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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

#301

Post by King-Aaron »

Osmose wrote: post #292
King-Aaron wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't even 'criticism of the government' at the end of the day, it was wholly unprofessional communication and blatantly rude. Honestly I cannot believe people are bending over backwards to support the actions of the blog author.

It pretty clearly is criticizing the DoD and it's representatives for 1. killing people (probably in a general sense) and 2. participating in and advertising themselves at a tech conference while doing so. Is it the profanity that puts it over the line? Profanity is often how we express that a feeling is extremely strong, and in the context of criticizing the government it's a pretty time-honored tradition given the…

[flagged]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#302

Post by wenger12 »

WheatMillington wrote: post #8
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…

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.

[flagged]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#303

Post by lelanthran »

Apocryphon wrote: post #227
lelanthran wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... ).

Your [1] is pure hearsay, no different from gossip, and it's coming from one side. It's unlikely to be true, and even if true, unlikely to have resulted in pressure on the employer.

Both [2] and [3] aren't about this story at all.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#304

Post by Osmose »

parineum wrote: post #291
Osmose wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, the reason for this particular firing is because the risks of keeping this person employed were higher than keeping them employed. One mitigate their risk of getting fired by not being actively detrimental to their employer and even trying to contribute in a meaningful way. Being utterly replaceable is going to get you replaced. Conversely, if you're employable, a company is always at risk of you leaving. It's…

Employability isn't the only factor, there's insurance, health, debt, rising cost of living, visa status, and so on that can make it such that, while you can _technically_ leave at any time, it may be disastrous to do so.

Which has knock-on effects like "people with disabilities are pressured to not speak out on social media for fear of losing the job that is covering life-saving treatments" without better protections.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#305

Post by Omatic810 »

grimgoldgo wrote: post #116
yuliyp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There's a difference between saying "I would like to avoid you because your industry costs lives" and "I'd shake your hand, but, y'know, the blood never washes off". They're both basically statements about the same thing, except one is an attack while the other is merely expressing disapproval.

It's rude, sure, but I still fail to see how that rises to the level of attack ? What harm is intended or possible from a comment like that? Are all rude comments attacks?

Accusing someone of having blood on their hands is generally an attack to mean that the accused has caused unjustifiable death. To contrast, if person A saves person B from a mass shooter by killing said shooter, it'd be odd for person B to say to A "You have blood on your hands!" (unless it's literally true).

"You have committed unjustifiable harm." is clearly an attack. People who commit unjustifiable harm are generally supposed to be shunned, penalized, or killed according to how human societies have operated across the world (various things can get in the way of this, but this is the baseline).

So now we're at "My employer's client is someone who should be shunned, penalized, or killed. (and I'm going to post it publicly in a way to make it possible for said client to be able to see it!)".

Finally, a lot of business runs on vibes. Having employees that attack your clients in public sends bad vibes. Even if it's just a 'rude comment', why endanger your business for someone who so deeply fails the vibe check?

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#306

Post by Apocryphon »

lelanthran wrote: post #303
Apocryphon wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... ).

Your [1] is pure hearsay, no different from gossip, and it's coming from one side. It's unlikely to be true, and even if true, unlikely to have resulted in pressure on the employer. Both [2] and [3] aren't about this story at all.

They are not mine, they are the article's. I have acknowledged they are not court-admissible evidence, I am simply establishing that the narrative is not without (claimed) basis. It is up to the reader to determine whether or not they have any merit.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#307

Post by [deleted] »

wenger12 wrote: post #302
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.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#308

Post by tzekid »

grimgoldgo wrote: post #210
siliconpotato wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Use common sense. "[..] blood on your hands [..]" implies he's indirectly a murderer at least. Calling someone a murderer is in the best case defamation or an insult.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#309

Post by swarnie »

theobeers wrote: post #296
swarnie wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak out against what exactly? Defence is one of the most vital sectors in a countries continued existence, coming just after food and water.

The screenshot of the DoD recruitment pitch from the conference set off a little "military-industrial complex alarm" in my mind. To be clear, I wouldn't have tagged the guy in a mean tweet. I would have just frowned and gone on with my day. But I think it's crucial that the voices of people like this blogger be present in tech communities.

I can't help but think "glass houses"

Imo its more acceptable and moral to work in the defence of your nation than to design increasingly intrusive data harvesting / advertising machines.

But as ever there isn't a correct answer and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Re: That Time I Posted Myself Out Of a Job

#310

Post by tzekid »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #175

This has been upvoted by many people on HN, so I guess it has some value for folks here, but can anyone enlighten me as to how this outrage porn is supposed to result in curious conversation? (For anyone wondering, I flagged it.)

That's disingenuous of you. This article sparks conversations about workplace boundaries and corpo vs personal ethics and rights, as can be clearly seen by the other comments.
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