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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

#241

Post by grimgoldgo »

resolutebat wrote: post #141
grimgoldgo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fuck you" has so many different tones, and is so ubiquitous. It can be playful, jocular, intense, deadly serious, all over the place. Fuck you is not, by default, a personal attack, imo. It's also almost certainly culturally different on different coasts, online, in person, etc. A tweet is like, nothing.

You're not even wrong, but the problem is that when you post on Twitter, any and all context and nuance is immediately lost and all that's left is a string of ASCII spelling out "fuck you".

That's fair, but also, Twitter culture is definitely it's own culture, and I've largely seen quickly slammed out "fuck you"s to be emotionally equivalent to the rolling eyes emoji or the "wanking" hand gesture.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#242

Post by Osmose »

King-Aaron wrote: post #199
Osmose wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What alternatives do you propose?

I can't think through all the flaws but "criticism of the government is protected speech for employees" broadly seems achievable, which of course has tons of annoying details like "when is an employee speaking for a company vs for themselves, are personal twitter accounts an employee's own speech" or "what is a government entity" or "what is criticism" or "what is an allowed disciplinary response to grey areas" and so on.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#243

Post by revelio »

toyg wrote: post #131
znpy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He basically admits as such, when he said challenging the nondisparaging clauses in the name of free speech was not worth risking the $40k paycheck.

Even worse than that. She took the $40k in return for agreeing to not disparage VMware. She then immediately started disparaging them, but it was "in private" whatever that means, so she presumed she wouldn't get caught. And then once her preferred candidate is in the White House she figures it's now safe to violate her agreement in public too, thus keeping the $40k AND going back on her word. She stiffed VMware once at the conference, and then again afterwards! Clearly this person cannot be trusted in any kind of business relationship at all, as the threat of enforcement is the only thing that keeps them from immediately turning around and stabbing you in the back.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#244

Post by blindriver »

grimgoldgo wrote: post #233
blindriver wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck you. EDIT: Just to clarify, I didn't mean that pejoratively, I actually meant it in the supportive context as in: "Fuck you, I support you."

Heh, rules.

F___ you.

EDIT: Sorry again. This time, I did use it pejoratively, so I edited it out for possible vulgarity.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#245

Post by bbor »

wiseowise wrote: post #191
spondylosaurus wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...What else is the DoD making weapons for? Fun? Children's birthday parties?

Do you really want to play the game? > The Department of Defense provides the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security. You very well understand what I mean. If your stance is anything military - that’s fine, but your arguments are straw and you know that.

Lol I love the snarky end. Roasted em. They’ll never recover from that put down.

Re:substance, the idea that the DoD is for anything but war is… puzzling. It’s literally a rebrand of the War Department. That’s what “providing military services” is??

Definitely one of the goofiest arguments I’ve ever seen on here. I highly value this forum, because I’m 99% sure everyone here argues in good faith

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#246

Post by galkk »

jzb wrote: post #229
galkk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Corrected, but missing word was honest mistake and not intentional. I still believe that point stands - as a software engineer I can see a lot of technical challenges in weapon systems too.

And this is just from thinking about *potential* things, as in system design interview. Reality, I'm sure, is much more complicated and hard.

Some will find offense in every word one can say, it doesn't mean that they're right. Because to some that message may mean "If it's good enough to use to save people, it's good enough for your business". Are they less right?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#247

Post by Osmose »

parineum wrote: post #201
Osmose wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To clarify, I mean more like "your ability to pay the bills on time" but more importantly I mean that the risks you incur losing your job are much higher than the risks your job incurs from firing you, typically. It's a power imbalance.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#248

Post by revelio »

ben_w wrote: post #94
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…

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…

> some speech chills other speech

Is this not just a way to say "my speech is free speech and protected, your speech is hate speech and should be banned"?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#249

Post by irjustin »

grimgoldgo wrote: post #202
irjustin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

To me, that's just as bad.

Someone you brought in is doing something disrespectful and indicative of the central problem to the conversation.

If you come to my house and draw on my walls - I ask you to stop and let's have a conversation about it, so you bring a friend who starts drawing on my walls while we're talking about you drawing on my walls.

You've lost all goodwill that I was willing to extend to you.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#250

Post by spondylosaurus »

jzb wrote: post #186
spondylosaurus wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but does it follow that "attending on behalf of" equates to "representing the company's official views and opinions"? I guess what I'm really asking is whether an outside observer would genuinely assume her tweets were indicative of VMware's official stances on anything, or whether they'd assume she was just one cog in their employee machine. Or maybe it's somewhere in the middle.

It equates to being paid to make the company look good. I wouldn’t take their comments or tweets as official policy, necessarily, but attracting negative attention by dragging on a speaker on the company dime isn’t a great look. Should it be fireable? I’m having trouble there. But they certainly wouldn’t be sent to events for a long, long time.

Fair enough. As much as I'll defend her right to express those views, I do think making those tweets wasn't the greatest call—especially considering the fallout that ensued :P
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