5 ms·

"For example, it instructs that when someone quits or gets fired, the event will be referred to as 'graduation.'" Well, they're certainly laying on the euphemi

by CM30 11y ago

"For example, it instructs that when someone quits or gets fired, the event will be referred to as 'graduation.'" Well, they're certainly laying on the euphemisms here. I mean, maybe it's just me, but that reminds me an awful lot of 1984 esque newspeak and the Ministry of Love. It's all 'lets make the worst possible stuff sound like a good thing'.

argonaut 11y ago
This isn't that bad. A company will never announce internally whether or not someone got fired or is just quitting (a well-run one, at least), with some exceptions (e.g. the executive level). Companies will just say something to the effect of: someone is moving on from the company. There's nothing wrong with using "graduating" in place of "moving on from the company", "leaving," "moving on to a different opportunity," etc.
- CM30 11y ago
  I guess, though moving on sounds a bit more neutral than graduating. One sounds like 'they didn't quite fit in and hence they're parting ways' and one sounds like 'they're a bit too good for this place, so now they're off to Google/Apple/some other company with a good reputation'.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    Neither is accurate. Everyone knows that saying someone is moving on does not imply "they didn't quite fit in." My point is, companies will try to be polite about announcing that people are leaving, so "graduating" is not that bad of a euphemism.
- wott 11y ago
  It is absolutely wrong since it absolutely conflicts with the thing called 'reality'. Words do have a meaning.
  - argonaut 11y ago
    The flaw in your reasoning is assuming that companies have an obligation (or otherwise should) be completely transparent to employees (to present the complete reality). If you think they should, well, you just about disagree with 99.9% of companies ever (including successful ones).
tacostakohashi 11y ago
Using euphemisms, particularly with the goal of making bad events seem good, is indeed grating and lame. I think the intention here is sound, though. There is so much negative baggage around "fired", "laid off", "quit", etc, when these are really not negative events at all. This is where an employee is liberated from a situation that isn't working (quite possibly at a company that isn't doing well, is poorly managed, or in a shrinking industry), and will generally end up working somewhere better, taking the opportunity to travel or start there own business, and grow. Trying to remove these associations from the process is a worthwhile goal, but it would be rather more honest to just go for something neutral like "no longer with us" than trying to co-opt "graduation", which obviously means something completely different.
- golergka 11y ago
  > bad event That's the thing: I don't think that parting ways with a company is a bad thing anymore. So, if the event stops being bad, why use the word with old emotional baggage to describe it?
  - fucking_tragedy 11y ago
    What's changed that makes being laid off not "a bad thing anymore"? How is losing your primary source of income without notice not a bad thing?
    - tacostakohashi 11y ago
      It's an interesting question as to whether something has changed to make being laid off not a bad thing any more - perhaps increased flexibility and liquidity in the labor market from, say, internet job ads, has made this much less of a problem than it used to be. Keep in mind that "laid off" != "losing your primary source of income". A person's primary source of income is, let's say, working as a software developer. If you're laid off, you can still work as a software developer, you just need to spend a little time finding somewhere else to do that. In this way, it's quite different from losing your primary source of income due to, say, ill health. Even if you don't find somewhere else to work, as get all the time that you were previously selling to your employer back to use as you see fit, so in accounting terms it's a wash, rather than a loss.
pfitzsimmons 11y ago
I worked at HubSpot in engineering and I never once heard the term "graduation" in reference to a firing. Usually we just got an email saying, "HubSpot and John have decided to go separate ways" or something to that effect. If someone left by their own choice, usually they would send a "this is my last week" email and we would all go for beers on the last day. The term "graduation" was rarely used in either case. I only remember it being used in the context where an executive would say something like, "John did great work for us, he's now going to be a VP at a new startup, we want to think of this as a graduation."
- cballard 11y ago
  > "HubSpot and John have decided to go separate ways" That's not much better. It's very rarely mutual. Either John has been fired, or John has found another job - perhaps at a company where no one lights cleaning equipment on fire - and is quitting.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- trynewideas 11y ago
  It was used quite a bit in Customer Success. It was used when I was told to leave a few days into my four-weeks' notice. Eng was in another world, especially after the move where your team wound up in your own, separately keyed area of the building, complete with your own kitchen.
jghn 11y ago
Having a sibling several years younger and a mother who worked in education for a while, I noticed that the younger generation had graduation ceremonies for just about everything. Considering the startup culture skews younger, perhaps this is an outgrowth?
- CM30 11y ago
  You're now giving out the image of a bunch of fired employees wearing capes and mortar boards, then throwing them into the air after receiving a pink slip. Which is quite an amusing image. But yeah, it could be tied to the average age at the company.
  - jghn 11y ago
    I was once part of a full-department layoff. Sadly they didn't play pomp and circumstance for us as they marched us out the door.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
brianmcconnell 11y ago
Or, as in Logan's Run, when an employee turns 30, they "rejuvenate"
- fsiefken 11y ago
  Great movie, novel and series. The terms in the movie are either rebirth, the promise of being reborn as a machine raised baby (a belief) or winning renewal when you touch the rainbow unharmed, extra time to your life. Rebirth is an eufemism for being obligatory zapped (or obligatory dying by a pleasurable gas in the novel), can you even win renewal in the deadly carrousel? http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/22080/what-did-the-crowd-think-it-took-to-win-renewal-in-carrousel http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/22080/what-did-the-...
  - cholantesh 11y ago
    > Great movie, novel and series. TIL! I guess once I'm done with the Dune books, I'll have to go through this.
fucking_tragedy 11y ago
How could we forget how eerily reminiscent "1 + 1 = 3" is of 1984's phrase "2 + 2 = 5"? It's hard to believe it wasn't intentional, but again, startup founders.

by CM30 11y ago

argonaut 11y ago

This isn't that bad. A company will never announce internally whether or not someone got fired or is just quitting (a well-run one, at least), with some exceptions (e.g. the executive level). Companies will just say something to the effect of: someone is moving on from the company. There's nothing wrong with using "graduating" in place of "moving on from the company", "leaving," "moving on to a different opportunity," etc.

CM30 11y ago
I guess, though moving on sounds a bit more neutral than graduating. One sounds like 'they didn't quite fit in and hence they're parting ways' and one sounds like 'they're a bit too good for this place, so now they're off to Google/Apple/some other company with a good reputation'.
- argonaut 11y ago
  Neither is accurate. Everyone knows that saying someone is moving on does not imply "they didn't quite fit in." My point is, companies will try to be polite about announcing that people are leaving, so "graduating" is not that bad of a euphemism.
wott 11y ago
It is absolutely wrong since it absolutely conflicts with the thing called 'reality'. Words do have a meaning.
- argonaut 11y ago
  The flaw in your reasoning is assuming that companies have an obligation (or otherwise should) be completely transparent to employees (to present the complete reality). If you think they should, well, you just about disagree with 99.9% of companies ever (including successful ones).

tacostakohashi 11y ago

Using euphemisms, particularly with the goal of making bad events seem good, is indeed grating and lame. I think the intention here is sound, though. There is so much negative baggage around "fired", "laid off", "quit", etc, when these are really not negative events at all. This is where an employee is liberated from a situation that isn't working (quite possibly at a company that isn't doing well, is poorly managed, or in a shrinking industry), and will generally end up working somewhere better, taking the opportunity to travel or start there own business, and grow. Trying to remove these associations from the process is a worthwhile goal, but it would be rather more honest to just go for something neutral like "no longer with us" than trying to co-opt "graduation", which obviously means something completely different.

golergka 11y ago
> bad event That's the thing: I don't think that parting ways with a company is a bad thing anymore. So, if the event stops being bad, why use the word with old emotional baggage to describe it?
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  What's changed that makes being laid off not "a bad thing anymore"? How is losing your primary source of income without notice not a bad thing?
  - tacostakohashi 11y ago
    It's an interesting question as to whether something has changed to make being laid off not a bad thing any more - perhaps increased flexibility and liquidity in the labor market from, say, internet job ads, has made this much less of a problem than it used to be. Keep in mind that "laid off" != "losing your primary source of income". A person's primary source of income is, let's say, working as a software developer. If you're laid off, you can still work as a software developer, you just need to spend a little time finding somewhere else to do that. In this way, it's quite different from losing your primary source of income due to, say, ill health. Even if you don't find somewhere else to work, as get all the time that you were previously selling to your employer back to use as you see fit, so in accounting terms it's a wash, rather than a loss.

pfitzsimmons 11y ago

I worked at HubSpot in engineering and I never once heard the term "graduation" in reference to a firing. Usually we just got an email saying, "HubSpot and John have decided to go separate ways" or something to that effect. If someone left by their own choice, usually they would send a "this is my last week" email and we would all go for beers on the last day. The term "graduation" was rarely used in either case. I only remember it being used in the context where an executive would say something like, "John did great work for us, he's now going to be a VP at a new startup, we want to think of this as a graduation."

cballard 11y ago
> "HubSpot and John have decided to go separate ways" That's not much better. It's very rarely mutual. Either John has been fired, or John has found another job - perhaps at a company where no one lights cleaning equipment on fire - and is quitting.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
trynewideas 11y ago
It was used quite a bit in Customer Success. It was used when I was told to leave a few days into my four-weeks' notice. Eng was in another world, especially after the move where your team wound up in your own, separately keyed area of the building, complete with your own kitchen.

jghn 11y ago

Having a sibling several years younger and a mother who worked in education for a while, I noticed that the younger generation had graduation ceremonies for just about everything. Considering the startup culture skews younger, perhaps this is an outgrowth?

CM30 11y ago
You're now giving out the image of a bunch of fired employees wearing capes and mortar boards, then throwing them into the air after receiving a pink slip. Which is quite an amusing image. But yeah, it could be tied to the average age at the company.
- jghn 11y ago
  I was once part of a full-department layoff. Sadly they didn't play pomp and circumstance for us as they marched us out the door.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

brianmcconnell 11y ago

Or, as in Logan's Run, when an employee turns 30, they "rejuvenate"

fsiefken 11y ago
Great movie, novel and series. The terms in the movie are either rebirth, the promise of being reborn as a machine raised baby (a belief) or winning renewal when you touch the rainbow unharmed, extra time to your life. Rebirth is an eufemism for being obligatory zapped (or obligatory dying by a pleasurable gas in the novel), can you even win renewal in the deadly carrousel? http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/22080/what-did-the-crowd-think-it-took-to-win-renewal-in-carrousel http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/22080/what-did-the-...
- cholantesh 11y ago
  > Great movie, novel and series. TIL! I guess once I'm done with the Dune books, I'll have to go through this.

fucking_tragedy 11y ago

How could we forget how eerily reminiscent "1 + 1 = 3" is of 1984's phrase "2 + 2 = 5"? It's hard to believe it wasn't intentional, but again, startup founders.