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Feigned surprise is petty bullying by people who get their asses kicked by even nastier bullies: the business assholes who run this industry because, as enginee

Feigned surprise is petty bullying by people who get their asses kicked by even nastier bullies: the business assholes who run this industry because, as engineers, we're absolutely terrible at fighting for our own interests, and have let ourselves become a colonized people who mostly implement others' shitty ideas and are paid in table scraps. It's no different from the playground bully who goes home and gets the shit beaten out of him by his drunk-ass dad. Because he can't wallop his father, he takes it out on the other kids. These asshats (the ones who feign surprise) can't do anything about the VCs and product executives and idiot fuckups who make the life of a typical programmer so terrible, so they take it out on other engineers whom they perceive as marginal: women, minorities, people over or under the group's age range, and new entrants to the field.

mjolk 13y ago
It's pretty heavy conjecture to assume that jerks are bigots or misogynists becuase they're mad at someone else at work.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  If someone's a member of the Taliban or the Ku Klux Klan, it's likely that his issues go deeper than "mad at the boss man". However, even your most obnoxious brogrammer is not likely to be in the Klan. He probably isn't even a bigot. He's a bully. There's a difference. Bullies attack those who are politically weak. It so happens that politically weak people are often in a minority in that environment, but I don't think gender, race, or age are explicitly part of their selection process. The archetypical bully brogrammer doesn't wake up and say, "after my 10:30 protein shake, I'm going to direct a few microaggressions at female programmers. Oh, and Mark turns 40 on Thursday, so I need to put him on my rotation." It doesn't work that way, obviously. They pick on the weak-- whoever that may be, and it often changes-- because they're picked-on from above and it's their only way to restore their battered confidence.
  - mjolk 13y ago
    You seem to have a very specific anecdote in mind.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      Actually, no. The "protein shake" anecdote was just me throwing bro stereotypes and tech-sphere complaints together. Typical tech bullies avoid and ignore me because they know I'm good at what I do, and better than most of them. The only time I face adversity from a programmer is when I make him insecure (which doesn't require that I be better, although that's often the case.)

mjolk 13y ago

It's pretty heavy conjecture to assume that jerks are bigots or misogynists becuase they're mad at someone else at work.

michaelochurch 13y ago
If someone's a member of the Taliban or the Ku Klux Klan, it's likely that his issues go deeper than "mad at the boss man". However, even your most obnoxious brogrammer is not likely to be in the Klan. He probably isn't even a bigot. He's a bully. There's a difference. Bullies attack those who are politically weak. It so happens that politically weak people are often in a minority in that environment, but I don't think gender, race, or age are explicitly part of their selection process. The archetypical bully brogrammer doesn't wake up and say, "after my 10:30 protein shake, I'm going to direct a few microaggressions at female programmers. Oh, and Mark turns 40 on Thursday, so I need to put him on my rotation." It doesn't work that way, obviously. They pick on the weak-- whoever that may be, and it often changes-- because they're picked-on from above and it's their only way to restore their battered confidence.
- mjolk 13y ago
  You seem to have a very specific anecdote in mind.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    Actually, no. The "protein shake" anecdote was just me throwing bro stereotypes and tech-sphere complaints together. Typical tech bullies avoid and ignore me because they know I'm good at what I do, and better than most of them. The only time I face adversity from a programmer is when I make him insecure (which doesn't require that I be better, although that's often the case.)