Comment by BiteCode_dev
16 days ago
> they also got me reported to HR by the manager of the XROS effort for supposedly making his team members feel bad
This is madness. The safe space culture has really gone too far.
16 days ago
> they also got me reported to HR by the manager of the XROS effort for supposedly making his team members feel bad
This is madness. The safe space culture has really gone too far.
I'll offer a different interpretation:
If a professional can't give critical feedback in a professional setting without being rude or belittling others, then they need to improve their communication skills.
This is not that though. This is just developers being unable to handle constructive criticism, and when they can't win the argument on merits, went for the HR option. It happens.
I've had it happen to me too, but my response was to resign on the spot (I was already not satisfied with the company).
The "toxic behaviour" I had done? I reverted a commit on the master branch that didn't compile, and sent a slack to the Dev who had committed it saying "hi! There appears to have been a mistake in your latest commit, could you please check it out and fix it? I've reverted it in the meantime since I need to deploy this other feature"
The dev responded by force pushing the code that did not compile to master and contacted HR.
I decided there was greener grass on other pastures. I was right.
When I started breaking the build would end up with the person who did it having to wear the dunce hat for the day. This was before git so there are now fewer excuses for breaking the build today.
Carmack says he can't post the actual discussion, but clearly you have access to it - can you post it?
10 replies →
Having worked in the valley, I've seen what critical feedback meant in many companies there, and it removes all usefulness of the info because there is a ceiling of what is socially acceptable to say; therefore, you can't know how bad or urgent things are.
Everything is ASAP. They are super excited about everything. And nothing you do is wrong, it just could be improved or they like it but don't love it.
You don't know if something is important, basically.
Just like Louis CK said, "if you used 'amazing' on chicken nuggets, what are you going to say when your first child is born?". But in reverse.
Personally, I'd rather work with someone who would tell me my work is terrible if it is.
In Germany, you can't even legally say somebody did a bad job at your company in a recommendation letter. Companies created a whole subtext to workaround that, it's crazy.
Some things are just bad. You should be able to say it is. Not by saying it could be better. Not by using euphemism. It's just something that needs to go to the trash.
In fact, I don't trust people who can't receive this information, even if not packaged with tact (which you should attempt to, but life happens). If you can't handle people not being perfectly polite every time, I can't help but feel I won't be able to count on you when things get hard.
That must be the French in me talking.
I am with you on this. Worked in our Dublin office was so refreshing to have straight up communication vs whatever the song and dance we do here in US.
> In Germany, you can't even legally say somebody did a bad job at your company in a recommendation letter. Companies created a whole subtext to workaround that, it's crazy.
I don't think it's just about legality. Whether the recommendation letter is included in the application is at the distinction of the applicant. When you want it to reach the next company, you must write is so, that the former employee considers it to be a good recommendation.
1 reply →
I'd just quote Mourinho / Carlsen. "If I say anything I'm in big trouble".
This.
Being "reported to HR" doesn't mean "almost got fired". It likely meant a meeting where someone explained "hey, the way you communicated that caused some upset, let's discuss better ways to handle that situation next time." Very often in larger companies, complaints about things like "this bigwig from this other group jumped all over us" are automatically sent through HR because HR has staff whose job just is resolving conflicts between people and keeping things peaceful.
FWIW, it can also mean a meeting where HR says to the complainer: "Are you good, dude? Why are you complaining about this? This is perfectly normal workplace behavior. Stop wasting our time."
From what you know of Carmack, does "can't give critical feedback in a professional setting without being rude or belittling others" sound like him to you? It does not to me, though granted maybe he's different in his non public persona than what you can see in presentations and talks.
You've concluded this from a single, brief, throwaway line? Any madness you perceive about this situation has been fabricated by you, based on the details we have.
People have been getting mad at being made to feel bad at work for much longer than “safe space culture” has existed. If someone or some team had more power than you at an organization you for sure will get reprimanded for making them feel bad.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like he got reported for giving a lot of what might kindly be described as unsolicited advice. The guy left Meta ages ago, but he apparently still can't let this one go.
If you're in the middle of trying to write a new operating system, then it's probably not helpful to have John Carmack standing over you repeatedly telling you that you shouldn't be doing it. In this case Carmack gets the last laugh. Then again, it is easy to get the last laugh by predicting that a project will fail, given that most projects do.
> unsolicited advice
He was the CTO of Oculus. Surely it is appropriate for the CTO to give advice on any big technical decisions, if not outright have veto power.
Clearly he didn't have veto power on the project he's talking about.
When a veteran tells you something and is passionate about it, maybe it is worth listening or at least dealing with internally. At the end, he left anyway even if the project didn't fail and Meta remains wealthy but largely mediocre in terms of the products it delivers while relying heavily on startup acquisition and large spending. Pretty sure most people who work there only do so for premium rent-seeking.
None of it surprising if this is a signal of how they operate.
> If you're in the middle of trying to write a new operating system, then it's probably not helpful to have John Carmack standing over you repeatedly telling you that you shouldn't be doing it. In this case Carmack gets the last laugh. Then again, it is easy to get the last laugh by predicting that a project will fail, given that most projects do.
I mean, if you're working on a project that is likely to fail, wouldn't it be nice if someone gave you cover to stop working on it, and then you could figure out something else to do that might not fail? Can't get any impact if your OS will never ship.
The people working on it may not have agreed that it was likely to fail.
But in any case, almost all interesting projects are likely to fail. Of course it is objectively unlikely that a project to write a new OS will succeed. I expect the people working on it were aware of that.
2 replies →
Sometimes you have to let people fail, even though you can see it coming. It sounds like Carmack was sticking his nose in a project that wasn’t under his purview and he dug his heels in a bit too much when he should have just let it fail.
All the FAANG do dumb shit all the time and waste huge sums of money, if you work at a FAANG the best thing you can do is stay in your lane and don’t do dumb shit — eventually it will shake out.
I have been bullied around by L7s (as a L5) sticking their nose in things, and the best thing you can do is clearly articulate what you are doing and why, and that you understand their feedback. Turns out the L7 got canned — partially due to their bullying — and I got promoted for executing and being a supportive teammate, so things worked out in the end.
A meeting with HR is not madness. No one got maimed or died, or even lost work, seemingly. Some people exchanged words.
Cool off.
It got mentioned for a reason. And obviously escalating with HR is a big deal as it comes with career risks for the person you are reporting. Risking someone else's career should be a last resort but seems to be more commonly a knee-jerk reaction with HR becoming weaponised.
The drawback of this is you lose good talent and keep rent-seekers instead.
Has HR been weaponized if the result was just a chat
2 replies →
The only reason you want me to "cool off", is because you feel bad just interacting with somebody expressing a polite, strong opinion. Online. On the other side of the world. With text.
This is exactly the madness I'm talking about.
Case in point.
No, your comment was potent nonsense. It raises no feelings in me other than contempt towards you personally.
And me saying cool off is madness? You must live in a mad, mad world. Good luck going forward.
Something tells me that if we heard the other side of the story it might hit different. There's a lot of wiggle room in what "making his team members feel bad" could mean, and I would be surprised if constructively voiced criticism would have gotten someone written up.
With my experience of being written up for constructive criticism the reasoning was that I didn’t give constructive criticism to others and they felt singled out. I only give such criticism in private so of course they were not there to see the others. Apparently that wasn’t a sufficient explanation.
it is madness, you would be surprised how many ppl take things too serious. been there, had talk with HR cause i've said that the solution is mediocre and we have to do something better than that.