you're there on your company dime, and the tweets are associated with your company image, the company now gets a say.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's absolutely not about how "counterculture" her opinions are. It's about using offensive language. She probably would have avoided all trouble if instead of talking down a fellow participant of the conference, she plugged her beliefs in pacifism in a positive manner.

TBH I don't know that she would have fared much better. One, because it sounds like the Air Force guy is thin-skinned, and two, because even peaceful anti-war protestors have generally been met with disdain and/or tear gas. But I also dislike the idea that offensive language is somehow not pacifist behavior, whereas developing weapons of war is perfectly fine so long as you're polite about it. Regardless of how you f…

personally, i found the slide from mr airforce kinda insulting to vmware:

"if its good enough for weaponssystems, its probably good enough for you."

yeah, i can see how that could deserve a "fuck you"...

from all of vmwares employees.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#208
post #171

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…

> 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. OP does mention that they were with VMWare only by acquisition. Do I think that OP should have done this? No. Do I think they deserve to be fired over this? No. This is the standard chastise them for being a…

> The problem here was a high-ranking Federal bureaucrat (USAF Chief Software Officer) got his knickers in a twist and rattled VMWare management who should have told him to go pound sand.

How do you know that? Nothing in that article suggests there is even the smallest shred of evidence that the bureaucrat in question applied any pressure.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#209

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…

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Like, yeah, the guy was being thin-skinned and over reactive but publicly accusing your employer's client of war crimes should get you fired. If you're upset that your employer is dealing with these people, quit. Work for someone you don't hate.

> publicly accusing your employer's client of war crimes

Where did you read this?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is saying "the blood never washes off" the hands of this DoD employee really a personal attack? I mean, it certainly seems like a consistent and reasonably widely held belief that military industrial complex jobs cost lives. There's of course the opposite opinion too. I'm not interested in trying to demonstrate that one opinion is right or wrong, just that like, is this really an attack ?

Of course it is an attack, and they tagged him in the tweet too. There were plenty of opportunities to keep the job after this point (deleting the tweets, not being a massive douchebag in every interaction with the company) but they gave the company no choice.

> Of course it is an attack..

I mean the question I was raising was basically, "it's not clear this is an attack?" specifically because it's not "of course" to me.

Can you explain a bit more why it's obviously an attack?

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