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That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

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Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#221

Post by slg »

znpy wrote: post #71
parineum wrote: post #15

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.

>If you think what your employer does is unacceptable you shouldn’t work for them (even if this happens via an acquisition).

I disagree. If leadership of a company makes an ethically questionable decision and everyone who disagrees with that decision quits, that leaves an even more ethically questionable organization behind. I think all good people have an obligation to voice an ethical objection to their company's behavior whenever relevant. Don't just quit and let the amoral/immoral people win.

The author's problem was not that they decided to object instead of quit. Their mistake was doing the objection in both a public and intentionally inflammatory way.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#222

Post by easyThrowaway »

camillomiller wrote: post #77
King-Aaron wrote: post #18

> Being as I’m not an idiot Well, I'm afraid to say after reading this, I have to disagree. Common sense would have made me consider not posting an inflammatory tweet like that, to be perfectly honest.

Do you realize you are all reinforcing that business must come always first before personal expression? It is factual that one person was touting instruments of war, but by most comments here that’s seen as “the right” because it’s representing “business”. What you’re all saying implicitly is that the rights of a corporate employer to make money are always above the freedom to personal expression, by contract, by law…

A full frontal attack is not always the best strategy while facing an opponent, ideological or not. Just saying.

They could've just posted asking if something as controversial and politically-biased as the DoD was the best fit for an international conference and if there had been any political interference and it would've carried the same weight.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#223

Post by bbor »

oefrha wrote: post #38
WheatMillington wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The author seems so incredibly obnoxious and insufferable, I don't understand how anyone could work with them. This should have been a lesson on the toxic and pointless nature of social media, but the author seems to have misread the situation entirely.

All the fist bumps and cheers in these social media echo chambers won’t help them reflect. Unlike the OP who casually tagged some tech guy on Twitter and said “I’d shake your hand but the blood never washes off” (what the actual fuck), reasonable people won’t engage them on social media and tell them how incredibly toxic they are.

[flagged]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#224

Post by matheusmoreira »

newaccount74 wrote: post #45
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…

If you fire someone for a few insults on Twitter then you belong in Kindergarten, not in a management position. Boy, I'm so happy I don't work for anyone, I'd hate to have to deal with sensitive pricks that think they can dictate what their employees say on social media.

You should be careful. It takes a whole lifetime to build a reputation and mere seconds to destroy it permanently. Everything depends on reputation, especially in business. Guard it with your life.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#226

Post by Osmose »

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…

> basically

Unfortunately it's not basic; the ability to strip all context to make this about being mean to a customer makes for a poor argument.

The government isn't just _any_ customer, whether you think the firing was justified or not. The DoD enjoys a ton of taxpayer budget money and a sanctioned right to kill people if it deems it necessary. And it was proactively recruiting at a tech conference for software that isn't innately violent. Is that bad? Maybe not, maybe so. Is that a basic customer? Not at all.

Is this really only about criticizing the government at work? If she made the tweet off hours or wasn't even at the conference, does Nicholas Chaillan still complain to VMWare and get her fired? When is it okay for her to criticize the government without losing her job? Would it even have cost VMWare anything if they didn't fire her and just disciplined her? How about the social media policy that bans talking about incredibly generic things like "age, sex, race, religion"? Has anyone at VMWare ever gotten disciplined for tweeting out "Jesus lives"?

I think your reduction to "employees must never tell any customer ever to go fuck themselves and that's basically what happened here" isn't useful nor is it one of the more interesting questions this post raises.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#227

Post by Apocryphon »

lelanthran wrote: post #208
bsder wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not court-admissible evidence, but there was the DM (https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/c8ab3389-fd41-46b9-...) and those links at the end of the blog entry about prior misbehavior (https://www.oxebridge.com/emma/oxebridge-files-ethics-compla...) and (https://www.oxebridge.com/emma/op-ed-usafs-chaillan-knausenb...).

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#228

Post by scns »

lelanthran wrote: post #200
scns wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 behavio…

I thought the other party in this case was the employer?

The presenter at the conference beein accused of war crimes.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#229

Post by jzb »

galkk wrote: post #106
spondylosaurus wrote: post #7

Nice read, thanks for sharing. It's interesting (to say the least) that they more or less used a "no talking about politics" clause to fire this woman, even though the other guy's statements about DoD weapons systems are certainly just as political. But he's an Air Force guy, she's a dissident, he's establishment, she's counterculture, so he got to push her out of a job for meeting him on his playing field, so to spe…

There is nothing political to say "If Kubernetes is good for DoD weapon* systems, it is definitely good enough for your business!". I'm sure that every software engineer can think about complexities that DoD experience in their work with software. Some are highly technical in hard environments and with reliability requirements * corrected, based on comment below

I disagree. First, you dropped the word “weapons.” “DoD systems” sounds neutral, could be benign personnel systems.

DoD weapons systems isn’t neutral, and it is political. Those systems are used to enforce U.S. policy, via combat. That’s the status quo, which may not feel “political” if you’re supportive of U.S. policy and/or don’t think about the ramifications, but it is very political. If you’re not okay with how the U.S. uses its military, its definitely political.

To some that message reads as “if it’s good enough to use to kill people, it’s good enough for your business.”

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#230

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

Zero sympathy for this person. The behaviour described is unprofessional, immature, and frankly quite toxic.

Not to mention a fairly stupid opinion; some of my colleagues arguably have the US DoD to thank for not being victims of russia's genocide. I couldn't imagine my colleagues having to deal with this drama bullshit on top of sheltering from missile attacks on civilians.

How depressing.

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