Accountability Sinks • Hacker News Board

Re: Accountability Sinks

#231

Post by ethbr1 » Sat, May 03, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #167

t_luke wrote: post #153

The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have some capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible. The people who get what th…

Yes unfortunately I've observed this in some support systems. The best way is to thread the needle between being extremely personally polite to the other human on the line, but going through the required machinations on their runbook to trigger an escalation. That is - you don't really have to behave unpleasant (raise voice, swear, be impolite, threaten) but you should just refuse to get off the line, demand escalati…

> Possibly including phrasing like "what do we need to do to resolve this issue".

"We" phrasing is an empathy hack for CS, because it lets you continue to be nice to the person you're talking to AND be persistent about "our" issue being solved.

It's kind of like judo, especially when faced with an apathetic, resistant, or adversarial rep: "This isn't just my problem. This is our problem. So how can we fix it?"

PS: In the same way that my favorite cancellation reason turns the situation on its head. Don't play the game they've rigged up for you to lose. "Why are you cancelling?" -> "Personal reasons." There's literally no counter-response.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#232

Post by aaviator42 » Sat, May 03, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #226

Also... there was this discussion several months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43877301 Both that item and this item add the unique perspectives of the authors, but both are about issues raised by Dan Davies' Unaccountability Machine . So if you like this thread, you might like that thread.

The link you shared is to this thread

Re: Accountability Sinks

#233

Post by paganel » Sat, May 03, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

npteljes wrote: post #101

paganel wrote: post #60

[flagged]

1. Not specific to the Dutch at all. Worldwide practice. 2. These are also human traits! Maybe not so much humane traits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_culling

> Worldwide practice.

For sure we don't do that sociopathic thing here in Romania. Ok, I get it, the regulations were set in stone, but after shredding (again, what the flying fuck?!?!) the first animal hasn't any of those Dutch employees just stopped and ask themselves: "What the hell are we doing here?". It certainly explains Anne Frank, after all she was violating the regulations that were in place back then in that desolate and sad country.

> 2. These are also human traits! Maybe not so much humane traits.

We're talking about mammals here. Not that what happens with chicks is the correct way to do it, and God knows we deserve everything that comes our way as a species for doing that, but there are degrees in all this madness.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#234

Post by AlotOfReading » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #209

buran77 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He was obviously forbidden to hang up on me Plenty of big companies found a workaround. The "forever on hold" routine where they don't hang up, you will eventually. This works perfectly for toll free numbers (so you can't claim you had to pay for the call) and provides just the right amount of plausible deniability (took longer than expected to find an answer, it was an accident, etc.). I have my suspicions that in…

Is it even possible to keep someone "on hold" forever? My experience (in Poland) was that it'll take at most 20-30 minutes before something somewhere timeouts and the call gets disconnected.

I've been on hold for 4+ hours when dealing with the California government. The only timeout there is at the end of the business day, when it will automatically hang up.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#235

Post by yusina » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #224

yusina wrote: post #221

The squirrel example sounds terrible, but people don't realize the danger that moving pathogen-carrying specimen across ecosystems poses. Introducing a disease into your local environment can have devastating consquences for wildlife or farming or both. Example: Dairy farms have strict rules about not letting anybody in who was abroad within the last 48 hours because of possible spread of foot-and-mouth disease. Ther…

The acute guilt levied wasn't about following orders and exterminating the ground squirrels... ... but using an industrial shredder to do it. (on 440 of them) For reference, this is an industrial shredder: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/I15kCJyl6po Anyone who did that to a live animal deserves to be in prison, orders or no. There are innumerable compassionate, humane ways to kill animals, if it's necessary.

I suppose you are vegetarian? Cause the amount of suffering that the majority of animals have endure which are killed for meat is on a similar level. (Transport to slaughterhouse and subsequent death by suffocation or boiling, depending on species.)

Or rather, vegan? Since average dairy cow or hen endures quite some suffering over their whole life too. In addition to then experiencing a similar death to what animals mainly used for meat production endure.

This is meant to point out that the shredder is a terrible machine, buy not categorically worse than how the typical production animal is treated at some point of their conscious life.

(To clarify, I'm personally neither vegan nor vegetarian so am not trying to elevate myself morally above you.)

Re: Accountability Sinks

#236

Post by netsharc » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

Ocha wrote: post #214

macNchz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results. I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind u…

I was patient and calm for 30 minutes trying to get same day flight after Turkish Airlines bumped me off my connecting flight and told me to wait 24h in airport for next one. They kept giving me different excuses why they cannot put me in airport hotel, why they can’t put me on a different airline that had flights and only gave me $12 food voucher. After yelling at them for 5 min I was booked on KLM flight departing…

Sounds like AirBnB support, hired to be as big as delaying fuckwits as possible so the company has to pay out as little compensation as possible.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#237

Post by rocqua » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:09 PM UTC

op00to wrote: post #129

dendodge wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic, but since you mention it, I've always been confused about what Americans always seem to be doing at the DMV. It seems to be a staple of pop culture that people are always there and the queue is always very long, but I've never known what anyone is actually trying to achieve. The DVLA in the UK doesn't have a high-street presence. I took my driving test once, then received my driving licence in the post. Wh…

Because of the importance of driving in the US (right or wrong), drivers licenses are used as the primary identification document. It looks like there’s a similar use of the DL in the UK for buying tobacco. In the US, you need to prove both residency and identity. To prove your identity in the US, many people don’t have passports, so they bring a tranche of documents to the DMV office. To prove residency, we typicall…

You hit uppon an important difference between the US and most of Europe/the UK. An system for tracking who your citizens are. In the Netherlands, where I live, the municipalities cooperate to keep track of all citizens, and their address (or lack thereof). This means that you never need to convince any beaurocrat that your identity exists. You might need to authenticate that you are indeed who you claim to be, but that is normally trivial (Show government photo id).

This simplifies the process massively.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#238

Post by t_luke » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:10 PM UTC

Ocha wrote: post #214

macNchz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results. I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind u…

I was patient and calm for 30 minutes trying to get same day flight after Turkish Airlines bumped me off my connecting flight and told me to wait 24h in airport for next one. They kept giving me different excuses why they cannot put me in airport hotel, why they can’t put me on a different airline that had flights and only gave me $12 food voucher. After yelling at them for 5 min I was booked on KLM flight departing…

I’ve had the same experience on a flight. They said the plane was overweight and we couldnt travel. The person I was travelling with became extremely difficult. Then magically, it wasn’t overweight any more.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#239

Post by margalabargala » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

EasyMark wrote: post #185

keyringlight wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that strikes me about 24 is that it started running about 2 months after the 9/11 attacks. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a debate about running it or edits, but in retrospect it does seem like the timing worked and fit with the public mood of the time. What would be interesting is how 9/11 and following real life events influenced the show's writing in later series.

You don't put together and film a show in 2 months if that's what you're implying here. it was planned for a long time before that

They are suggesting that the events of 9/11 would have made the showrunners debate whether they should delay the release of 24, or edit it to change the content somewhat.

Re: Accountability Sinks

#240

Post by nathan_compton » Sat, May 03, 2025, 4:12 PM UTC

einpoklum wrote: post #17

> Bad people react to this by getting angry at the gate attendant; good people walk away stewing with thwarted rage. Notwithstanding the rest of the column, this particular example brings the following thought to mind: It could actually be argued that getting angry at the gate attendant is not a "bad people" response. Suppose that under those circumstances, the typical individual passenger would demand the gate atten…

You can deny the non-agency of the gate attendant without getting angry. My personal feeling is that no mature adult should ever get angry really under any circumstances, though I don't expect this or really blame people for being angry.