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'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

theguardian.com

81–90 of 92 posts

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would put an employer in a stronger position in court to say "employee refused to use arbitration service as described in contract", IANAL etc.

And the other side ah "so this illegal contract you have forced my client to sign" doesn't get your employers arguments off to a good start.

I don't see how it would be an illegal contract?

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#82
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now and then? This kid is 17 now. Have things really changed that much? I think it's more likely he went to a different school and his parents had a different temperament than you and your fellow parents.

I think the 17 in the article is a typo for 27. He picked up programming in his teenage years, and the article mentions a "10 years later". Also, it'd be extremely surprising (possible, but surprising) that a 17 year old would have "won awards and travelled all around the country to meet people and attend or speak at conferences."

Hey! Writer here, I just thought it might be worth saying that I am indeed 17! :) I started programming aged around 7 or 8, and have won a couple of awards (Most recently a Google Code Award for ProjectHermes - a natural language analysing bullying detector for twitter), and spoken at a few events as well.

I'm incredibly surprised myself by the things I've done over the years, it's a pretty awesome world!

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#83

I'm 33 so I was at primary school in the 80's. Bullying was (at my school) an unfortunate reality. My brother (year younger) was born with a congenital problem (ptosis) in both eyes which required frequent surgery (poor sod had 9 operations with weeks of recovery for each before he was 11). This obviously made him a target for bullying and since the school was doing nothing about it I ended up stepping in to sort thi…

Humbling to read - you did an awesome thing that day, but it's incredibly sad that it was ever necessary.

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#84
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One word: therapy. It's your baggage. Either you own up to it and continually work on it, or you let it fester and run your life. I meet so many people who are terrified of being the type of person that goes to therapy despite significant issues. And it's sad, that's pride and potentially narcissism running your life.

Why is therapy necessarily the only, or the best solution? Maybe therapy has an undeserved reputation. Maybe people who should og to it but don't are just prideful. But maybe conventional therapy just isn't the best way for people to deal with their problems? Maybe therapy, as a field, just hasn't lived up to its aspirations? I'd agree that the GP has to do something about it. But I'm not sure about what, specificall…

What are other modes of treatment? Genuinely curious.

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#85
post #27

The difference between then (believe me I was there) and now is that the teachers get stick for allowing this to happen instantly. I've personally got into several shouting matches with teachers over how they treat my children and deal with these situations. I'm usually in a queue of other parents doing exactly the same. People don't take any shit these days.

Now and then? This kid is 17 now. Have things really changed that much? I think it's more likely he went to a different school and his parents had a different temperament than you and your fellow parents.

I sadly did not go to a different school, my parents insisted that that school would give me the best education, so I had no choice but to stay.

My parents did try to sort things out, nothing happened though, so I stopped telling them about it.

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other side ah "so this illegal contract you have forced my client to sign" doesn't get your employers arguments off to a good start.

I don't see how it would be an illegal contract?

Not justicable you cant sign a contract to sign away your rights to annual leave - it's an open goal for the other sides barrister.

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it would be an illegal contract?

Not justicable you cant sign a contract to sign away your rights to annual leave - it's an open goal for the other sides barrister.

Not really the same thing as an arbitration clause unless you can persuade a judge that the arbitration decision would have contradicted employment law in some way.

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#88
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm homeschooled and I'm not fragile. I know a lot of men and women who were homeschooled and they aren't fragile either. Being frequently bullied may be one way to learn about life, but it isn't the only way. In fact I don't think it's even the best way. > What's to prepare them for that when they're homeschooled? Life. The homeschoolers I know do tons of things that help them explore life. There are too many to lis…

I didn't say a homeschooled kid would be fragile. I just think that not being homeschooled might prepare them a bit better for highschool life. But perhaps I'm totally wrong. I'm just reacting to the idea that sending your kids to school is sending them to be bullied. I definitely do not think being bullied is a good way to learn about life.

Ah, fair enough--and actually I agree that public school might prepare someone better for public high school.

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#89

I did not have it anywhere near as bad as the poster, but had some incidents which, even to me at 6/7 years old, immediately made me start to question authority and become cynical. A few random anecdotes: 2nd grade - kids kept talking in class, so the teacher declared "no talking - the next person to talk has to go stand in the corner" (which, even then, had me wonder - does that mean that there's no punishment for e…

followup - I took a 'personality test' for a job at 18 years old. Someone came out from the office and looked around, then finally at me, and was a bit shocked to see me instead of someone else. "Did you take this yourself? Did anyone help you earlier? Your scores indicate you have the cynicism of a 35 year old." heh ;)

Re: 'I was bullied and beaten every day. Programming saved my life'

#90

Is it sad that I saw this post and immediately thought, "Well, that doesn't reflect well on programmers..", thinking that our status as a group is already quite low. * Speaking as someone who has experienced quite a fair share of bullying, such that it makes me trepidatious in most social situations, waiting and ever expecting the first arrow. ^ probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, which turns it into "my fault". if…

> if anyone has successfully overcome this please reach out! I was bullied a lot when I was younger. I was small to begin with, but I skipped a grade and consequently hit puberty about 18 months behind all of the other kids. Growing up in a rural area, I endured a lot of abuse and violence on a daily basis, and like the typical story goes, teachers saw most of it and did nothing. The physical abuse stopped at the end…

Cool, this helps. I was out on this HORRIBLE date tonight.. we saw a movie. In the theater I was stressed the whole time but afterwards, talking, I felt great! And then she ran away as fast as she politely could.

I saw the TED talk that you suggested and it got me thinking. In the theater I was really sitting in a low-power pose. So maybe what I will try is monitoring myself for those poses and then consciously correcting.

The thing is, when I was younger [in college] I used to posture a lot. And everyone disrespected it. :( A particularly scarring incident was when the beautiful girl I was ostensibly "friends" with told me directly, coldly "if I act confident, it's because I am".

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