
Ask HN: Things you got in trouble for at work that were not a big deal? - mattbgates
One time, my supervisor called me into a meeting to tell me that he did not appreciate me using &quot;hate text&quot; for the landing pages I was creating. I actually did not know what he was talking about and I asked him about it. This is what he showed me. He actually printed it out:<p>&lt;&lt; Lorem ipsum dolorem sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer nec odio. Praesent libero. Sed cursus ante dapibus diam. Sed nisi. Nulla quis sem at nibh elementum imperdiet. Duis sagittis ipsum. Praesent mauris. Fusce nec tellus sed augue semper porta. Mauris massa. Vestibulum lacinia arcu eget nulla. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Curabitur sodales ligula in libero. Sed dignissim lacinia nunc.<p>Curabitur tortor. Pellentesque nibh. Aenean quam. In scelerisque sem at dolor. Maecenas mattis. Sed convallis tristique sem. Proin ut ligula vel nunc egestas porttitor. Morbi lectus risus, iaculis vel, suscipit quis, luctus non, massa. Fusce ac turpis quis ligula lacinia aliquet. Mauris ipsum. Nulla metus metus, ullamcorper vel, tincidunt sed, euismod in, nibh. Quisque volutpat condimentum velit. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Nam nec ante. &gt;&gt;<p>A few words along with &quot;dolorem&quot; got picked up in the translator as &quot;hate, pain, suffer, sorrow&quot;.<p>The supervisor told me not to use this text, but had scolded me once before for using a &quot;bacon ipsum&quot; and a &quot;cupcake ipsum&quot; generator saying, &quot;We need to provide the client with serious work. Funny text like this is not appropriate.&quot; So I went back to using Lorem Ipsum text.<p>I had come to find out that one of my co-workers &quot;reported me&quot; because her Chrome browser decided to try and translate the Lorem Ipsum text. She thought I was purposely writing that I hated her. And this is why I almost got fired. It took two other co-workers, who had near-identical text, to convince my supervisor that I did not write hate speech.
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daly
At IBM I got "called on the carpet" to the Director's office because I was
seen in the hallway without my jacket. (1978)

Back in the past I worked at Franklin Lakes, the IBM Office Products Division
headquarters. I was a VM/360 Systems Programmer. I printed out a "core dump"
of memory and since the printer was just down the hall I walked out of my
office, picked it up, and returned. Someone saw me, called my manager, who
passed it up the hierarchy as an "infraction"... and I ended up getting chewed
out by the Director (3 levels up the management chain).

Office Products sold typewriters, paper, and punched cards. Our typewriter
repair persons (all male) wore suits and wing-tip shoes to service your
typewriter.

Times have changed.

~~~
partisan
I sympathize with you. I am in my late 30s so I didn't experience that level
of inanity, but I did work somewhere where I had to carry a pager. I let the
battery die though not on purpose. I was terrified the third time it happened.
They never really mentioned it. They just took me out of the rotation and gave
me a supervisory role over the other people in my team who had been there for
many years and who did answer their late night pages. This was when I knew it
was time to leave that job.

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schoen
The original text _is_ about suffering and pain (presenting an interesting
philosophical argument which I've come to associate closely with George
Lakoff's "moral credit and debit" theory, that we tend to think people who
have suffered automatically earned virtue from it).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum#Latin_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum#Latin_source)

Of course that doesn't mean that people who use this text are wishing
suffering on anyone.

See also

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22)

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mvpu
This tells me your supervisor was never a creator (lorem ipsum is like hello
world), lacks good judgment (should have researched the complaint and
dismissed it as benign, explained to your naive colleague), and lacks good
temperament (scolding is immature). I would look for a better supervisor and
company.

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partisan
Using some joke lipsum generator for client facing designs is a sign of poor
judgement, but excusable and serves as a teachable moment. Not understanding
what lipsum is at all is much less excusable. I would note, however, that you
failed to clearly explain the source of the text and its purpose and did so
after being scolded for using something similar.

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savethefuture
Lorem ipsum hate speech, thats a new one... You work for a shitty company who
hires shitty people.

~~~
mattbgates
The company itself is okay, but the people? Ha... they even promoted her to a
senior position.

So if you think about it, this was over an hour of company time wasted on
debating Lorem Ipsum.

~~~
smt88
I don't understand your distinction between the company and the people working
at or managing it. The company = the people at the company.

~~~
vanderreeah
Plus the product(s) it makes, plus the work environment, hours, regulations,
etc.

~~~
mattbgates
While I get along with most of my co-workers and the supervisor bothers me
every so often, it has become a lot less. There are certainly benefits to
remaining at work there including what you say AND ... 10-15 minute ride to
work, vacation time, sick days, my own cozy cubicle, privacy, pay isn't
horrible, and I get some creative freedom. So yeah, there are some people that
suck, but we also make a killer product and we market for some top companies
including Pepsi, Bond No. 9, Goldman Sachs, Toys R Us, almost off of Las Vegas
and many, many others.

So thank you for pointing that out vanderreeah.

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isaiahg
Wow, I've used Lorem ipsum before and people seem really confused by it and
think I put it in purposely and that it was part of the final design.

~~~
mattbgates
We had a few clients tell us: "Hey, can you take that Spanish out? We want
English."

Surprising that there are people out there who have no idea what Lorem Ipsum
is.

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RUG3Y
Your supervisor sounds like a typical middle-management asshat.

