
When Smart People are Bad Employees - J3L2404
http://blogs.forbes.com/bruceupbin/2011/01/03/when-smart-people-are-bad-employees/?boxes=Homepagechannels
======
keeptrying
All said and done you need your "bad" employee more than they need you.
Brilliance usually comes at a cost. If you were really a good leader you would
have been able to get Rodger some help with his drug problem. And if it had
worked he would have repayed you with some amazing work.

Stop fucking complaining about "bad" employees who make you more money than
everyone else on the team. Your job IS to deal with them - so deal with it.

Else be happy with the 9-to-5 lifers on you team and shut the fuck up. You'll
find that you aren't going to be able todo jack shit with them.

I hate people who post shit like this.

~~~
kenjackson
_Your job IS to deal with them_

Your job isn't to deal with them, its to extract from them. Once you can no
longer extract value beyond their cost, "poof, be gone".

Once T.O. isn't a great player, who's gonna put up with him? No one. With that
said, when you look at most of the greats, think Gretsky, Jordan, Tiger,
Magic, Bird, etc... they are the model player. The only major exception I can
think of is Bonds, and with him, steroids I think I helped a lot. If not for
the roids, I think Griffey and A-Rod look a lot better.

~~~
qq66
Even without his later 'roid years Bonds is statistically by far the best
batter of his generation and one of the top 5 of all time (Probably #2, just a
sliver behind Williams).

~~~
kenjackson
Well he is claimed to have started roids in 1998. While he was a great player
before '98, he moves into legendary status after '98. With that said, I
shouldn't have put A-Rod in the same breath with the Kid since clearly A-Rod
also used steroids.

------
wheaties
I've tried very hard not to be one of those people on that list. For a while I
was the first, feeling completely helpless to change anything. Then someone
within the company helped change some of that for me. Now I've matured to the
point where I can objectively look at this company and realize it's a mismatch
between my professional goals and the role that they would have me play. Quite
simply it's not a software company and that's where I need to work.

Thanks for putting this up. Every time I read something like this is helps
keep me in check.

~~~
damncabbage
I'm in a similar sort of position, but I'm a developer working at a software
company:

My goal is to automate deployments, boost efficiency and introduce "force
multipliers" to get the highest bang-for-buck ratio: basically getting rid of
the roadblocks between the guys and them churning out awesome stuff at a
terrific speed.

On the other hand, the company _loses_ money (in the short term) when I
automate things; if two-hour deployments are reduced to 15 minutes each, they
can no longer charge the client that extra hour or two for every batch of
work. Projects are generally quoted and charged by the hour; if the client's
reasonably content with the cost and the resulting work then there's not much
incentive to get things done more quickly, regardless of how wasteful we're
being.

Sometimes I can clear roadblocks. Most of the time I can't. It's taken a year,
but I've come to realise the company's and my own goals are orthogonal, that
I'm becoming an Example #1, and that it's time to move on.

(Thanks for posting the article; it's nice to see these negative qualities
clearly laid out.)

~~~
autarch
<pedant>Your goals and the company's are not orthogonal, they are in
opposition. Orthogonal means unrelated, but in this case they _are_ related,
just not in the right way.</pedant>

~~~
damncabbage
Ack. Thanks; you're right.

(I'll leave the post as-is so your follow-up doesn't look silly.)

------
BigZaphod
This is probably OT and maybe even rude... but that lead-in with the Kanye
lyrics is just strange.

My reading of the lyrics snippet (and I'm certainly no expert in these things)
suggests that the character is telling a girl to run away from him because he
knows he's a dick. Specifically, he's a dick that's especially good at
criticism and spreading negativity and of the list of targets, one group
happens to be people who work a lot which implies to me that the character's
less-than-hardworking nature looks bad by comparison.

So not only is the character a dick, he's a self-professed underachieving one
and perhaps even proud of it. He might even be worried that the girl is one of
those kinds of people he hates, or maybe he kinda cares for her and knows his
personality is toxic on some level, or he just can't have nice things, or
there happens to be a hotter girl one table over so this one has to go...

Anyway, it's just odd because it seems like the character that is "speaking"
in the song is exactly the sort of guy who might bitch about how troublesome
smart people are because he's always got to be the smartest guy in the room
but refuses to put in the work required to remain the smartest guy in the room
when there's other _actual_ smart guys in the room. So the best solution in
that case is to get rid of the others by telling them to "run away as fast as
you can."

In summary, it seems to me like the lyrics are actually speaking more as a
person who hates over-achievers and/or smart people than as a person who is
one of those troublesome smart persons who hates average folk and therefore
would appear to, well, not really support the author's actual argument. Or
something?

I don't know. I'm probably not one of the smart ones. so... :P

~~~
naner
It comes across inappropriate and immature. Regardless of the content, a VC in
his mid forties shouldn't be quoting rap lyrics at the head of business
articles. I can't imagine having a conversation with this guy about business
where he casually offers a quote about douchebags and assholes from Kanye West
to explain something.

Kanye belongs on your iPod, not in your Forbes opinion piece.

~~~
mkelly
What about rap music do you have an objection to?

(I ask, very specifically, because you said "rap lyrics" and not, e.g., "music
with immature lyrics".)

~~~
roel_v
Seriously? You're turning this into a juvenile 'my music is better than yours'
argument? This is no reason to assume the OP has a specific beef with rap,
just that it doesn't belong in a business article, which is true. Reading
comprehension also means deriving assumptions from the context and looking for
interpretations of what is said that fit within that context.

~~~
imgabe
What is it about rap music that makes it unsuitable for a business article?
How many other areas of society do you wall off as inappropriate to learn from
when it comes to business?

~~~
roel_v
OK fine, if you're going to push it...

The point is that in order to be credible to a wide audience, as this article
was intended, you need to convey the correct 'tone' so to say. This a part of
what is called in classical dialectic the 'ethos' of an argument. (to pre-
empt, no, just 'logos' is not enough, and neither should it be - but that's a
different argument).

So, in order to build up 'ethos', one needs to present oneself as a mature,
mainstream person in the context of the subject under discussion. (yes, some
people make a career out of breaking out of this, in order to appeal to a
niche audience; see e.g. that ruby webserver blogger guy that gets linked here
quite a lot, but that's not what the author in the article does or should be
try to do, as far as I can tell).

Like it or not, rap and hip hop music are not mainstream to the traditional
Forbes crowd. Partly because (most) rap artists build their careers on their
anti-mainstream views, violent and promiscuous images, and cater specifically
to an audience who finds one of the draws to the music in that anti-mainstream
aspect of it.

So that's what makes it inappropriate in this context. For this author, in
this context, to convey his message to as large an audience as possible, he
should stick to 'accepted' style figures. And rap lyrics aren't part of that.
It was a gamble I guess, and he lost, imo.

(Just to pre-empt another 'hey look at this country boy hating black music!',
I bought hip hop LP's (yes, LP's) before Cypress Hill had put out 'Black
Sunday' and mixed them on my sl 1200's when many of the readers here were
still in diapers. I bought The Chronic a few days after it came out and once
hitch hiked 400 kilometers to go to a concert of what was at the time the only
crew rapping in Dutch. I'm no stranger to hip hop and rap, and yes I realize
that people like Jay-Z have build big businesses on it. Still doesn't make the
quote in this article appropriate.)

------
ph0rque
_On his third day, we gave him a project that was scheduled to take one month.
Roger completed the project in 3 days with nearly flawless quality. More
specifically, he completed the project in 72 hours. 72 non-stop hours: No
stops, no sleep, no nothing but coding._

I know this is against the Silicon Valley philosophy, but that guy just put in
almost two 40-hour weeks of work, not three days. It might have done him well
to take the next 11 days off.

Edit: I realize he was on drugs, but I think that's a different discussion
altogether.

~~~
grammaton
"Roger completed the project in 3 days with nearly flawless quality. More
specifically, he completed the project in 72 hours. 72 non-stop hours: No
stops, no sleep, no nothing but coding."

Then later on: "He was addicted to cocaine."

So...no comment from anyone on how these two things are almost certainly
related?

~~~
imgabe
Also he was bipolar, so probably in a manic state when he worked for 72 hours
straight. There's a pretty big difference between "flaky" and "has a serious
mental disorder that is going untreated".

------
michaels0620
I've been in the company of really smart (and likable!) Heretics and they tend
to go out not with a bang but with a whimper. It's sad to watch.

They may be even be right but their persistent negativity and challenging of
the status quo (even in minor matters) ends up wearing people down. Then eyes
start rolling when they talk and their rants are met with sighs rather than
attention or acknowledgment. Then they start getting left out of meetings and
email conversations as it is easier to get things done without them no matter
how smart they are.

All of this feeds the Heretic's perception of being the only sane person in
the asylum turning them even more cynical and negative.

~~~
_delirium
Maybe I hang out with too many cynical people, but the Heretics I've run into
have usually been pretty popular with coworkers, at least if the Heretic is
also a reasonably intelligent and sociable person (rather than the muttering-
darkly-in-the-corner variety). Even a decent number of people who don't
themselves have much interest attacking their boss / stupid corporate policies
/ etc., sometimes like to watch on the sidelines while someone else does, at
least if they can avoid entanglement in the drama. But I guess most people I
know are sort of default-cynical about organizations, policies, and
management, so there's a default-positivity about someone who's spending their
time railing against it, even if you think their energies are
misguided/futile.

Though I guess it does get more problematic if they start attacking their
coworkers as sheep/sellouts/etc. The popularity is easier to maintain if they
stick to attacking management/bosses/policies and treat their coworkers as
being on the same side.

~~~
JabavuAdams
> Maybe I hang out with too many cynical people, but the Heretics I've run
> into have usually been pretty popular with coworkers, at least if the
> Heretic is also a reasonably intelligent and sociable person (rather than
> the muttering-darkly-in-the-corner variety).

Sadly for the Heretic, that won't help them when the boss fires them. It makes
for nice post-"layoff" lunches, though.

------
mgkimsal
Kinda scary that I see myself in that list - mostly example 1, reason 1 and 2.
OTOH, it's a bit heartening to read "sometimes these people actually make
better CEOs than employees" - just hard to get most people to take you
seriously when you start off at the bottom (not impossible, just typically
harder to do than simply getting hired in at the top).

~~~
phaedrus
I have bipolar disorder and I definitely identify with his "the flake" story.
I wouldn't just not show up like the guy in the story but I do have depressive
cycles where I'm not sure I'm doing any good by showing up; I come in anyway.
After a while the cycle swings the other way and I get heroic coding done at a
(excuse the pun) manic pace. I like to think it comes out more productive on
balance. For instance most recently I spent two months studying legacy code
but didn't have the right frame of mind to make changes to it. Close to the
deadline I had an upswing in mood and completed a total rewrite of the
software in three days during which everything I touched turned to gold. Two
key points: one, this was (embedded system) code a senior engineer struggled
on for 2 years. So even averaging the month during which I did nothing with
the week I did everything, I was still more productive by a huge margin. The
second key point is I used both halves of my cycle to advantage. I knew I
couldn't handle the rewrite while depressed, but what I COULD do was use that
fugue state to plod through his old code like a zombie. Even though I didn't
feel like I was making progress (and my boss was beginning to worry!) what I
was doing was priming my brain with knowledge of what the legacy code did.
That way, when the upswing did come, I didn't waste a single second of it.

~~~
alex_c
Obliquely appropriate username? :)

Just curious, is your boss aware of your cycles, and does he/she plan for
them? If not, what effect do you think trying to explain would have?

~~~
j_baker
I don't know about bipolar disorder or the grandparent's boss specifically,
but I've learned _never_ to discuss mental disorders with bosses or coworkers.
There simply is no upside and every imaginable downside. Best case: you get
labeled as someone who uses a mental disorder as an excuse for not doing your
job. Worst case: you become "that crazy person" that nobody wants to associate
with.

~~~
DuncanIdaho
I'm currently supervising an 37year old _rookie_. He had some absence issues,
so I confronted him.

Tuns out he is an ex-addict (that's why he's rookie at 37). I don't have a
problem with people trying to straighten themselves out. He doesn't get any
preferential treatment from me - because it won't do him any good. As long as
he does the expected work of expected quality he is fine with me.

Knowing that he is an ex addict is valuable to me so I can put our
relationship in right context.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>He doesn't get any preferential treatment from me [...] [knowing about his
past] is valuable to me so I can put our relationship in right context.

I don't understand how knowing about his past should matter if you're not
going to behave differently towards him?

That's like asking someone’s sex on an application form - if you're not going
to discriminate why do you need to know.

~~~
DuncanIdaho
To give you more detail.

Addict is never really cured. Once you're through with addiction, the cravings
are there for life. Whenever you need to release your steam the craving for
drug kicks back in.

My mentee is coping with that through writing, so sometimes he will not come
to work on time - because he's setting his mind straight. So our agreement is
that I don't care about his schedule - as long as his work is done according
to specified parameters.

I didn't say I don't act differently towards him. I said he doesn't get
_preferential treatment_ in a sense that I won't be commiserating him for
being an ex-addict. Instead I raised his tempo of learning while gently
guiding him through the finer intricacies. But I demand highest quality of
him. I also look out that nobody (especially superiors) will pick on him since
he is pretty introvert - and I don't want him to slip back due to some
extrovert having a bad day.

This guy needs to build character, courage and ultimately self-confidence. And
not making it hard for him, plus helping along the way if possible is one of
my goals.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'm 100% with you on your goal, it's a noble act to mentor someone with the
spirit that you appear to be applying.

However, it sounds like you are giving them preferential treatment. You say
it's just different, but then if those differences aren't available to others
they might also advantage it is a preferential treatment.

I guess one could argue it's not preferential in that you'd give the same
assistance to another ex-addict.

Personally I don't think you have to help everyone just because you're helping
someone, ie preferential treatment doesn't seem wrong to me _a priori_.

~~~
TheSOB88
Will you quit arguing over such petty differences?! Jesus Christ! People view
the world differently, so of course they'll apply different meanings to the
same words, and even to the same concepts.

You said he's not wrong, and you're just arguing over semantics. Why argue?
Why?

Sorry for not keeping my post cold and logical and HNish, but that's the
problem: you're being robotic here and arguing just to argue.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Will you quit arguing over such petty differences?! Jesus Christ! People view
the world differently

Off topic but WRT your response - "people see the world differently" but
apparently my fixation on truth isn't allowed?

On topic, why argue? He says that he's not discriminating but he describes
discrimination. I simply wanted to point out that apparent contradiction.

Discrimination is some sort of _bete noire_ of corporate society but I find it
quite silly to suggest that we should not discriminate for people because of
the peculiarities of their personal situations. If you find that robotic I
find your response curious but I suspect you won't meet an enquiry about it
well so feel free to move on to one of the other 10 million or so comment
threads of the day.

>of course they'll apply different meanings to the same words, and even to the
same concepts

If you use the same words to mean something else then we need to converse more
to establish that which you are trying to communicate.

~~~
DuncanIdaho
I'd like to apologize, since I am not a native speaker. So when faced with
subtleties I might not perceive them properly. That said I'm aware of what I
wrote and how it doesn't make sense.

And now for the record to just rehash what I am doing:

1\. The person is obviously being treated differently from others (he is being
given a chance),

2\. I will not treat his work differently due to his condition. I want him to
get up to speed and I'm helping along,

3\. He doesn't need blanket pats on the back. He needs them when they're due
and he also needs a proverbial _kick in the arse_ when due.

Also, discrimination is a term used when we act negatively towards someone.
I'd be discriminating against my mentee if I were telling him that he's no
good dimwit. Or are you suggesting that I'm discriminating towards others?

------
angdis
"Holding the bus". I like the phrase, everybody has their bad days and should
get some slack when they need it in exchange for giving their best when it
really counts.

However, I have to take issue with manic coders. I've seen the results of
"heroic" coding. It sucks. Sure, it does the job, meets the deadline or
whatever but the problem is that quick work is typically nothing more than a
"rush job" that becomes a maintenance nightmare in the future.

The thing is no one wants to work with someone who is unstable or difficult.
If the success of your enterprise depends on sporadic bursts of mania from
individual workers, I'm sorry, that just isn't going to be sustainable.

------
waratuman
This may be a little picky, but this statement just doesn't make sense: :He is
fundamentally a rebel—She will not be happy unless"

Where did the she come from?

~~~
BigZaphod
"She" probably came from some attempt at political correctness. There's been a
rise in recent decades to use "she" when speaking about an unspecified person.
Historically, it was common to use "he" for that task. Unfortunately english
doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun and until/if one becomes accepted this
will probably continue to be a confusing issue...

edit: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun>

~~~
philwelch
_Unfortunately english doesn't have a gender-neutral pronoun_

Yes it does: "they".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they>

~~~
mmt
I believe the grandparent commenter meant:

English does not have a _unique_ [1], singular, gender-neutral pronoun.

[1] unambiguous

~~~
philwelch
I've never heard a sentence in actual usage[1] where the usage of the singular
"they" was ambiguous.

In terms of being understandable and elegant, the singular "they" is probably
the best English can do. Unfortunately, it's not widely accepted because it
"sounds" uneducated, despite being the current best solution to the problem.
Gender-neutral neologisms, like Spivak pronouns
[<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun>], are not commonly understood,
while constructs like "he/she" or randomly alternating between generic "he"
and generic "she" as in the OP is inelegant and confusing (hence this whole
thread).

[1] I'm sure you could construct a contrived example.

~~~
mmt
Fragment. Damned good device.

Written language has more legitimate uses than completely formed sentences.
Pronouns can be troublesome enough, figuring out the antecedent, without
requiring yet more context analysis.

------
smokinn
Absolutely useless hyperbolic link-bait.

No one acts that way unless they have severe mental illnesses (such as the
cocaine-addicted bipolar genius) or the company already has serious systemic
problems. If you see things near the exaggerations in the OP regularly, the
company is already diseased and needs major overhaul.

~~~
al05
It's never management's fault.

------
aliud
Sans the cocaine habit, and the staggering productivity levels, the second
example is an otherwise uncanny match for how I eventually left my last job.

Started off strong, got ahead of schedule, had a mental breakdown,
accomplished exactly nothing for about a month, and then quit (to avoid being
fired).

~~~
al05
Let me guess, you do all overall design work, train staff, stay late. Then
someone else gets the credit, because his best friends with the manager?

That was my last mental breakdown.

------
edw519
Reading the section entitled, "The Jerk," got me to wondering if OP will be
ever write the obvious follow-up post, "Why We Promote So Many Jerks".

I have done work for over 100 companies ranging from SMB to large enterprises.
Independently (I'll tell you why in a moment) I just made a list of the 10
biggest assholes I ever met the other day. Eight of them were the #1 person in
one of those companies. Seven of them are, not surprisingly, out of business.

(The reason I made the list was because I watched "Undercover Boss" for the
fourth time the other night. The first three times were great. This episode,
about the CEO of Norwegian Cruise Lines, was horrible. All I kept asking
myself was, "Where the hell did they get this jerk?" He had no idea how
anything happened in his company and had people and functional problems in all
4 departments he worked in undercover. One employee even remarked that he had
a problem dealing with women. That's when I made my list.)

What is it about our processes in business that seems to favor assholes? I
realize that my experience may not be the norm, but some of the things I've
seen done by the President or CEO:

    
    
      - getting drunk and firing the security guard
      - throwing a phone book at his secretary
      - belittling vendors until none wanted the business
      - routinely yelling f words at employees
      - firing other executives on a whim
      - begging these executives to return to work
      - committing crimes with the books to earn a bonus
      - ignoring company saving advice (that would make them look bad)
      - sexually harassing subordinates
      - committing adultery (& other crimes) in full view of subordinates
    

I even witnessed a CEO of a Fortune 50 company break down and cry at a Tony
Robbins event because he couldn't complete a routine task.

If I sound like I think that our leaders should be held to a higher standard,
it's because they _should be_. Hell, I'd settle for any standard.

I'd love to hear OP's take on the other side of the story, when smart people
decide to stop making sacrifices for the assholes they got stuck working for.

~~~
alnayyir
Sociopathy and narcissism are overrepresented amongst executives. Smart people
(as meant in the post) usually like to discover (scientists) or create
(engineers, writers, etc.) things. They don't have to achieve power for
power's sake in order to be happy.

Thus, they aren't as well represented amongst executives in established
companies because that form of achievement isn't something they valued.

~~~
j_baker
Not to mention that these people have the chutzpah to get what they want.
They're always successful in the short term, which means that they've already
gained influence by the time anyone figures it out. And when they do, that
person gets canned as an example to keep the others in line.

------
motters
There is also the vaultingly ambitious employee. Someone who is both clever
and also prepared to do _anything_ to get a promotion or pay rise - even if
that means causing chaos, using other employees as collateral damage, etc.

~~~
hellweaver666
Eugh - I hate people like that. In my last job, the whole marketing team (8
people) were like a group of wrecking balls smashing through the company
trying to meet their own individual goals. It was chaos but the MD was a
marketing guy himself and couldn't see that the marketing team were doing a
whole heap of damage to the company.

I played the heretic role for a while, but eventually I quit because it was a
loosing battle and my moral had gone through the floor.

------
cmanfu
I recognize that this author's proactive use of sex-neutral (or more like sex-
diverse?) pronouns comes from a good place. But intermixing he's with she's,
him's and her's the way he is is sometimes just confusing.

------
jimfl
"The two just raised $650 million and what they have to say is worth your
attention."

Then, there's that kind of jerk.

------
dools
This is about as original and interesting as a Cosmo sex quiz.

------
Evgeny
As a side note: why is the he/she used this way?

 _He is disempowered - She feels_ etc.

Wouldn't it be correct to use "she" everywhere?

~~~
wccrawford
Technically, it would be correct to use 'he' everywhere, since in English that
is what is considered the neutral gender. Second best is using He/She to
satisfy the PC folks.

~~~
igravious
"Is considered". Considered by who exactly? How subtle of you to use the
passive voice to plaster over the cracks in your argument :) There is no best,
just norms surely.

That being said, there are ways to be gender neutral without dropping the
clangers that this author does. Be gender neutral by all means but for the
love of the children don't switch back and forth like an eager yo-yo.

 _edit: remove snark :)_

------
known
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw

~~~
JabavuAdams
Meh. A lot of evil fuckups also depend on unreasonable men.

------
minddog
Aside from a strange lead-in, there is a larger picture about identifying the
dynamic of a team and how to build it. We should prevent these situations by
identifying red flags in the hiring process early on. Sometimes that isn't
good enough, but to his point, we shouldn't make that same mistake twice.
Never heard of this, but it could be a good practice to do a post-mortem in
the hiring process after an acidic resource is gone. I'm sure this problem
runs rampant in all industries, where they have a much less tolerance.

------
naner
I'm supposed to take this guy seriously with a lead-in like that? I can't wait
for his article on common misconceptions of social propriety among the
technically proficient.

~~~
naner
So I worded this poorly but I was disapproving of his Kanye quote, not the
lead-in from the blog owner.

~~~
rdl
Ben Horowitz's "ben's blog" always leads off with a thematic rap lyric; it
works pretty well in some cases, but fails in others. I don't think this was
the strongest one.

Overall, I think it's a decent attempt at having a hook for otherwise somewhat
dry (maybe, but not really) blog posts. He is obviously going for contrast.

For instance, the KRS-One quote worked well on
[http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/14/why-startups-should-train-
th...](http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/14/why-startups-should-train-their-
people/)

The Who for this was obvious (and the theme too):
[http://bhorowitz.com/2010/11/15/meet-the-new-enterprise-
cust...](http://bhorowitz.com/2010/11/15/meet-the-new-enterprise-customer-
he%E2%80%99s-a-lot-like-the-old-enterprise-customer/)

I'd respect him more if he used the obvious Biggie quotes, though.

~~~
naner
_Ben Horowitz's "ben's blog" always leads off with a thematic rap lyric; it
works pretty well in some cases, but fails in others._

Ok. This is something I touched on in another comment: if you're known for
breaking a certain type of social convention than you can often times get away
with it, without much criticism.

So this was probably normal to his blog readers but confusing to those of us
who were exposed to it for the first time.

Thanks for the explanation. It made me reexamine my initial knee-jerk
reaction.

------
tom_ilsinszki
_"[...] if you’re an entrepreneur, generally you don’t like working with a lot
of people. That’s what an entrepreneur is."_ \- Robert Greene on Mixergy

~~~
dools
An entrepreneur is someone who starts a business and assumes the risk
associated with it. That is all.

------
Mz
As for the remarks about the he/she pronoun thing in the article, I think the
last sentence would have been much, much stronger if they had used "one"
instead of "her" and it simultaneously would have side-stepped some of this
issue:

 _That’s fine, but remember: you can only hold the bus for one._

------
jrockway
Next week on HN: "When Dumb People are Bad Writers".

