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Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

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Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#481

Post by tonymke »

danpalmer wrote: post #382
tonymke wrote: post #81

The impression I have after reading this that Ms. Ehmke had a shit attitude and people got sick of it. And that she hasn't seen that yet. I'm sorry if this seems unempathetic - getting fired sucks, and is extremely painful. But there's no other way I can put it. A long time ago, when my career first started, I also went through the "PIP deathspiral", and it took months... maybe years after my termination to realize I…

What made you get that impression? Obviously the text is going to be somewhat biased, but from what's described I got the impression that she cares about her work, cares about being a good engineer/mentor/manager, has the skills to be good at all of those, and cares about improving even when she doesn't fully agree with the situation.

> I got the impression that she cares about her work, cares about being a good engineer/mentor/manager, has the skills to be good at all of those, and cares about improving even when she doesn't fully agree with the situation.

I agree; she's very passionate about what she's doing. I'm really on about her interactions with the team.

The things that really stand out to me:

- Regarding the data scientist's gender question: "I was forbidden to interact any further with the author of the survey"

- Regarding the mentee situation: "I was told to stop the formal mentoring and allow this person to 'learn at her own pace, without any pressure from you.'"

- Regarding asynchronous communication: "Asynchronous communication is definitely not my strongest area. When I see a text box on screen, I tend to be very terse and direct instead of typing out a wall of text."

It sounds like there's a lot unsaid in these lines she's getting. As if glaring social cues are being missed, and the managers and teammates are either unable or unwilling to just say "you come across like a jerk a lot. People are scared to say this to you. Please slow down before you type."

It could also be my massive amount of privilege talking. Who knows.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#482

Post by tonymke »

StrangeOrange wrote: post #435
tonymke wrote: post #81

The impression I have after reading this that Ms. Ehmke had a shit attitude and people got sick of it. And that she hasn't seen that yet. I'm sorry if this seems unempathetic - getting fired sucks, and is extremely painful. But there's no other way I can put it. A long time ago, when my career first started, I also went through the "PIP deathspiral", and it took months... maybe years after my termination to realize I…

Yeeeeeaahhh... maybe. But it's not exactly the first time GitHub has had issues with this kind of thing. The impression I get from this whole debacle is that GitHub has a shit attitude, and there's more of them than there is of her, so they did what any company does in a similar situation. But hey! It's just a "culture issue" right. Except, the culture issue is that the whole effing Silicon Valley culture is pure poi…

> But hey! It's just a "culture issue" right. Except, the culture issue is that the whole effing Silicon Valley culture is pure poison.

I don't disagree. I probably should have taken the greater SV problem into consideration in my knee jerk OP :-|

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#483

Post by coredog64 »

nojvek wrote: post #270
specialist wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hi cholantesh! Just saw your new survey. Looks great! Hey, have you seen the HRC's recommendations for surveying gender? I've used their guidelines in the past. Very helpful! http://www.hrc.org/resources/collecting-transgender-inclusiv... TLDR: They suggest splitting the gender question into two parts. As you know, this is a super important issue for me. Progress! Exciting! If you're busy, I'll make a pull request.…

Why so much sugarcoating? Feedback was straightforward. I didn't see any aggressive words. Most of out PRs are to the point. Sometimes the big problem I find is that in some companies people are just scared of each other that they fail to communicate. Best places where I worked: people were to the point, they had healthy debates even with strong opinions.

We're missing context as to the existing work relationship. If this was one of the first interactions, maybe it was a little too harsh.

Beyond that, even though I'm generally an asshole, I try to be nice in PR comments. Like it or not, most devs have some amount of ego tied up in their code. So removing the sting with some sugar coating makes for a better chance of them listening.

None of this applies once I have a longer work relationship with the author.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#485

Post by sethrin »

HelloWorldInWS wrote: post #334
sethrin wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the problem of the gender binary is that it never existed. What we have is trans-erasure. More generally it seems to me to prove that, with respect to Mr Burke, all that is necessary for evil to be done to a person is for good people to do nothing.

This isn't _entirely_ accurate. Gender binary may be an oversimplification or diminutive concept, but the idea that it "never existed" is a little extreme. It would almost be like saying religion never really existed because it's a figment of human imagination. In that sense, sure, binary genders are a bandaid over a complex subject, but it does exist. In fact, it is quite literally birthed from the genesis of more t…

I'm sure I did mean to imply that it was an artificial construct, yes. Gender expression and identity are more continuous than people tend to believe.

For the interested, this seems like a pretty good overview of gender identity (primarily from a developmental perspective, of course):

http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/appsych/opus/issues/2011/spring/ge...

If the gender data is somehow critical to the data then it's worth being accurate. If not, why even ask?

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#486

Post by artumi-richard »

ThrwyAcnt wrote: post #478
artumi-richard wrote: post #384

Back in 2006 I read that people don't understand the intended tone in emails. I'm assuming it applies to most text based communication, and is one of the reasons I have devalued email and comments. The key quote: "According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I've only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think th…

Personally, I prefer text communication to calls (and asynchronous to synchronous) to such an extent that such a policy would just result in me not contacting people for simple things. I know I'm probably rehashing an argument many here have had before, but consider: With text, the whole of your message is visible at once, for rereading. You can include links or files, and the recipient doesn't have to take any notes…

You've written a lot here, and I don't have much time. My apologies, I will be terse:

1) I prefer text too and ongoing communication requires lots of this. 2) You should be able to call people over simple things. 3) You should have a work environment where calls are OK. I've solved to many problems with a phone in 10 minutes that others have spent a week playing email ping-pong with. 4) An initial conversation does have lasting effects, "First impressions count" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impression_(psychology) 5) It's not about making people like you, it's about reducing misunderstandings. If you've got open prejudice then this could help to address even that. 6) While you may not learn about someone from a call, especially if you struggle to understand the emotional content of a call, but that doesn't mean they don't understand something about you which eases future communications with that person. 7) Tone setting is really valuable for some people who struggle with focus.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#487

Post by hasenj »

louithethrid wrote: post #397
blockmeamadeus wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that Meritocracy alone overlooks the differences in opportunity people have starting out. Still, I think the criticism is somewhat misguided. I like to think about Neurosurgery to illustrate: if you need a tumor removed from your brain, would you rather have the surgeon be a privileged, elite surgeon from Harvard, or some random dude from the streets? We should be happy that we are able to produce elite Neu…

If that random dude from the street has a 100 % succes rate, and the other has a printed out paper diploma and 50 % succes rate, guess where im going. Academia usually garants a minimum of performance - i will give you that, it is no indicator for a maximum.

What kind of world do you live in where a random dude form the street has a 100% success rate in neurosurgeries?

Well I guess if he performed zero surgeries then he automatically gets 100% success rate.

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#488

Post by hasenj »

ubernostrum wrote: post #235
dropstickle wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources on this bias in tech? Genuinely curious.

If you're curious, consider doing research on the subject rather than asking people to re-litigate the whole thing from first principles every time the topic comes up. It gets exhausting because most people operate from a position of "a belief that there is no significant bias/significant effect from bias is the correct default assumption unless/until someone demonstrates otherwise through overwhelming evidence". And…

Instead of complaining you could have just posted a link?

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#489

Post by searine »

StrangeOrange wrote: post #430
specialist wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hi cholantesh! Just saw your new survey. Looks great! Hey, have you seen the HRC's recommendations for surveying gender? I've used their guidelines in the past. Very helpful! http://www.hrc.org/resources/collecting-transgender-inclusiv... TLDR: They suggest splitting the gender question into two parts. As you know, this is a super important issue for me. Progress! Exciting! If you're busy, I'll make a pull request.…

This tone is so bloody fake and would make me lose all respect for the person sending it. There's treating someone respectfully and there's talking to them like they're a child. The fact that Silicon Valley is promoting this method of communication is just ridiculous. How about we concentrate more on getting things done and less on so much sugar-coating that we all get diabetes.

A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

Re: Antisocial Coding: My Year at GitHub

#490

Post by louithethrid »

hasenj wrote: post #487
louithethrid wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that random dude from the street has a 100 % succes rate, and the other has a printed out paper diploma and 50 % succes rate, guess where im going. Academia usually garants a minimum of performance - i will give you that, it is no indicator for a maximum.

What kind of world do you live in where a random dude form the street has a 100% success rate in neurosurgeries? Well I guess if he performed zero surgeries then he automatically gets 100% success rate.

In a world where i know nurses often perform doctors dutys and jobs, while new doctors stumble around clueless.

Knowledge on adjunct fields and skills can accumulate in a person over time, thus allowing them to perform similar feets.

Like, a bright pupil might learn from a master, if it is not intended. It has happend- since medieval times- apprenticeships, although a attack on caste-think can happen today. Yes, they did not jump through the money hoops, that are suppossed to keep them away- but some of them studied what happens around them. Those servant peoples.. they might not be automatons.

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