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You and I seem to have different standards for "taking it out" on or "berating" someone. Even if the "threat" is taken at face value, the possibility of receivi
by ddevault 6y ago
You and I seem to have different standards for "taking it out" on or "berating" someone. Even if the "threat" is taken at face value, the possibility of receiving a few unwanted emails per week is hardly a harrowing scenario. If you feel otherwise, then consider that is exactly what GitHub is doing to me.
It was a joke. Tamper it down a bit. I get that you've suffered in a customer-facing position before, but this is not a measured response.
- SahAssar 6y ago> Even if the "threat" is taken at face value, the possibility of receiving a few unwanted emails per week is hardly a harrowing scenario. If you feel otherwise, then consider that is exactly what GitHub is doing to me. You literally say that you would inflict on a single person within a huge organization what you wrote a whole blog post and multiple emails to avoid personally. I get it was a joke, but I'm guessing you can see the irony in that.
- ddevault 6y agoYeah, and if you think that's bad, then it makes my fucking point.
- SahAssar 6y agoSure, but it also makes the point where you perhaps should not send that, right? If you think something is harmful or bad then perhaps don't say you're going to do it to others. Especially when the person is a individual that often does not have control of the policies that they have to represent professionally in their work.
- ddevault 6y agoI don't understand your argument. The joke is meant to be illustrative of the problem, to inspire empathy in an otherwise unempathetic party. This requires an understanding of the unpleasantness of the situation. If I did not communicate that unpleasantness, then the desired effect is not achieved. What would you have done?
- SahAssar 6y agoWe're getting into some philosophical areas here (and these are very deep waters for me, so forgive me if I misstep), but it sounds to me like you think the only way to get empathy is to put the other party to get into the same theoretical situation. I think there are other ways to get others to understand you and get empathy. I don't think you need to make someone else experience the unpleasantness to make them feel empathy, you can communicate unpleasantness without (in this case jokingly) threatening to inflict it. In this case the person you are talking to is probably not at all responsible for the original problem, so I think the need to consider both the human and the company you are talking to is larger than when dealing with a single person.
- akerl_ 6y agoSuggesting to somebody else that you’ll inflict something on them that you did not appreciate having been done to you is basically a textbook violation of the golden rule. If you think what is happening to you is bad, the suggestion that you’ll inflict the behavior on another is also bad. If you don’t think it’s bad to do this to the support rep, the blog post is a bit of an odd move.
- AdamJacobMuller 6y ago> the possibility of receiving a few unwanted emails per week is hardly a harrowing scenario And, yet, it was so harrowing to you that you felt the need to write a whole blog post about it. I'm not sure who you are, but, you seem entitled and unpleasant.
- ddevault 6y agoI am entitled to not receiving unwanted emails, as is everyone else. This is a right guaranteed to us both by common courtesey and by law. I also recommend you review the HN guidelines regarding personal attacks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html