3 ms·

The company and employee both want it to be clear that the employee doesn’t speak for the whole company. This is because people attribute the actions of one pe

The company and employee both want it to be clear that the employee doesn’t speak for the whole company. This is because people attribute the actions of one person to the whole group. An example from the HN page yesterday - Microsoft insults dev, then takes credit for his idea (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31284419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31284419). The title was changed later by HN mods to something less incendiary. But the point stands. 1 person working at Microsoft out of 182k said something sarcastic. That sarcasm was interpreted as an insult. Then the entire organisation was blamed (Microsoft insults dev). This happens because it’s easier for us to think reductively. Nuance is too much effort. That’s why employees go to great lengths to add these disclaimers every comment.

freedomben 5y ago
Yep. I worked at Red hat for a while, and anytime I would comment on any post that had anything to do with something that Red hat had to do with, I would have people accuse me of being deceptive by not putting a disclaimer up, Even though in many of those cases it felt stupid to do so. The point at which I started doing it religiously though, was after I made a comment about one of Red hat's competitors. Somebody wrote another post where they talked about Red hat employee Said certain things, so that's the red hat perspective or that's what red hat thinks or something like that. I want to make absolutely clear that everybody reading anything I write knows that I do not speak officially for Red hat. My opinions are truly my own.
- scarface74 5y ago
  I disclose. But I never ever say anything negative about a competitive division of another company. Meaning I might say something negative about Google, but not GCP. It just feels crass.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    Yes I agree and I should clarify, it wasn't a negative comment that people started saying was "Red Hat's" opinion. I likewise don't say anything negative about a competitor (though I may state uncontroversial facts that could seem negative, like "xyz's quarterly earnings were a lot lower than wall street expectations and that sent their stock down." The comment I was referring to above was this (which was several years ago for time reference)): "VMware seems to dominate the bare metal landscape. Even though Red Hat has a competing product, there's still a ton of customers that want to run OpenShift on top of VMware so we end up working with it a fair amount. They made some design decisions that I wouldn't have made, but overall it's solid technology if you don't mind proprietary." I didn't (and still don't) think that was a negative comment. It felt very factual and fair to me. But "overall it's solid technology" is my opinion, not Red Hat's, and it seems ridiculous to me that people would say it was Red Hat's opinion, but ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

freedomben 5y ago

Yep. I worked at Red hat for a while, and anytime I would comment on any post that had anything to do with something that Red hat had to do with, I would have people accuse me of being deceptive by not putting a disclaimer up, Even though in many of those cases it felt stupid to do so. The point at which I started doing it religiously though, was after I made a comment about one of Red hat's competitors. Somebody wrote another post where they talked about Red hat employee Said certain things, so that's the red hat perspective or that's what red hat thinks or something like that. I want to make absolutely clear that everybody reading anything I write knows that I do not speak officially for Red hat. My opinions are truly my own.

scarface74 5y ago
I disclose. But I never ever say anything negative about a competitive division of another company. Meaning I might say something negative about Google, but not GCP. It just feels crass.
- freedomben 5y ago
  Yes I agree and I should clarify, it wasn't a negative comment that people started saying was "Red Hat's" opinion. I likewise don't say anything negative about a competitor (though I may state uncontroversial facts that could seem negative, like "xyz's quarterly earnings were a lot lower than wall street expectations and that sent their stock down." The comment I was referring to above was this (which was several years ago for time reference)): "VMware seems to dominate the bare metal landscape. Even though Red Hat has a competing product, there's still a ton of customers that want to run OpenShift on top of VMware so we end up working with it a fair amount. They made some design decisions that I wouldn't have made, but overall it's solid technology if you don't mind proprietary." I didn't (and still don't) think that was a negative comment. It felt very factual and fair to me. But "overall it's solid technology" is my opinion, not Red Hat's, and it seems ridiculous to me that people would say it was Red Hat's opinion, but ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯