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Comment by okdood64 | Hacker News Reader

> Please retire to do something that doesn't hurt my soul this badly and that you might actually have an aptitude for, like burning down orphanages or kicking puppies.

Yea, this guy sounds pleasant. Would love to work with him.

But seriously, I don't understand how people can appreciate this level of toxicity.

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Work for a terrible engineering organization (public, private, doesn’t matter) and you’ll understand. Especially where technical leadership can’t rely on engineers to do anything but code with very strict guardrails.

>Work for a terrible engineering organization (public, private, doesn’t matter) and you’ll understand.

Understand what? This guy is contributing to horrible environments, not just a victim.

Why are do so many tech people have such low agency?

I never said I would work for a place like that again. Just trying to explain why he may feel frustrated.

One of my favorite people I ever worked with was like this. We could disagree on an approach, I’d call him a moron, he’d tell me to go fuck myself, then we’d laugh and go back to our work.

It’s a very different style of work where politeness, ego, and professionalism weren’t factors. The only focus was the tech and ensuring it was moving as efficiently as possible. You could really push things in whatever direction you needed as long as you had the metrics to show it was better.

That sounds like a toxic relationship and work environment.

Different strokes I guess. I personally appreciate the straight forward approach to this style versus the normal corporate environment.

You can be straight forward without being crass, rude, or aggressive. That’s a desirable professional skill.

Or you can judge how to approach each interaction individually instead of applying a global veneer of fake pleasantness that the US work culture labels as "being professional".

>US work culture labels as "being professional".

You guys realize this person wrote a blog post about not being able to find a job, right?

"This toxic personality is so refreshing? But why can't he find a job?"

What a mystery.

I think much like the author’s writing it’s a very polarizing thing, and it either clicks with people or doesn’t. For those that it doesn’t I can understand the viewpoint that it’s extremely negative.

I disagree that it’s inherently rude or aggressive. You can absolutely tell someone they’re a moron in a very polite and joking way, but it clearly won’t translate into writing very well.

As for crass, yeah definitely ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯

Cultural humour does not translate that well between AUS and other western countries, especially the US, but sometimes a joke is just a joke.

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