[TriLUG] A sad comment on our culture

[Danielle via TriLUG]

On 2015-10-12 12:44, Matt Flyer via TriLUG wrote:
>> Being called an f**ing idiot is a personal attack.  Saying this code 
>> is
>> f***ing idiotic attacks the code.
>>
>> You can easily see the difference between commenting on the action  
>> and
>> the
>> person.
>>
> One particular one that I remember
> being pointed out to me was having the dummy version number of 
> 12345-678.

That's a really good argument for never using "silly" place-holders to 
be replaced later. At my current position we had one get through to the 
customer that looked very bad: it resulted in a dialogue box that was 
highly unprofessional. In theory that dialog box could only be triggered 
by something that the customer would never do, but that isn't what 
happened.

> Needless to say, Bill never called me a felding idiot or even saying 
> the
> mistakes in the code were idiotic, though they most certainly were.  
> What
> Bill did do was make the list of top bosses that I've ever had and 
> inspire
> people to put forth the superior effort because they wanted to.  
> Years
> later, former coworkers would even say that at times when faced with
> professional decisions, especially when dealing with another person, 
> they
> would ask themselves, "What would Bill do"?

I've had a few managers like that; I've also had ones who were the 
oppose. I recall an exchange from about a decade ago where the manager 
told me that he was so angry with me (though in far more coarse 
language) that they couldn't even talk about it at the time and demanded 
we have a meeting to discuss the issue. Due to a massive overload of 
work for the department the meeting had to be repeatedly postponed for 
about two months, after which the manager decided it was no longer 
necessary and informed me that I had fixed what was the issue. To this 
day I have no idea what the issue was or what I did that fixed it; from 
my position nothing material had changed between the two points.

A major factor that I have personally encountered after the 
demographics of the group change is that the individuals, such as women 
and/or minorities, who weren't present before in that space are 
effectively held to different standards. I've lost track of how often 
I've responded similarly to the remarks of the sort being discussed and 
been told that my responses, but not their comments, were inappropriate. 
Occasionally it comes with the rejoinder that me doing so is 
"unladylike," as well, which is a clear statement that they are not 
comfortable with us participating in the same way.

Danielle
-- 
Danielle at whitrel.com
http://danielle-white.info/