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I'm now over 45, and I've never, ever worked for a company like that. So ask yourself: how do bloggers that rant about such companies get this wisdom? It's al

I'm now over 45, and I've never, ever worked for a company like that. So ask yourself: how do bloggers that rant about such companies get this wisdom? It's always the people that play the game and fail that loudly blame the game.

ChuckMcM 11y ago
I expect it is unfair to generalize that "people that play the game and fail" blame the game. Rather there are a number of people who do not understand how communities work, and never have, and so they don't recognize when they are being antagonistic to the very people they want to be friends with. I remember having a conversation with a relatively new programmer who was ranting they were "fed up with all the political BS and just wanted to write code and be left alone." That is a sentiment I completely resonate with, but in this case the "political BS" was folks trying to help this person become more effective in the organization. What was impairing their efficiency was that this individual wrote code in a vacuum. people trying to integrate with it were frustrated when this developer decides on Friday night that they don't like how they structured the APIs with an opaque handle and convert everything into a callbacks which appears as the new API to the rest of the organization on Monday. It wasn't "political BS" that was causing these folks to be angry with this individual, it was that this individual was actively making their job harder than needed. But when it became clear that more people where being hindered than helped, I was asked to step in and see if I could help this person see what the real issues were. I was only 50% effective, they understood the issue but decided to leave rather than slow down to listen to the needs of the other engineers. To this day they assert they were 'forced out' but nothing could be further from the truth.
- dctoedt 11y ago
  > I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... they understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day they assert they were 'forced out' .... Off-topic rant: For the love of God, will everyone please STOP with the use of they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. History shows us a better way: Decades ago, feminists coined the term Ms., which has all but totally replaced the old-fashioned Miss and Mrs. Those concerned with gender neutrality should do likewise, instead of inflicting ambiguity and inaccuracy on the rest of us by (mis)using they. </rant>
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    I understand your rant, and I've been around for a while, I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. Since that time, I've paid more attention to whether or not I can share an example at all given how easily the Internet allows one to deduce such things. Not surprisingly, the Internet doesn't like obviously fictionalized examples either so it limits my sharing to things about me and things which I can make reasonably opaque.
    - dctoedt 11y ago
      > I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. That's certainly a valid concern. Another approach would be simply to keep repeating "the person" instead of they, as in: I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... the person understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day the person claims to have been 'forced out' .... That's a bit jarring, granted, but at least it doesn't promote linguistic abomination <g>. On a related note, I was recently at a church service where the prayers had been changed to eliminate any pronoun for God. EXAMPLE adapted from Psalm 103: Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless God's [vice His] holy name.
  - dreamfactory2 11y ago
    no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and_prescriptive_guidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and...
    - dctoedt 11y ago
      > no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries But disapproved by most style guides, school English teachers, etc., because it's inaccurate.
onthesideofthe 11y ago
Yes. In my experience, co-workers who complain about management sociopaths are more likely to be the ones coveting their jobs.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I expect it is unfair to generalize that "people that play the game and fail" blame the game. Rather there are a number of people who do not understand how communities work, and never have, and so they don't recognize when they are being antagonistic to the very people they want to be friends with. I remember having a conversation with a relatively new programmer who was ranting they were "fed up with all the political BS and just wanted to write code and be left alone." That is a sentiment I completely resonate with, but in this case the "political BS" was folks trying to help this person become more effective in the organization. What was impairing their efficiency was that this individual wrote code in a vacuum. people trying to integrate with it were frustrated when this developer decides on Friday night that they don't like how they structured the APIs with an opaque handle and convert everything into a callbacks which appears as the new API to the rest of the organization on Monday. It wasn't "political BS" that was causing these folks to be angry with this individual, it was that this individual was actively making their job harder than needed. But when it became clear that more people where being hindered than helped, I was asked to step in and see if I could help this person see what the real issues were. I was only 50% effective, they understood the issue but decided to leave rather than slow down to listen to the needs of the other engineers. To this day they assert they were 'forced out' but nothing could be further from the truth.

dctoedt 11y ago
> I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... they understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day they assert they were 'forced out' .... Off-topic rant: For the love of God, will everyone please STOP with the use of they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. History shows us a better way: Decades ago, feminists coined the term Ms., which has all but totally replaced the old-fashioned Miss and Mrs. Those concerned with gender neutrality should do likewise, instead of inflicting ambiguity and inaccuracy on the rest of us by (mis)using they. </rant>
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I understand your rant, and I've been around for a while, I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. Since that time, I've paid more attention to whether or not I can share an example at all given how easily the Internet allows one to deduce such things. Not surprisingly, the Internet doesn't like obviously fictionalized examples either so it limits my sharing to things about me and things which I can make reasonably opaque.
  - dctoedt 11y ago
    > I explicitly use the gender neutral pronoun because of a post I made here where someone took my LinkedIn history, gender of the person, and subject and back tracked it to an individual who later, and quite reasonably, chastised me about sharing in public. That's certainly a valid concern. Another approach would be simply to keep repeating "the person" instead of they, as in: I was asked to ... see if I could help this person .... the person understood the issue but decided to leave .... To this day the person claims to have been 'forced out' .... That's a bit jarring, granted, but at least it doesn't promote linguistic abomination <g>. On a related note, I was recently at a church service where the prayers had been changed to eliminate any pronoun for God. EXAMPLE adapted from Psalm 103: Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless God's [vice His] holy name.
- dreamfactory2 11y ago
  no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and_prescriptive_guidance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Acceptability_and...
  - dctoedt 11y ago
    > no clear cut misuse and has been in use both informally and in English literature for centuries But disapproved by most style guides, school English teachers, etc., because it's inaccurate.

onthesideofthe 11y ago

Yes. In my experience, co-workers who complain about management sociopaths are more likely to be the ones coveting their jobs.