
Nerds, we need to have a talk (2011) - roguecoder
http://www.thingist.com/item/4372/
======
skrebbel
Seriously, America is going to drown in shoulder-patting and hooray cheering.
This taboo on negative opinions is ridiculous. We're teaching entire
generations that we cannot fail as long as we try hard enough, and that it's
the attempt that counts. Seriously, screw that.

It is a vital skill to be able to filter through feedback, take the useful
parts to heart, and shrug about low, nasty, useless comments. To learn from
mistakes and do better next time. Why is that bad?

Sure, we should attempt to stop the low/nasty/useless feedback, but that's not
so clear cut as we'd like it to be. Until we figure out a clear line, I'd
prefer honest (and sometimes nasty) feedback over a culture of non-stop
shoulder patting.

~~~
potatolicious
This isn't the sort of thing author is talking about.

We're talking about the nasty, mean-spirited, no-holds-barred evisceration of
each other by hiding behind the guise of criticism.

Take a few days ago:

"GitHub Gracious Helps Female Programmers Cower in Fear"[1]

Nobody is saying you have to agree with everything GitHub does re: sexism, or
that they are above criticism. Nobody is saying you should be patting everyone
on the back and giving gold stars for effort.

But what is that, really? You couldn't just say "this is wrong and doesn't
help" or "your solution makes the problem worse"? No, author in this case had
to go with the most needlessly inflammatory, mean-spirited, and downright
_asshole-ish_ comment possible.

Presentation matters. Criticism wrapped in vitriol becomes just vitriol, and
vitriol wrapped in criticism still doesn't become good criticism.

Disagree away, but the way the geek community behaves it's clear many members
take a perverse _glee_ in eviscerating each other via "criticism". We _revel_
in others being wrong, and we positively wet ourselves at the opportunity to
point out this wrongness with gusto and vitriol. This perversity is what the
author was railing against, not your ability to disagree in general.

[1] [http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/04/github-graciously-
helps-...](http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/04/github-graciously-helps-female-
programmers-cower-in-fear/)

~~~
10ki
> Presentation matters. Criticism wrapped in vitriol becomes just vitriol, and
> vitriol wrapped in criticism still doesn't become good criticism.

As if it would help you prove your point, that's completely braindead. What
you describe is just a different form of shooting the messenger; you don't
like the way they said it so you ignore what they said. For example if I point
out your solution is N^2 and you're an idiot for doing it that way instead of
N log N you may not be an idiot, but the solution is still a bad one.

If vitriol is the motive for the criticism then by banning the vitriol you've
also lost the criticism. This is really a huge problem for Hacker News; by
banning unkind critics they've lost a lot of actual criticism. The result is
HN exists in a bubble of trends and fads because the people who take glee in
deflating them get banned.

> [GitHub Gracious Helps Female Programmers Cower in Fear]... author in this
> case had to go with the most needlessly inflammatory, mean-spirited, and
> downright asshole-ish comment possible.

This is a good example, but not of what you think. The content of the blog is
reasonably and calmly presented, but if you throw that away because of the
flame title then you've lost that.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"but if you throw that away because of the flame title then you've lost
> that"_

Yes, and rightfully so. I have no problems with the author's views, I have
every problem with people being assholes and douchebags with each other.

I have _zero_ qualms about missing the thoughts of people who haven't the
least modicum of respect for their fellow man. I don't care how smart you are,
at the end of the day intelligence, or being right, is not the measure of a
human being.

> _"you don't like the way they said it so you ignore what they said"_

Yes. Like I said, presentation matters.

The antisocial, the arrogant, the whatevers of the world who cannot massage
their thoughts into something worth communicating will rage impotently at the
fact that no one is listening to them. Us nerds have a bad habit of letting
this turn into a superiority complex, but no matter how superior you might
feel, still no one is listening.

At the end of the day, we're each only on this lonely rock for a short amount
of time. Many of us have figured out that we'd much rather be good to one
another with our time than to spend it stroking our egos by seething with rage
about everything.

~~~
10ki
> Yes, and rightfully so.

I think you meant _righteously_ so. You are saying to discount facts and logic
because the person saying them offended your sensibilities. You're just
building a bubble of ignorance around yourself by discounting everything
unseemly.

The reason why you find 'geek culture' hostile is because geeks tend to value
merit more than you value morality. The computer does not care if the n log n
algorithm was created by an evil genius or Ned Flanders, and neither do geeks.

There is tons of creative and worthwhile content on 4chan than you'll ever
know and will deny exists (or has a right to exist). At the end of the day,
there's more humanity on display at 4chan than HN.

------
Udo
The worst thing that can happen to a Show HN post is people totally ignoring
it. When I post something of my own here, I expect a certain amount of honesty
and criticism, as long as it is constructive.

Being "constructive" does not mean being congratulatory, shoulder-patting,
praising, or anything like that. It means that the feedback itself should
provide some kind of value, preferably for the benefit of the project creator.

" _What's the points of this? I've been doing the same thing since the 80s by
piping four shell commands together?!?_ " - is not really constructive.

I think using the slightly formulaic " _What I liked: X; What could be
improved: Y_ " has a high chance of being constructive feedback.

Meta discussions can also be OK.

The infamous " _does the world really need another X_ ", almost invariably
deserves the answer " _yes, why not?_ ".

Letting people know you are unlikely to use the code/product/gizmo is also
constructive, especially if you can manage to tell why.

As the article stated, comments in the form of " _Y U MD5 STOOPID_ " is never
OK and generally don't do anything to raise the level of the discourse. As a
general guideline, comments designed to make the commenter look good or smart
or superior do not usually improve the quality of the discussion, even though
mods sometimes tend to reward this behavior for some reason. They shouldn't.

~~~
tene
> "What's the points of this? I've been doing the same thing since the 80s by
> piping four shell commands together?!?" - is not really constructive.

> Letting people know you are unlikely to use the code/product/gizmo is also
> constructive, especially if you can manage to tell why.

By my reading, these two statements contradict each other. The quote you claim
is not constructive seems to me to be saying the author sees no value in the
hypothetical contribution, as it offers no additional power and less
convenience than what he already uses, and therefore he won't be using it.
Isn't that exactly what say is constructive in the second statement I quoted?
If I'm misunderstanding you here, can you explain what I'm missing?

~~~
Udo
That first example was from a specific thread that actually happened when
someone made a command-line tool, and the whole discussion was incredibly
unproductive and full of "look at me, I solved this eons ago, this developer
sucks" messages. You're probably right there is a fine line between those two,
but they are not identical. It's the difference between saying why you
wouldn't necessarily use something on the one hand, and showing off while
berating someone on the other.

Asserting that a project's existence is unjustified is a bold and unfriendly
claim. Saying that it's simly not for you is another matter entirely.

------
dsowers
I agree. I think the worst of HN comes out whenever anyone submits a personal
blog post.

If you read the comments for ANY blog post submitted, you will see how it has
become a giant game to discredit everything the author says. I think it's good
to be skeptical, and as nerds we have plenty of skepticism to go around, but
there are ways to be do it with a little more taste and respect.

I've been looking at some of the profiles of the main cynics I see time and
time again and they have like 6000 karma, but only 3 submissions in their
entire lives. Crazy to think they just get all of that karma from tearing down
other people's work while not creating anything themselves.

~~~
dacilselig
So perhaps, the design of Hacker news itself (or point-based systems)
reinforces the cynicism that exists in most of the posts you are referring to.

------
methehack
I'm glad the OP brought this up and I think its an important topic for the HN
'community'. Innovation loves support. When innovation is supported, you get
more innovation.

On several occasions, I've seen a poor soul post a project on here that
represents a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. There will be enthusiastic
support, constructive criticism, and often too many haters. I'd love it if the
haters left -- maybe all head off to hate picnic or something where they can
spit pickles at each other.

Perhaps a basic issue is that people say things in online commentary that they
wouldn't say face to face. I think that's fundamentally wrong and mostly
accidental -- a result of people's cognitive models not catching up to what's
actually happening. Thanks for listening :)

~~~
pessimizer
>Innovation loves support. When innovation is supported, you get more
innovation.

The same thing can be said for mediocrity and outright regressions.

>people say things in online commentary that they wouldn't say face to face.

This is definitely often true, but not usually. I'm nicer online than I am in
person, because in person I can smile, apologize, and make goofy faces to
blunt honest criticism. Online, all I have is smileys and exclamation points,
which make you read like a wide-eyed idiot, but don't always make you read
like a nice wide-eyed idiot:)

------
ktf
It's interesting to me that the Hacker School "rules" post, that essentially
boiled down to the same thing (Don't Be a Jerk), is filled with positive
comments:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5639430>

While this one is full of people attacking the guy, basically proving his
point.

------
tiredofcareer
The appropriateness of this showing up on Hacker News, the Internet's favorite
dream killer in Show HN threads and perpetual contest to see who can be most
correct in comments, should be lost upon no one.

If you participate here -- myself included -- this is a message to heed.

------
shinykitten
Honestly I can't relate to this at all.

Most of the people I work with (professionally and personally) are perpetually
self-critical despite being very intelligent and more than capable. The
humility comes from growth over time and being able to remember doing work
they'd consider terribly flawed today. If you're working with arrogant people,
they're probably not growing and it'll make it harder for you to as well.

~~~
jradakov
I took it to be more about nerds online. I haven't met too many people face to
face that are even a tenth as rude as 90% of the people I see online. Of
course, I arbitrarily picked those numbers. I'm going to point that out before
I get flamed.

~~~
RougeFemme
Louis CK touched upon this in his "Oh MY God" show on HBO. Empirically
speaking, people tend to act with less accountability when they're inside of
cars, behind protective barriers, including the internet.

~~~
mtowle
"No Such Thing as Elevator Rage"

NOSTER. Coined and minted - because nerds are overly acronym-shy, I think

------
tenpoundhammer
I totally agree, there is always room for constructive criticism, but it
should be tempered with a soft hand and helpful suggestions. As a person who
was picked on most of my life, it's pretty disheartening to endure the same
thing inside a group I consider my community.

------
at-fates-hands
The first place I worked at had this same issue of developers discrediting
other people's code. It was an incredible "alpha-male" syndrome to witness.
Then this same group of developers would brag about all the stuff they were
working on outside of work. The ongoing pissing contest almost made me quit my
job as a developer.

Don't kid yourself, Nerds and Geeks are just as competitive and nasty as jocks
are.

------
minamea
From reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, I think it boils down to
self importance. We like to put others down because it makes us feel more
important. If you recognize and let go of that desire as the book tells you to
do, you can use the phenomenon to your advantage instead, and you learn that
making others feel important makes you win them over.

------
mtp0101
This post is extremely stupid. What is this, the first grade? If you can't
take honest criticism, you suck. If you think computer technology is full of
mean people, try working in finance. My peers don't hesitate to give me honest
criticism and that's one of the things I like most about CS. Maybe you should
start your own company called "we should be super nice to each other all the
time" and have your product be an email subscription service where your
clients receive affirmations like "you are a skilled person with value and you
have a cute chin" along with some heart graphics and sound effects.

~~~
LnxPrgr3
Can't we give honest feedback without going into an epic fit of nerd rage over
it?

Besides, the worst fights I see among programmers are over trivial matters of
opinion anyway. Ever seen people fight over indentation styles, or the proper
way to merge upstream changes into a local git repository, or whether
functional or object-oriented programming is the One True Way?

The anger in these debates isn't teaching anyone a damn thing, except that the
color of someone else's bike shed is really, really important to some people.

~~~
DanBC
Honest feedback:

1) "I really didn't like the way you did X. It broke Y on my browser,
$Browser."

2) "Oh god, why did you chose to do this like this? It's broken and stupid"

I hope that people don't nerd rage after (1). I guess they might, and if they
do that's a problem.

------
shaddyz
I think the hacker community, just like any creative community, suffers from a
bit too much evangelism and misdirected nerd rage. It's important that we
understand our common goals and keep those in mind as we interact with each
other. What are these goals?

For me... \- learning how to solve real-world problems using software \-
sharing ideas and reflecting my perspective in the conversation \-
understanding how others think about SW topics, more learning \- criticizing
decisions in order to improve my critical thinking skills and knowledge \-
getting feedback from my own ideas to see how well they stand up

I realize that some of these are somewhat redundant, but I feel they differ in
nuance. In general it is about _improvement_.

Also, some people are just way too sensitive and need to realize that an
attack on one's idea is not an attack on oneself. I have general respect for
all people, but I might think your idea is stupid.

The best thing we can do is make sure we do our best to absorb hostility and
respond with objectivity.

------
bzink
"If there spelling or grammar is off, just let it go."

On purpose? :)

~~~
jcoder
You failed the test.

------
squozzer
Nerds generally aren't any more mature than jocks. We just don't fight as
well, so we (wisely) keep quiet in situations where the risk of eating a
knuckle sammich is high.

------
wrs
I agree with the premise of not being gratuitously nasty. But I wish he hadn't
made it sound like all programming is as consequence-free as skateboarding.

If you're programming as a hobby, it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. I
totally support your using Arduinos until you figure out you can build one
yourself in 5 minutes on a breadboard.

If you're programming professionally, the rules change. It's not all about
supporting your personal learning experience. If you use simple hashing
instead of bcrypt, and you have real users, you are potentially hurting
people. It is literally true that if you don't know better than that, you
should not programming a computer (well, programming an authentication system,
anyway).

So yeah, don't be nasty. But also don't think your self-esteem is more
important than doing a good job.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Nobody is saying "don't do a good job" or even "accept sub-standard work".
They're saying act more like a mentor than a critic. Mentors don't tear their
pupils down, because you can't teach in that environment. Help people become
better; don't stroke your ego at others' expense.

------
daurnimator
I like it to a degree, the 'geek' culture (how I hate typing that) cuts
through bullshit faster than others.

I don't mind being insulted if it comes with a helpful suggestion. I LOVE IRC
channels where you get the answers: "You're shit for asking that question, but
the answer is X".

~~~
methehack
In general, I find that if the conversation stays civil, the topic retains the
spotlight and is not overshadowed by personalities and hurt feelings.

In other words, IME, you can 'cut through the bullshit' w/o being a dick and
you'll achieve better outcomes. Plus, you won't be a dick.

~~~
asperous
Yeah, I don't mind some heavy criticism at all when it's deserved-- but not
everyone can take critism as well.

I don't know if this is true, but the stereotype of geeks is that they lack
"emotional intelligence". I think it's important to recognize the people we
talk to on irc, news lists, etc. are people too and it's important to be
truthful & helpful, not just needlessly hurtful.

------
graeme
Previous discussion:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322696>

(I feel older now to realize I've been on here for two years, long enough to
remember the previous submission)

~~~
mtowle
Care to comment on whether internet nerds have gotten nicer or meaner since
2011?

~~~
graeme
Not a clue.

------
kstenerud
In other news, nerds are human, and posture and bully and jockey for
recognition like all humans do.

~~~
bdowney
My sentiments exactly. I've met plenty of condescending assholes at Google but
them being geeks was not the reason why they behaved like jerks.

------
AznHisoka
"(And yes, I realize that this post is super-critical. How meta)"

Protip: just because you realize the irony of your post doesn't excuse you
from being part of the problem as well.

------
dasil003
Honestly I think this is just the impression one gets because nerds do more of
_everything_ online combined with the fact that they tend to know a lot about
specific things.

Look, there are absolutely a lot of asshole nerds out there. A lot of guys who
went through hell in high school and turned into comic book guy as a defense
mechanism and just never grew up (a lot of people from all walks of life never
grow up). Okay, but I don't think those people are representative of geek
communities. I think by and large criticism is constructive and nerds are
supportive of beginners. Maybe we don't sugarcoat things as much as would be
to some people's taste, but that's not an asshole quality in and of itself.
Rather I think the impression comes from the fact that it's hard to ignore
assholes, and there are always going to be a number of them in any large
community. People say HN is overly critical, but I think if you look carefully
most of critical posts are actually fairly even-handed and not overtly mean;
but if you have 20 of them all coming from different angles, and you sprinkle
it with a few true asshole remarks, the resulting impression can be quite
harsh.

------
axelfreeman
I have a german blog who totally pushes this attitude forwards. It's called
1337core.de. A self-irony netculture blog. It is much about hacking, script
kiddies, anonymous, fail netpolitics. Kind of stupid but my stupid thing.

But seriously i think this problem comes from the lag, that we don't see the
people we are talking about in front of us. It's just a device. No feelings.
We hate in this machine and get no direct feedback. We have to learn that the
people we are flaming about are living in this world and can propably read it.
I have made this mistake a couple of times but i learned and use it alone for
joking.

If you want to understand this problem you have to understand psychology, the
interface-feedback-problem and group dynamic.

------
cwbrandsma
This isn't a "nerd" issue. And it is a fallacy to believe nerds should act
better because we are nerds and live in a vacuum of only dealing with other
nerds. The idea should be that we are the only ones acting this way (and no
one else does), or that we are better than everyone else.

The negative behavior is actually TAUGHT, and taught early on. This is how
everyone in the western world is taught to debate opinions. Look at any high
school debate club, political debates, and any other televised debate. The
behavior starts there. As a society, people are not taught to be civil when
dealing with disagreements. There is just an inherent "You are completely with
me and my friend, or we are enemies".

------
pnathan
There is a lot of stupid out there. It needs to be called out. On the other
hand, things can _appear_ stupid due to internal logic and constraints not
obvious to the uninitiated.

It's good to bear that in mind when reading things.

------
relaxitup
Ironically, I actually found his entire post to be a bit on the abrasive side.

------
jayflux
You can't really compare skate-boarding critics to 'nerds' behind a screen.

For 1, the reason we have so much of this is because of the anonymity of it
all. It's quite easy to criticise others in an abusive manner when
nobody/barely anybody knows who you are. In real life that wouldn't happen to
such a degree.

~~~
akoncius
but why this is happening? why people have that trait of behaving like this
when they are confident about anonymity? probably it's consequence of problems
in teenage-hood, or something. and adding to this topic, i'm also curious
about reasons why people are 'trolling', especially when their 'trolling' is
offensive, angry. and i have no clue what causes that behavior..

~~~
randomdata
Is it anonymity, or is it the venue? As I type this I do not particularly feel
like I am talking directly to you, rather leaving a mark for future readers to
stumble upon, so to speak, under the context you have set.

I am thinking about what other people would want to read, not how you
personally might feel about what I say. I expect that leads to things said
that would not be said if I were speaking directly to you, such as in an
email, for instance.

I don't know if that fully explains offensive and angry posts, but that could
simply be a matter of someone having a bad day and wanting the world to know
it.

------
nickevans
Totally agree. Makes me think of this blog post I read recently where the
writer basically generalizes an entire culture of people into a whiny group of
people that spend too much of their time complaining about and criticizing
other members of that group.

------
mickeyr
"...somebody has sed..."

What an idiot! You should give up on blogging if you don't know the right word
is "said"!

------
rational_indian
What do you think about stackoverflow.com?

~~~
usr
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We
expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise,
but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended
discussion.

Though in all seriousness, I've seen closed questions provide a lot of good
information on something in their answers despite people feeling the question
wasn't a good fit. In some ways it's like closing a question is a form of what
the article is talking about, though I do understand the need for those rules
on there.

------
mylons
my favorite example of this is asking a question that outs you as a total noob
in #C++ on freenode.

------
michaelochurch
First of all, I don't think constructive criticism and frank incivility belong
in the same bucket. One is a good thing about us. The other is a negative.

However, if we want to restore our tribal integrity, we can't let management
play us against each other so easily. There are so many conflicts that look
technical but are actually cases where management deliberately played tech
people against each other (usually, to create a sense of competition on work
hours, dedication, et al). Most engineers lack the social skills to perceive
when this is happening.

One thing about business people: they constantly talk each other up. Even if
they don't like each other, they say good things about one another. It's game
theory. They know the difference between luke-warm and real praise, but
everyone else thinks The Manager is in good standing (and therefore stays in
line). They get themselves to a state where _not_ saying something positive
about someone is a damnation. They can dog-whistle by criticizing a member of
their tribe within it, but in a way that outsiders don't recognize, allowing
them to keep a unified front.

On our over-honesty, there's one case I know about where an engineer was
leapfrog promoted to top management and had a lot of non-engineering reports.
They had a performance review system where 5 (out of 9) was nominally average,
but everyone came in between 7.5 and 9.0. He gave a lot of 6's and 7's
thinking he was giving honest ratings (because no one looked at the perf
numbers for IT, reviews he'd written in the past had no effect) but it ended
up making a huge mess when HR wanted to put two-thirds of his team on PIPs. He
reacted by changing everyone's rating to a 9.0 and giving honest feedback
verbally, which is how it should be done.

I feel like we need a similar "understanding" with each other. To other
engineers and technologists, we give blunt and honest feedback. But we need to
stop the cannibalism. To management and HR, we take a strict attitude of
praising other engineers (whether we think they deserve it or not). We should
never narc each other out.

~~~
tiredofcareer
When you use specific terms like PIPs and perf, we know who you're talking
about. I interviewed at Google recently and asked my interviewers about you,
Michael, based on the threads you start here that talk about the management
vs. engineers culture at Google. Rather than go "oh, Michael, you're so
wrong," I gave you a chance and brought it up as a valid concern to each of my
five interviewers. The resounding sentiment from every single engineer who
interviewed me (two of them with more than 8 years at Google) was how badly
you misrepresent and malign Google and how half of engineering wishes they
could correct you, but legality and common sense prevents them from doing so.
(It goes without saying that it's _really_ interesting that all five knew who
you were, since I interviewed on the warm coast and you worked in NY.)

I didn't just get that from people putting on a game face to interview me. I
know five current Googlers from all walks of life and corporate structure,
including someone who worked near you during your tenure, and they all hate
what you do in public. It's an effective technique, really, because you know
that you win if they go toe to toe with you.

Given that you're discussing slitting throats for more equity in other parts
of this thread, and previously you've compared Google management to the
terrorists that brought down the World Trade Center, I implore you to seek
help. Please. Way too many people feed in to your reality distortion who
haven't been around the block in the valley and Hacker News, and it's
disgusting to watch.

~~~
michaelochurch
_When you use specific terms like PIPs and perf, we know who you're talking
about._

I wasn't talking about Google. Not for that specific case. That happened at
another company, where I didn't work, but I know the story. Lots of companies
use PIPs and performance reviews.

 _The resounding sentiment from every single engineer who interviewed me (two
of them with more than 8 years at Google) was how badly you misrepresent and
malign Google and how half of engineering wishes they could correct you, but
legality and common sense prevents them from doing so._

If they want to defend their company's practices, they should. Who knows?
Perhaps the company improved massively after I left. Perhaps calibration
scores were abolished last year. I'd have no way of knowing and, if that's the
case, the public should know.

I'm better known for that than I'd like to be. However, I'd say that my
support is about 25/25/50. 50 percent of Googlers see me as Emmanuel Goldstein
and would probably never want to talk to me, that's true. I don't like that I
have potentially thousands of enemies, but sometimes a person like me has to
do the right thing, even at the cost of unpopularity. 25 percent are just
completely indifferent. 25 percent view me positively because they want to see
Google improve and think it takes someone like me to draw executive attention
to problems.

Oddly enough, I'm probably doing more good for Google engineers than anyone
realizes, because upper management is now aware of abuses in the middle and,
at least, has a chance to correct them. I haven't probed (I don't care) but
the company could be fixing itself, thanks to something I started. Of course,
the perverse irony is that _if_ Google management fixes their culture, I'll
probably still be the villain (as a guy who worked there at the nadir and gave
it a negative reputation) rather than the catalyst.

The best thing for my personal reputation is for Google not to improve itself,
because then I'm still right. Still, it's better for the world for Google to
heed my advice and fix itself in order to make all the things I've said wrong.

 _I know five current Googlers from all walks of life and corporate structure,
including someone who worked near you during your tenure, and they all hate
what you do in public._

I've said a lot of positive things about Google. They have great engineers.
I've also criticized the place. Whoever came up with "calibration scores"
needs to stop using his employer as a nursing home and start using an actual
nursing home as a nursing home.

If Google's upper management indicates will to resolve its cultural problems
(and hell, I'll work with them on this, and at a cut rate) then I will shut
up.

I am already willing to admit that my information is a year and a half out of
date. So there.

~~~
notmchurch
I'm sorry, Michael, but it is not true that 25% of Googlers view you
positively. The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially
following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing
people who ostensibly gave you bad references.

You need to get over this delusion that Google is wrong and and you are right,
and that eventually Google will somehow come to its senses and beg for your
forgiveness and guidance. It is never going to happen. Ever.

I really think that you should seek professional help. You're not just going
to wind up an unemployed pariah at the rate you're going; you're going to wind
up in a padded cell.

~~~
michaelochurch
_The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your
revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who
ostensibly gave you bad references._

I don't know what you're talking about.

 _You need to get over this delusion that Google is wrong and and you are
right_

Not delusion. All I have said is that they're badly run and that most of the
corrosion is in the middle-management layer.

 _and that eventually Google will somehow come to its senses and beg for your
forgiveness and guidance. It is never going to happen. Ever._

You are almost certainly right on that one, although I find it pretty obvious.
People rarely backtrack on mistakes, and organizations are even more prone to
foolish consistency.

Also, how in the fuck am I the crazy one? I don't attack a person I've never
met just to uphold the reputation of a gigantic company.

It's actually a bit sickening. Yes, I have taken aim at Google's _management_.
If you are an engineer, you aren't in this fight and you should stay out,
because I never did have any problem with you.

~~~
nostrademons
" _The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following
your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who
ostensibly gave you bad references._

I don't know what you're talking about."

He's talking about this:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5625659>

"Yes, I have taken aim at Google's management. If you are an engineer, you
aren't in this fight and you should stay out, because I never did have any
problem with you."

I think the reason many Googlers speak up against you is because of basic
empathy: we see a group of people being unfairly maligned, and it's not right
or ethical to keep secret and let that happen. It's somewhat unfortunate that
the response of many of them has been to malign _you_ , but you have to
understand that your perception of the company is very different from many
other insiders' perception of the company. Yes, it's quite possible you drew a
bad manager; they do exist, even at Google. But you paint with an awfully
broad brush, making grandiose proclamations about how the company is rotten to
the core and run by sociopaths that should be shot, and I and many other
Googlers just don't see it.

My manager(s) worked his ass off so that I and his other reports could have an
environment where we're free to innovate, free to work on things that interest
us, and free to accomplish things. A lot of mid-level managers burn out
because of it, eventually getting fed up with having to reconcile so many
different constraints and getting zero credit for it. My VPs also seem to
usually make good decisions: I disagree with them sometimes (okay, often), but
I can usually see the rationale behind them and the market realities that are
driving them to those decisions.

Those decisions don't always go my way - I had 3 projects canceled within a
span of 6 months in late 2010, and I just had my year-long research project
canceled when 2 weeks before I'd been led to believe it was a long-term
investment - but when I take a step back and look at the organizational
forces, I can usually see how those really were the best decisions for the
organization. Sometimes you can have a technically awesome solution that when
you try to scale up to a team and bring to the real world, just doesn't work.

~~~
michaelochurch
It sounds like you have a good manager, so we have different experiences.

Let me explain my Google manager. His MO was, about 1-2 months in, to use fake
performance problems to get people to disclose health problems, then use
knowledge of their health issues to toy with them. I have tons of evidence for
a pattern of this with him. I also have (verbally) that HR knows it to be a
long-standing problem, but does nothing because if a manager has a reputation
for "delivering", that's _carte blanche_ to treat reports however one wishes.

HR's job is to step in and right things when managers fail, and at Google,
they refuse to do that. They see their job as to protect _managers_. I know
that most companies are this way, but it's disgusting.

There are a lot of abuses of power by management at Google, and HR does
_nothing_ about it. The going ideology is that if a manager is "delivering",
his word is gold. Combine this with a Kafkaesque nightmare of closed
allocation, and you get a lot of ugliness.

I have nothing but respect for the vast majority of the engineers I met at
Google. But I cannot respect a management structure that thinks closed
allocation is appropriate for a tech company, or that making political-success
reviews part of the transfer process is morally acceptable. Google's
performance review system is a play-for-play copy of Enron's. This has
completely fucked up what should otherwise be an awesome technology company.

I would actually support a class-action suit by Google's shareholders against
the managers who instituted closed allocation and calibration scores (breach
of fiduciary duty). Those assholes are guilty of destroying several billion
dollars worth of value, and justice should be sought against them. Employees
who were burned by that horrible system should also be plaintiffs in this
suit, because that shit fucks up peoples' careers, too. It's just all-around
wrong.

~~~
kyllo
_HR's job is to step in and right things when managers fail, and at Google,
they refuse to do that._

No, that's a labor union's job. HR's job is to protect the company by
mitigating risk from L&I related lawsuits. Period.

Programming can be considered a trade, and I think 99% of the shit you
complain about could be solved by programmers unionizing. But of course, that
would bring its own new set of problems.

~~~
yuhong
michaelochurch has blogged on this matter:
[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-d...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-
dont-need-a-union-we-need-a-profession/)

~~~
kyllo
Sure, a strong professional association might be better than a labor union
then. Point is, though, if you're looking to HR to represent your rights and
interests, you're barking up the wrong tree.

------
stonn_y
In my day, the internet was for porn. Now it's for porn AND self-righteous
lectures about how many hugs everyone deserves because they're an 'innovator'
or 'female' or 'lgbt' or 'autistic.'

~~~
tiredofcareer
Welcome to HN. I'd rate that troll 2/10, as it was a pretty obvious troll for
a community of smart people. Hopefully nobody here would bite on something so
obvious; that might have worked better on Reddit.

(You should go back.)

