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Comment by dingo_bat | Hacker News Reader

I'm always eager to read Linus's rants. I wish more of my coworkers were like him. I hate the environment where nobody reacts strongly to anything! If somebody fucks up hard and refuses to own up, I (or whoever's in charge) should be able to shout at them. It's only natural.

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I disagree. To me he usually comes across as an asshole, albeit an extremely smart and accomplished one. A working environment where the person at the top can be relied upon to react to human failings with an aggressive, sweary [1] rant is not somewhere I ever want to work.

[1] I'm aware that use of profanity in everyday speech is common in Finland. I don't mind swearing per se, but I find its over-use a bit tedious.

Anecdata: I grew up in Finland. It's common if you're 15-16 and in middle school, but I've rarely heard adults swear in the workplace or in public (unless inebriated).

If Linus wants to use perkele management, then I guess it's his project. Doesn't mean it's the right way to do things.

> It's common if you're 15-16 and in middle school

This part is probably globally true :D

I don’t. He’s effectively using certain emotions to clearly broadcast his point.

Understood. But what happens if everyone in an organisation reacts in the same way? Is it a useful leadership style?

> [1] I'm aware that use of profanity in everyday speech is common in Finland. I don't mind swearing per se, but I find its over-use a bit tedious.

Actually what you are unaware of, might be that the use of profanity in everyday speech is actually very common pretty much anywhere in the world other than in the US&A where mince words and puritanism are still king.

I'm not unaware of that. I'm from the UK, where we can be fairly fairly crude when the opportunity presents itself.

I'm embarrassed at myself as I now realize how I surrendered to textbook assumption on an internet thread. Sincere apologies for that!

The problem is that often things are not so clear-cut... what seems like a fuckup at first glance or from one perspective might be something different (perhaps one thing is messed up but it was to fix another thing, or perhaps you are mistaken and things are just different but not "fucked up", etc). As soon as you start shouting at someone, they will tend to get defensive and dig in their heels, thus making it more difficult to get to the bottom of what actually happened and why. For most of us in software, our jobs are not saving lives or anything -- it's not worth creating a toxic culture just so you can feel good about yourself by shouting at someone.

Agreed. This sort of thing has to be extremely rare and must always come from a supreme authority figure.

I've worked at a place where people shouted at each other and had angry rants.

It was shit. I left.

A boss who gets stressed out, or who transmits and amplifies other people's stress around the office, is not doing their job properly.

I have the same problem where I work. If someone messes up it starts a long game of passive aggressiveness. I'd much rather people come right out and tell me I'm causing an issue. In this way I can change course or work on convincing the other party this is what needs to change.

I agree. But there's a difference between being straight-to-the-point versus "shouting" at people. You can be direct without being mean or belittling about it.

Because its hard to say the least.

This sums it up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15610108

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