Comment by dpatterbee
2 days ago
I don't know why choice of language is having such sway in determining what you view as professional. Maybe it's just a cultural difference but where I'm from people just use the words they need to to communicate what they're trying to say. If something's a shit show I'd prefer someone just said it rather than dancing around it with corpo-speak.
> I don't know why choice of language is having such sway in determining what you view as professional
This is a blog post: it's purely textual, language is the only thing it uses to convey meaning. The words chosen to do so reflect what the author thinks.
> where I'm from people just use the words they need to to communicate what they're trying to say
Yes. What ark is trying to say, via the words he chose, is what's earning him the description of "unprofessional".
He could say every factual thing in the blog post without being unprofessional, he just chose not to.
I think you're, intentionally or not, misinterpreting my comment. Language is used to convey meaning, and Andrew wrote words that presumably meant what he meant them to mean. However, in many comments on here people are not commenting on "what he meant them to mean" and instead focusing on which words he chose to convey that meaning.
I'm sure Andrew could've switched out every word in the post and still conveyed the same meaning, and perhaps offended the peanut gallery's sensibilities a little less, but why should he?
In the example I was originally replying to, suppose Andrew had instead said "Jarred showed poorer than desired management abilities" and "Employees disliked working at Oven". Approximately the same message is communicated, a little watered-down maybe, but who's gaining from this tone-policing? Certainly not us, the readers. And I don't see how this affects how "professional" this is, unless "professional" is just performative nonsense and nothing to do with the substance of the text?
> And I don't see how this affects how "professional" this is, unless "professional" is just performative nonsense and nothing to do with the substance of the text?
It changes my opinion of whether I trust ark to actually be right, or whether he has (and will continue to) let his emotions get in the way. The particular quote I noted was
> We probably tried to tell you to try enabling it and you didn't listen. We have good advice, damn it!
He wanted to say this, more than he wanted to know if he was right. It reduces my trust in his judgement.
1 reply →
As someone from a cultural background that is considered very direct and blunt, I can say that there is a rather fine line between being direct and being an asshole.
This post devolves into a personal attack one sentence in. There was no reason to go into Jared's life at all to begin with. The entire post doesn't need to exist at all if you're confident that Bun leaving will have zero or even positive impact. Why turn an already negative event of a slop rewrite into drama? It's petty and immature.
Also notice how I didn't have to bring up Andrew soiling his Pampers when he was a wee beginner.
It's a good thing there's nothing of the sort in TFA then?
Quoting:
"He moved fast and tried a lot of different stuff, jumping head first into problems that he was not yet equipped to solve, leading to mediocre outcomes in terms of engineering, but learning a whole heck of a lot in the process. I see it as quite a healthy attitude, particularly for young people and students. This is the best way to level up and learn new things."
I don't know, maybe you just don't understand what he's saying here? Or rather, are applying some sort of a negative spin to what is a factual analysis of a valid approach to doing something?
1 reply →
If you view that first sentence as a personal attack I'm not really sure what response I can make here. As a sentence it almost says nothing at all. 'When Jarrad started he gave off a real "starting" vibe'.
Also I learned nothing about Jarred's life from this post, so I don't understand that point. That he lives or lived in San Francisco I guess, and didn't go to university?
Well, first off, it's literally the first sentence of a post which is ~62% about Jared, ~26% about the rewrite itself and 10% closing thoughts. It also sets up Jared as a beginner who apparently never learned.
Again, this post never needed to say anything about Jared. It looks weird to pull him in in literally the first sentence. It really shows what you're actually writing about.
2 replies →