5 ms·

No, sorry, you don’t get to just fire that serious accusation towards everyone here. I’ve made another comment here about what I think is behind her post. But

No, sorry, you don’t get to just fire that serious accusation towards everyone here. I’ve made another comment here about what I think is behind her post. But if you want my general common sense opinion on why the post didn’t resonate with most people is because it falls under the old adage of ‘know your audience’. People are getting laid off, there’s entire groups trying to break into the industry, there’s entire groups in inconsequential positions that are easily commoditized, and so on. Yet here is someone being critical of what appears to be a 3-day on boarding, many of us would be lucky to have that job, and even luckier to be able to bounce from it on a whim. Goto a third world country and complain about how Costco has long annoying lines in America. Anyway, that’s the underlying sentiment behind the post that I think most people are reacting to. Know your audience, or even better, get your timing right. Don’t bring this up when there’s 39 million unemployed.

Lammy 6y ago
That’s so reductive. How is anybody allowed to have any problem if someone else has it worse off than them? You seem to misunderstand my “serious accusation” as if I’m saying criticizing a woman is unacceptable. I’m saying I believe there’s a gender difference in people’s default level of empathy. Spoiler: I thought her post about the onboarding sucked too, for all the same reasons everyone else did. And I’m someone who usually loves her blog. I try to be empathetic to the fact that we’re all different people and will react to the same situation in vastly individual ways. Her reaction to that onboarding situation is her own, and those emotions are the kind of thing that can’t really be “wrong” or up for debate. You can’t reason somebody into un-feeling an emotion. Maybe the HN discussion for her post could have been about making these kind of huggy feely human processes more accessible? Instead it was about how she’s so ungrateful, or about how she shouldn’t have published it, or even speculation about her neurotypicality. Lots of people in tech circles talk a big game about how they’re so progressive and support all people’s differences because a person can bring so much in other areas despite the areas where they are weak. Just don’t be female I guess.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  So here again you allude to gender. I’m open to having that discussion as a valid consideration if we eliminated all other rational explanations (as in, we enter the gender discussion if it’s obvious we can’t make sense of the reaction any other way). As for how to bring up her issue? Well, her initial way was one way. It turned out it wasn’t the best. The parameters you can modify is when and also to whom. Believe it or not, speaking directly to faang level senior engineers can provide insight into higher levels of standards that a larger diverse audience can extract value from since due diligence was done on providing perspective. That’s an adjustment. Edit: I’ll just add one thing to give an example of honing perspective. It is entirely possible that the first three days of on boarding is a dream come true for a lot of people, just to finally be at that company. Now how would I sound if I compared my dismissive experience of it in contrast to that? If this is you fifth or sixth go around, and you picked up some good/bad, make that clear, and be aware of the diversity in people’s experiences so that your critiques are palatable in a variety of contexts.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    > Now how would I sound if I compared my dismissive experience of it in contrast to that? I would trust that both of you are telling the truth about the way you experience reality, wouldn't assume that one had to be false for the other to be true, would probably try to offer some words of sympathy or encouragement for your bad experience, and would do my best to accommodate both in the future, of course :)

Lammy 6y ago

That’s so reductive. How is anybody allowed to have any problem if someone else has it worse off than them? You seem to misunderstand my “serious accusation” as if I’m saying criticizing a woman is unacceptable. I’m saying I believe there’s a gender difference in people’s default level of empathy. Spoiler: I thought her post about the onboarding sucked too, for all the same reasons everyone else did. And I’m someone who usually loves her blog. I try to be empathetic to the fact that we’re all different people and will react to the same situation in vastly individual ways. Her reaction to that onboarding situation is her own, and those emotions are the kind of thing that can’t really be “wrong” or up for debate. You can’t reason somebody into un-feeling an emotion. Maybe the HN discussion for her post could have been about making these kind of huggy feely human processes more accessible? Instead it was about how she’s so ungrateful, or about how she shouldn’t have published it, or even speculation about her neurotypicality. Lots of people in tech circles talk a big game about how they’re so progressive and support all people’s differences because a person can bring so much in other areas despite the areas where they are weak. Just don’t be female I guess.

runawaybottle 6y ago
So here again you allude to gender. I’m open to having that discussion as a valid consideration if we eliminated all other rational explanations (as in, we enter the gender discussion if it’s obvious we can’t make sense of the reaction any other way). As for how to bring up her issue? Well, her initial way was one way. It turned out it wasn’t the best. The parameters you can modify is when and also to whom. Believe it or not, speaking directly to faang level senior engineers can provide insight into higher levels of standards that a larger diverse audience can extract value from since due diligence was done on providing perspective. That’s an adjustment. Edit: I’ll just add one thing to give an example of honing perspective. It is entirely possible that the first three days of on boarding is a dream come true for a lot of people, just to finally be at that company. Now how would I sound if I compared my dismissive experience of it in contrast to that? If this is you fifth or sixth go around, and you picked up some good/bad, make that clear, and be aware of the diversity in people’s experiences so that your critiques are palatable in a variety of contexts.
- Lammy 6y ago
  > Now how would I sound if I compared my dismissive experience of it in contrast to that? I would trust that both of you are telling the truth about the way you experience reality, wouldn't assume that one had to be false for the other to be true, would probably try to offer some words of sympathy or encouragement for your bad experience, and would do my best to accommodate both in the future, of course :)