Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

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Wife says to her programmer husband, "Go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, buy a dozen."

Husband returns with 12 loaves of bread.

Most software engineers can read the above joke, and laugh at themselves, then go ahead and upvote your comment not realizing that it is EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Employee: "This is extremely important to me. If you can't address what is important to me, then I can't work here anymore"

Google: "OK, thanks for your resignation".

This is not okay. Google is "technically correct" - but it is appalling behavior that should make every Googler shake with discomfort.

Employees are people. People can get dissatisfied. Frustrated. Angry. Sure, you can say companies don't owe anything to anyone because there is at-will employment.

But the reality is unless we want to live in a dystopia, people should be allowed to voice concerns and anger and frustrations, and not be fired for making things uncomfortable or inconvenient.

The joke is a pretty good one, but what's the supposed parallel with the scenario at hand? There is a meaningful interpretation of "buy a dozen" that the wife intended to convey but the programmer fails to notice (because he lacks common-sense knowledge about typical purchase volumes of different items and/or is blinded by the parallelism of "buy a... if <condition>, buy a..."). What is the meaningful common-sense interpretation of "I can't work here anymore" (was that even the literal wording?) that Timnit intended and Google failed to recognise?

If you are instead just saying that Google should have let it slide because it was just an emotional outburst ("anger and frustrations") and not meant to be taken seriously, well, in what context can we hold adults to their word at all? Email is written communication, not an offhand verbal remark uttered in a tense meeting in anger. You should be able to see what you are about to send while typing it, and have ample opportunity to look over it again before you press that "Send" button. If your ability to review your words has atrophied, perhaps under the influence of social media which encourages "unfiltered" stream-of-consciousness venting, then this ought to be on you, simply because it is doubtful that society can function without some possibility of making binding statements and we do not have anything more commitmental than email widely deployed (and operable at the pace of the modern workplace) in work-from-home times.

> What is the meaningful common-sense interpretation of "I can't work here anymore" (was that even the literal wording?) that Timnit intended and Google failed to recognise?

That something completely UNACCEPTABLE is happening, and needs to be addressed.

Unacceptable to her. Fine, she is entitled to that opinion. She is not entitled to everybody sharing that opinion. If there is no common ground, the involved parties should part ways. Which she expressed. And the other side followed through. Which she now is upset about.

If she really wanted to achieve change within the system she'd have needed to not express it this way. There are people on both sides of the table. One can talk to people and find common ground. But that is rare to work if you start with a threat.

Sure, but you can't give an ultimatum like "... then I can't work here anymore" and not follow through with it.

Sorry, one can't go make a black-or-white threat and then expect people to not take it at face value. She literally wrote "if you don't do this-and-that then I can't work here anymore". If people then act on that then she can't go complain that they did. It's not a meaningful defense to claim well employees are just people. She should not say such a thing if she does not mean it. Words and actions have consequences.

Even pull the victim card, blast it all over social media. Sorry, that's a major disservice to everybody _actually_ being dehumanized. She's just dissatisfied with her employer and wants to make the biggest possible splash now.

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