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Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

where.coraline.codes

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Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#101

Post by Danihan »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

PIPs work sometimes. It really depends on the (frequently opaque) intentions behind the plan.

Sometimes you might really like an employee, but _need_ them to improve on a few things for their employment to work. PIPs can definitely work in this circumstance.

Sometimes an employee is just incredibly toxic, and you may have reason to believe that they'll sue the company if you fire them without well-defined cause, (like the parent article here). In this case you are simply creating a paper trail to cover your ass legally. Of course the PIP is not going to "work" for the employee, they will be fired regardless as you want them gone. But the PIP may "work" for the company, by limiting liability.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#102

Post by thex10 »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #73

> "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question." I Imagine this read to the survey writer like: "Hello, I'd like to complain about your use of the term Linux on the corporate intranet. A page provides instructions for running the data parsing scripts "on Linux". Si…

I mean, I see the point you're trying to make. But that error could be pretty damning in the context of a detailed survey about, like, operating systems and their utilities. In that case, wouldn't you expect to survey writer to know those details, or at least not completely lose their shit when told about them from someone who knows more about the topic?

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#103

Post by mattbillenstein »

dragonwriter wrote: post #83
mattbillenstein wrote: post #47

If you're ever put on a PIP, get out -- it's a sign someone in the company doesn't want you there. I've never heard of a PIP working out and both the company and employee being happy -- maybe you only hear about the bad cases, but a PIP often seems to me like a cover your ass plan on the part of the company. They want to get rid of a person, but they're afraid of getting sued, so a PIP is a way to document why a pers…

> This practice seems pretty common in California, but given California is an at-will employment state, I'm not even sure why. Because the PIP exists to to support the argument that the firing was not for a prohibited reason in the event that the employee charges that it was. “At-will” doesn't mean there aren't prohibited reasons for firing, and if you don't have any evidence for what the firing reason was, it doesn'…

Ah, okay, make sense -- so the CYA nature of what I've usually seen happen with a PIP make sense.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#104

Post by roywiggins »

thsowers wrote: post #38
ivraatiems wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just think it's worth mentioning that she doesn't seem to present evidence that the data scientist was "transphobic". She doesn't say they were. She says the question as phrased was. That's a big difference.

You are correct, thank you for pointing that out. However, she is still assuming that the question was phrased in a "Transphobic" way. Perhaps she reads it like that, but I doubt that was the authors (or questions) intention. Perhaps i'm wrong

You can be transphobic by omission. For example, not taking any time to research the issue ("Is 'transgender' a gender?") before writing a study question, and then getting angry when someone tries patiently to educate you.

It's not what's in people's hearts that counts. Someone can truly believe that blackface is not racist, but that doesn't mean that it's not racist when they do it.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#105

Post by cloverich »

tyingq wrote: post #8

I've seen this a few times. People with a naturally terse way of communicating eventually end up offending someone with the power to retaliate.

This is a good point but I think under-discussed. Ultimately what separates a well intentioned person with terse communication, (perhaps) poor empathy skills (i.e. lots of programmers), etc, from an asshole, is intentions. If we could read minds, it would be easier. But we can't, so we read words (and facial expressions, when available). If those signals line up with "asshole", whether or not its true, the person will often be taken as such. Moreover, its possible to be correct and / or on the moral high ground and still be an asshole. Nobody likes being around assholes. And to be clear, I don't know much about this person, so I have no idea if they are one. But I wanted to add on to this comment, I think firing someone for being an asshole is a fine thing to do, regardless of their status or contributions. Which presents an odd situation if a person is not actually an asshole but just seems like one.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#106

Post by fenwick67 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #23
Dirlewanger wrote: post #13

While GitHub seemingly handled her employment poorly, this person sounds horrible to work with: >Was politely calling out a data scientist on a problematic and transphobic survey answer a demonstration of lack of empathy? How presumptuous. Ever thought that maybe the person putting it together didn't know any better? What does framing oneself as the victim accomplish here? In addition, this is hilariously ironic give…

Do you think this person is unusual in her communication style? She posted the complete text of the "problem" comment. If you got that message from a colleague, would you consider it unacceptable? Why or why not? If yes, what could she have said that would have made it OK? How would you answer her core question of whether or not the comment she made is appropriate?

Re-structure the question and switch gender out for cake flavors.

"What flavor of cake do you prefer? Chocolate, vanilla, or sheetcake?"

the feedback coming back as...

"'Sheetcake' is not a flavor. Sheetcake may be vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, lemon-poppyseed... If you want to know if a survey respondent likes sheetcake, you need to explicitly ask that question."

... it does seem kinda grating but not overtly so. It could have been nicer but also could have been more rude.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#108

Post by s73ver »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #73

> "'Transgender' is not a gender. Transgender people may be male, female, gender queer, non-binary... If you want to know if a survey respondent is transgender, you need to explicitly ask that question." I Imagine this read to the survey writer like: "Hello, I'd like to complain about your use of the term Linux on the corporate intranet. A page provides instructions for running the data parsing scripts "on Linux". Si…

So on a survey meant to gather data on the participation rates of marginalized people in Open Source communities, you feel it would be appropriate to publish a question which would be deemed as troublesome or even offensive to members of those groups?

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#109

Post by pc86 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #34
tyingq wrote: post #8

I've seen this a few times. People with a naturally terse way of communicating eventually end up offending someone with the power to retaliate.

The question of "is this person terse, or are they an asshole?" can be very difficult to answer. I think it's interesting how in this thread alone, we can see that people with different views on the core issue are answering it differently. I tend to fall on the author's side on social justice stuff, and I lean "no." Others, who don't (or seem not to), clearly lean "yes." I wonder, if the circumstances were reversed,…

Some people do a good job of making it known that they are one or the other. I used to have a coworker who was very brusque, bordering on rude, not because he was actually an asshole, but because he just didn't really pick up on a lot of social cues, was a little socially awkward, and it would not have surprised me at all to learn he had mild, un-diagnosed autism. But he never got in trouble for it, because even the people who didn't particularly like him personally, knew that that was just his personality, and he meant absolutely nothing bad by it. He enjoyed his job, enjoyed his coworkers, but just did not have the time (or ability?) to worry about social graces.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#110

Post by opportune »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #96
opportune wrote: post #49

The main thing I've taken away from the whole github situation is that, as a tech company, you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. That doesn't mean exclusively hiring white men and sending out Kalanick-style emails; it means keeping your work environment as professional and politically neutral as possible unless absolutely necessary. My employer does a good job of thi…

> you should just entirely stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere I suspect you will find yourself publicly involved in another kind of justice sphere by accident. That said, there is something to your hesitancy. I did a big part of my education in the social justice sphere, and while I believe in pretty much all of the core theories, in practice I don't think most activists have much of a pla…

I think the reason my employer is successful at recruiting women is actually precisely because they stay away from public involvement in the social justice sphere. You think that entails "giving up on that crew entirely", when in reality it does the exact opposite. I think a lot of women/transgender/POC employees don't want to be thought of as an X software developer, just to be thought of as a developer who happens to be X.

The thing about strict professionalism is that it avoids the problems of bro-culture while simultaneously preventing issues from blowing up.

As of now, Github has pretty much alienated everybody. They've pissed of activists by firing Coraline and some of the stuff they've done in the past. They've pissed off "broflakes" by some of their other more recent cultural changes. But now they're starting to piss off people who may or may not care about social justice, but who definitely don't want the defining topic in the OSS community to be social justice. I think this is a game you can only win by refusing to play.

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