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Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

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21–30 of 32 posts

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#21
You can answer it quantitatively. Look up on Google Scholar how much stress contributes to the illness he has. That's your upper bound. Then reflect on how much stress you have caused him. Multiply and there's your answer.

You can then split your contribution into the necessary (stemming from his inability to handle disagreements) and unnecessary parts (stemming from you being a prick or a bad communicator) to determine how guilty to feel.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#22
Even if you could somehow tie work stress to causing his illness, it seems unfair to place the blame on you. If it was killing him, why didn't he have the agency to find another job? Why didn't your manager find a way to prevent those conflicts in the first place?

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#23
Stress can have an impact on a person's health, but you aren't responsible for how someone deals with work stress. It is also very possible that this would have happened no matter what, and he's just looking for "why" and grasping at straws.

Though I do relate to Dave, being someone who likes boring and simple solutions to business problems, while being pushed into solutions that seem overly complex and stressful for no good reason other than someone's ego and ladder climbing. This does cause me a good deal of stress, but that's on me to find a healthy perspective and ways to deal with it, since I'm not in a position to change the overall situation (short of finding a new job).

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#24
Fear of stress increases the odds of death by 43%. But this only applies to people who think it's bad. People who were under a lot of stress but enjoyed it were least likely to die. People who spent a lot more time caring for others showed no increase in the rate of death from stress related diseases.

Source: https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress...

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#26
> [We clashed a lot]. Dave thought my approaches were unnecessarily complex, and I thought his ideas were outdated and inflexible. Most of our arguments happened during code reviews, and [while things got heated at times, I assumed it was all part of working in a team].

No... "Things got heated" and "We clashed a lot" implies negative emotions. Are you paid for that? If you aren't you shouldn't suffer it.

At a gig a long time ago they were using Pokémon Exception Handing (look it up) everywhere. I pointed out that that was extremely bad practice and showed them sources that explained in detail why it was terrible. They said "We're doing it this way anyway." I said "Fine, but do I have to use it in the code I'm responsible for?" They said "No" and that was that (had they said "Yes" I would have resigned).

You can't change the past and there is no point in feeling guilty for something you didn't do. But for your own sake you might want to change your approach to work-life because it may not be healthy.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#27

That sounds like a troll posting in his name. So many people out there that revel in causing pain. Particularly the deleted-account trick, so you can't investigate. As for his colleague - he'd dealt with younger programmers with new ideas before, you weren't the first or only. And, his life was his own - he owned his emotional state, his responses. You were no more responsible for that than a missed bus, or any other…

More than troll posting it's probably a scam.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#28
(Assuming it's really from them etc.)

If they were this bad at taking responsibility for the stress in their life with regard to you, imagine how bad they were at handling all the other, more basic and visceral, sources of stress they experienced and refused to take ownership over in their life.

They could write a hundred such messages to people they interacted with (and probably did?).

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#29

That sounds like a troll posting in his name. So many people out there that revel in causing pain. Particularly the deleted-account trick, so you can't investigate. As for his colleague - he'd dealt with younger programmers with new ideas before, you weren't the first or only. And, his life was his own - he owned his emotional state, his responses. You were no more responsible for that than a missed bus, or any other…

More than troll posting it's probably a scam.

Story time: a few years ago I got a call out of the blue from some guy claiming to be a lawyer working for my old company. He named a specific product that I'd built for them a couple years prior and said they're embroiled in this huge lawsuit over it and that I defrauded them, they're coming after me personally for millions in damages, I'll never work in the industry again, etc.

I got off the phone scared shitless, barely slept that night googling my legal liability and searching for lawyers.

Someone I know suggested it might be a prank, so I called the legal team at the company and they had no clue what I was talking about. It was a troll. Never did quite figure out who was behind it, but the moral of the story is people can be mean sometimes and troll you just for kicks.

Re: Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

#30

That sounds like a troll posting in his name. So many people out there that revel in causing pain. Particularly the deleted-account trick, so you can't investigate. As for his colleague - he'd dealt with younger programmers with new ideas before, you weren't the first or only. And, his life was his own - he owned his emotional state, his responses. You were no more responsible for that than a missed bus, or any other…

More than troll posting it's probably a scam.

If they are a troll or a scammer, how would they know about those code reviews? No way they could randomly come up with something so specific.
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