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Comment by ajjenkins | Hacker News Reader

The author gives two examples of jobs they worked at then asserts that all companies are fucked up. I think you need better evidence or at least a more persuasive argument to claim that “all companies are fucked up”. Maybe the author didn’t literally mean that all companies are fucked up, but I’m not even convinced that more than half of companies are fucked up, based on this post.

Sorry, maybe I’m just missing the point.

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Agreed. It's like saying "All families are fucked up." No, actually, I knew several people who had good families that generally supported each other and had mostly healthy interactions. The kids would sometimes be kids and do something shitty, but the parents handled it in a reasonable way and taught them how to handle their negative emotions. My family was not like that. Everyone wanted all the attention all the time (including my parents). It was fucked up. Some of my friends families were not fucked up. In some cases, even a single member of the family was fucked up, but the rest of the family wasn't. I think it's the same with jobs, personally.

Thanks for pointing this out. I did fall for the “all families are messed up” meme, but it seems obvious now that there’s a continuum, some really bad, some really good, a lot in the middle.

I’m gonna play devil’s advocate here and suggest that you probably just didn’t know of the skeletons hidden in the closet. I came from one of those good families where things were handled reasonably and I was taught to deal with negative emotions and my mother was a saint and all of that is true; but my family is still fucked up, we still have our skeletons like everyone else I’ve ever met, and I’m still fucked up in my own way from some of it.

After typing this all out, I’m wondering if “fucked up” is not just a vernacular for “experienced”.

> "After typing this all out, I’m wondering if “fucked up” is not just a vernacular for “experienced”."

not going to lie... theres some poetry/truth in this statement

The parent comment is talking about people with personality disorders like narcissism.

Gotta put this out for obvious reasons...

> "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Well, if we're quoting...

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you."

...

(Philip Larkin)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...

I think it is actually worse. The author is preaching toxic complacency. If a company is fucked-up, it is sometimes not OK. If the work culture is toxic, it is not OK for any workers (not even the ones that participate in the toxic work culture). The logical conclusion I must draw is that worker alienation is fine actually, and you must simply find a company that is alienating at the same level that you have been alienated.

And even worse, the article extends the analogy to relationships, which can be interpreted to excuse domestic violence, as long as the victim is equally “fucked up”.

This is not OK.

After thinking about the article some more, I reached the same conclusion. I was trying to figure out why the author wrote this, and my best explanation is that this was an attempt to defend companies that have been labeled “toxic”.

Like, “Sure Activision/Blizzard was a fucked up company (and maybe still is), but all companies are fucked up, so it’s really no worse than any other company. It was just the wrong type of fucked up for certain types of people (women, minorities, etc.).”

None of this is explicitly said in the article though, so hopefully this wasn’t actually the point the author was trying to make.

I think you are. The author is using the term "fucked up" kind of stupidly IMO.

What he's saying is that all organizations operate differently, and you have to find an organization that operates congruently to the way you operate. If you love to cook and drink a pint of vodka before lunchtime, maybe a restaurant where everyone's drinking all the time is just the place for you.

I agree, the article seems very anecdotal and grossly generalizing. The point at the end might be to look for a company that suits you, but that’s not really a new insight, is it?

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