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points by throwaway20222 3 days ago | 0 comments

A coworker was asked in a meeting how he was holding up after pulling an epic two day sprint to deliver a project that saved our butts. He replied “I felt like jumping out of a window.”

Someone reported him for not warning the room about suicidal ideation before saying it and not considering that it might be triggering. He was actually reprimanded.

Unfortunately typical of the place. I left soon after.

[–] abustamam 3 days ago

That's wild! I wonder how far I could get at a place like that by saying random things trigger me, like "don't call it a sprint because I once tripped and broke a tooth while sprinting" or something like that. Make an entire organization change their jargon and use fun words like "this is our two week adventure!"

[–] sa48k 3 days ago

I once told someone that they shouldn't use 'flesh out an idea' because it's offensive to skeletons.

[–] walthamstow 2 days ago

In a previous job, in whiteboard sessions, one of the team would always refer to something as the "final solution" and I could never tell whether he was doing it on purpose or not

[–] lostlogin 1 day ago

Volkswagen blundered into a version of this when the CEO pushing for more productivity declared something like ‘work sets you free.’

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47566898

[–] lazide 2 days ago

Playing the long con

[–] eecc 2 days ago

Why not try… master is now main after all

[–] kavok 2 days ago

Yeah but in that case main is shorter, still understandable, and has the same autocomplete. It’s actually an improvement.

[–] The-Old-Hacker 2 days ago

I once had a software manager who used "master/child". He had a previous stint as a teacher at an English private school.

[–] eastbound 3 days ago

That may be the game that others are playing. I always wonder how much of this is other countries paying agents to spoil the productivity of the West, as a retaliation for unmerited wars we do to them.

[–] kwertyoowiyop 2 days ago

This is actually a great high concept for a comedy.

[–] gbuk2013 2 days ago

A (US based) PM on our team really liked to use “backlog grooming” until we sent him a few BBC articles about the connotations - he immediately changed his lingo :)

[–] olyjohn 2 days ago

I am offended by the connotations of "BBC," it makes me feel inadequate. Please change your lingo.

[–] Lio 23 hours ago

There's nothing wrong with the phrase "grooming". We groom lots of things including ourselves as in personal grooming.

This whole language purity test, whether from the left or right, is just a load of performative bollocks.

[–] roosterIllusi0n 2 days ago

These stories feel like someone purposely doing HR wrong because they hate equality or fairness.

[–] NoMoreNicksLeft 3 days ago

I think this is... well, hilarious is the wrong word. How does that protect anyone that's suicidal? It's teaching everyone that you will be punished for expressing it.

[–] PinkSheep 2 days ago

It's the opposite. It might have driven the person to actual self-commit. Allow me to hypothesize on their behalf:

- the employee pulled off the impossible

- may be already burnt out or on the brink of emotional collapse

- the "jump out of window" would have been as much of a joke as it was a coping response

- the righteous language policewoman does not feel empathy to personally ask him, how he is doing

- instead, she goes to HR to report him

- this unexpected hostility breaks the camel's back and what might have been interpreted as a joke actually wasn't. Still emotionally drained and now backstabbed, the person commits.

In short: policing voice was more important than taking a potential signal seriously. How is it not a despicable behavior in this situation?

PS: I hereby permit the commenters to reprimand me for the stereotype-based guess.

[–] LaurensBER 3 days ago

> How does that protect anyone that's suicidal?

It doesn't, this kind of language policing is all about control and power.

A friend of mine worked as consultant with a big bank in London. They would get weekly emails about what kind of "newspeak" is allowed or not.

They seriously banned terms such as an "all hands meeting".

Woke 1 was absolutely crazy.

[–] kakacik 3 days ago

And the reason there is so much more visible (and still invisible) pushback, stuff went into ridiculous in offices and schools, biggest screamers and complainers basically got the biggest voice. It seems pendulum must swing to the extremes, some stable balanced rational position ain't possible now.

[–] ethbr1 2 days ago

The problem is that HR's remit is minimizing legal liability.

Nothing about productivity or culture in there.

So invariably they spend far too much time and effort addressing the person who had an issue with handedness, without consideration of all the other people that's impacting.

You can't please everyone, but if you're HR, you try.

[–] lazide 2 days ago

Never was, really. You were just used to the old crazy, so the new crazy is jarring.

[–] Akronymus 2 days ago

> Woke 1 was absolutely crazy.

That feels like the covid amnesty thing to me. Say the previous "version" of x was insane and we should just blanket forgive and forget about it. Kind of a rejecting all responsibility.

(besides, i dont think there is a woke 1/2 in the first place IMO)

[–] bell-cot 3 days ago

If that was how they treated top performers, I'd hope you had quite a bit of company on the way out.

[–] theidjjdiej7484 2 days ago

US went from insane wokism to insane white-nationalism in the snap of a finger.

I still don't understand what happened.

[–] slater 2 days ago

Well, the first part didn't happen, and the second part has always been there.