Mistakes You Should Never Make • Hacker News Board

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#311

Post by BrandonM » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:32 AM UTC

larrys wrote: post #174

Loughla wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To me (and with all due respect to the parent commenters grandfather) when I hear things like this I think something is trying to prove honesty a bit to much and (once again not to imply the parent commenters grandfather is such a person) that is the type of person I actually watch out for sometimes." 99.9% of the time, that type of statement is more of a sign of your personality and less a sign of others'. In reali…

"In reality, though, the main point that you missed is that in a world made of shades of gray, the only person you can ever truly rely on is yourself. If you don't have scruples and you don't have honor, you don't have anything." Well let me put it this way. I don't think you understand my point about nuances and that I (once again) don't feel any of this is black and white. As an example the honor that I might displ…

> Otoh if I had a project that was being done by "IBM Global services" I would absolutely angle things differently if things weren't done right. I wouldn't care about that company not getting it's $10,000 (arbitrary obviously).

Call it "nuance" or "gray area" all you want, but that is just amoral. You have no idea what situation led to the problem and what consequences your breach of contact will have. The project manager may have been operating on very little sleep and sent over the wrong version of the invoice. At the end of the quarter, they may lose their job.

I would 100% point out the discrepancy and pay them. When I decided to do business with them, I already determined that the terms were fair. To act otherwise when the bill comes in is entirely dishonorable.

Do you actually have a good example of nuance, or are you just trying to legitimize bad behavior?

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#312

Post by chetanahuja » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:58 AM UTC

The whole kerfuffle about Harvard Extension vs Harvard College just lays bare the awful reality of the value of college education today. It's basically about acquiring a brand-name on your resume. Especially in the US system, the university branding says very little about the merits of the graduates (since admissions process is a colossal clusterfuck where a very large number or rejected candidates are objectively academically superior to a very large number of accepted candidates) and everything about our obsessions with exclusive clubs.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#313

Post by ehurrell » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 7:59 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #83

I know this is a minor point of the article, but as someone with a degree from Harvard Extension I need to weigh in on that part of the story. I hate people who make this lie of ommission. Harvard Extension isn't Harvard College or Harvard Business School, but it still provides a very good education with great flexibility at an even better price. However, there is a small minority of people that continuely try to pas…

I hadn't encountered this, being across the Atlantic, but the behaviour is not uncommon. I once knew a man who in his younger days was really interested in puppetry, an got into a art-college-type puppet-making and puppetry course in the English town of Oxford. He lost interest after a year and dropped out, and of course tried to chance his arm with 'studied for a year at Oxford' on his CV for a while after.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#314

Post by jacalata » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 8:49 AM UTC

tedsanders wrote: post #241

pyre wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two thoughts: 1. Was that really the phone company's money? My first thought on hearing that story was that the $6 in change was from people putting money into the broken phone, realizing it was broken, and leaving without their money. Does the phone company really deserve money that the phone 'eats' when it doesn't deliver the service that people are giving it money for? 2. If you sent the phone company that $6 toda…

Two thoughts in response to your thoughts: 1. Sure, it's possible the phone company didn't "deserve" the money (perhaps, as you say, the phone failed to make calls). But it's just as possible the phone company did "deserve" the money (and that the phone made calls but refunded the change). There's no way to know what happened for certain. However, what is certain is that the kid did not earn or "deserve" the money. I…

Interesting juxtaposition there:

" what is certain is that the kid did not earn or "deserve" the money. It also becomes quite dangerous to reason based on who "deserves" something. "

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#315

Post by mturmon » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 8:53 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #188

larrys wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In reality, though, the main point that you missed is that in a world made of shades of gray, the only person you can ever truly rely on is yourself. If you don't have scruples and you don't have honor, you don't have anything." Well let me put it this way. I don't think you understand my point about nuances and that I (once again) don't feel any of this is black and white. As an example the honor that I might displ…

The thing my grandfather taught me was that you live with all of your decisions for the rest of your life. When you make decisions which put other people at risk, you take on the risk that you are going to make someones life harder, possibly much harder. What is perhaps even more important is that no amount of "I'm so sorry I did that ..." will ever undo it. Sometimes its little things, like taking the last serving b…

Very well said. The thing I have noticed is that the selfish decisions and the lies seem to last longer in my memory than the immediate benefit I got.

And I agree -- with me this knowledge has also had to come with age. Maybe others do better.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

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Post by andrewstuart » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 10:05 AM UTC

Let he who is without guilt cast the first stone.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#317

Post by lotsofcows » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 10:11 AM UTC

larrys wrote: post #159

matwood wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting about your grandfather. Mine taught me a similar integrity lesson when I was a kid. Back when there were payphones I would always check them for spare quarters. One time when I was with my grandfather I checked a phone that has broken and dumped ~ $6 in change out. I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine and when we got home he mailed the local phone a check for…

"I asked him about his unwillingness to do what others have done (at the time it was drive faster than the speed limit on an empty road) " The above (parent comment) as well as your comment "I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine" ... well, I can't agree that it teaches the proper lesson, even to a child. Forgetting whether he is even right "it isn't yours" (I could argue…

Side note: You sound as though you think speed limits are arbitrary. You might want to look up the dynamics of braking cars, the percentage of accidents where speeding is a factor and consider the outcome of an accident where it's found that you were doing 65 in 55 zone.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#318

Post by walshemj » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 10:14 AM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #75

tptacek wrote: post #33

Of all the financial mistakes you can possibly make running a company, withholding payroll taxes and then failing to remit them is probably the worst. Be thankful you caught this before the liability exceeded your available funds, because company operators are apparently routinely held personally liable when there's a shortfall, and I'm not sure that debt is even dischargeable in bankruptcy. What's worse, minor versi…

As a former transactional/commercial litigation attorney I too would see this issue regularly. One interesting "hack" I would see clients do regularly as owner/employees, they would minimize their own salary to avoid payroll taxes, maximizing their distributions (distributions are not subject to payroll taxes). Unfortunately for them the IRS accounts for this hack , and if an IRS audit finds the salary isn't reasonab…

So how do the 1$ salary CEO's get away with this its an obvious tax avoidance scheme that I would have thought the IRS would be all over it.

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#319

Post by rdwallis » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 10:21 AM UTC

larrys wrote: post #185

rdwallis wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load. Nobody speeds all the time. Even people who speed a lot will try to slow down for speed traps. So everyone who speeds even those who speed only every now and then have to be constantly making a choice for when to speed. They must constantly assess whether the benefits of speeding in this specific moment outweigh the disadvantages. There are dozens of va…

"I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load." Never? Never speeding also means not always keeping up with traffic which might be flowing at a higher rate of speed. Consequently you are chancing a greater risk of an accident by not keeping up with traffic and not speeding.

Sorry for the delay in reply.

I live in Durban, South Africa. Lots of people speed here and sometimes the fast lane will be moving faster than the limit. But I don't think I've ever been in a situation where all of the traffic is moving faster than the limit.

Is it common for all lanes to be moving faster than the speed limit where you are?

Re: Mistakes You Should Never Make

#320

Post by infoseckid » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 11:06 AM UTC

jlevy wrote: post #250

As internal counsel for YC, it was very upsetting to learn about the ongoing troubles at Amicus. It was particularly distressing to hear about the payroll tax issues, given that YC has funded excellent companies that specialize in accounting and payroll for small businesses, such as Indinero and Zenpayroll. The tone of Seth's post suggest that YC has supported Seth in all of his recent actions. That is not true -- YC…

You could have at least called the founder and asked what he meant, instead of bashing him here. You could have asked him to add more clarification in his blog which might have ensured that what your pointing to is not implied.

You guys are growing and its important to scale your communication as well.