> I thought the remote work was to blame — it made it hard for me to use my charisma
Pure narcissism
(Although, there could be another level of irony, i.e. he is narcissistic, and worries you might think so, so he deploys irony to persuade you that he isn't by making a narcissistic-seeming comment in a self-undermining fashion—but I doubt it in this case).
In my experience, much British humor tends to follow a similar model (and Russian too perhaps), but I've observed that it's common for people who don't share that type of humor to misinterpret it.
It's much harsher in Russian than the English translation. Compare:
> You'll sit next to me and memorize the way the work should be done.
and
> А ты, бездарь, сиди рядом и запоминай, как работать надо.
which literally translates to "And you, bungler, sit and watch how the work is done [right]."
And I utterly fail to see any self-deprecating piece that would turn this into a joke. If anything, author treats those "Google"-programmers as trash.
Even as a joke, I would say it's very poor and distasteful one, especially for a public blog post.
See, if I'd say that I'm an idiot for not realizing someone is trash (or some stronger expletive) - yes, that would be ironic, but all the irony would be in the invisible quotes around the "idiot", with none around the "trash". A totally opposite effect.
And the author talks about "Google" programmers in a clearly derogatory manner. It is not just in the title (which would've been okay on its own because it uses "idiot" for both sides).
For example, I'm fond of pointing out that I'm aware that American scientists have mathematically proven that it is not possible to determine sarcasm from the written word.
That is clearly sarcastic because thinking that you could mathematically prove that is just not grounded in reality and nothing anyone would seriously suggest, so it provides a 'tell' that it is sarcastic. Read sarcastically it is self-referential and makes perfect sense.
Another classic example is _A Modest Proposal_ where its so over the top that it has to be sarcastic.
Just posting something "edgy" without any kind of a "tell" isn't really sarcasm.
I can't really find much of a 'tell' in this whole article. The whole article is consistent with him being a total narcissist. And the way that goes around "correcting" people by forcing them to watch him solve their problem the "right" way is something a narcissist would do that someone who was actually instructing and teaching someone else wouldn't do. So if I read it like he's just a narcissist then its all consistent. If I try to read it like he's being ironic, then he's at a minimum both really bad at sarcasm and irony and still really bad as an instructor.
> Of course, I realized that it was not about them. I was the problem.
> They only followed the laws of their own world. And I was the fool for not seeing these laws — I did not understand them, did not realize their seriousness. The seriousness of superficiality.