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Comment by cypherpunks01 | Hacker News Reader

"We understand this may impact your experience and are here to support you."

I love this - I've never heard the euphemism impact your experience used to mean that your life may end. What a wild PR assignment

(language off the company's safety notice https://www.omnipod.com/en-gb/fsn-11-2023)

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> This issue only occurs if [...] You do not recognize that the bolus amount is wrong and start the bolus that is larger than you intended

"The issue only occurs if you don't notice it's occurring."

"Warning: Inattentive users could experience diabetic comma. If the user insists on diabetic comma, they might experience death. Completely their fault for not paying attention."

Why do so many people / companies insist on using grossly euphemistic managerspeak like this?

Because anything different from that would be admitting that it is a life threatening situation and they are not going to treat it as such.

Less risk of liability and cancellation.

Because it works. People who don't will not get to keep their jobs in corporate environments, even when nothing is going on.

I work in a corporate environment and I refuse to use managerspeak. I haven't lost my job.

Like all business communication (and communication in general, really): Fashion. While you occasionally find some trailblazers to set what is new in fashion, mostly people just copy what other people are doing.

liability

An insulin pump is probably a class II medical device. The manufacturer is already liable.

As they should be. This is a process failure and a QA failure.

I would bring a lot of popcorn (or chestnuts) to their next 501k

Business people don't know what they are doing so they ape whatever they see other people doing. At the heart of a suit is a great deal of insecurity and fomo.

They are 100% mitigating risk. If someone suffers, or dies, the company is seriously at risk, and any communication needs to be as foolproof as possible from litigation. They have an obligation to release a statement (and greater legal risk if they didn’t) but want to avoid whatever litigation they can.

They probably literally meant impact your having an experience, not impact the content of your experience. ;)

We apologize for an problems you may have with your experience ending.

The language there is more than a little bit disingenuous, they all but blame the user for their fuck-up.

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