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Comment by askafriend | Hacker News Reader

The only thing I got from this post is that I want to seriously avoid working with a person who expresses themselves in such an unproductive way.

Look, just because people care about some things that you don’t seem to care about doesn’t mean you get to step into their world and tell them that everything they do is wrong using vulgar language. If you don’t like the culture, leave.

If you think aspects of the culture can be improved, then help in identifying the problems and offer constructive solutions. Instead this guy just says “Fuck XYZ” a hundred times and thinks he has some unique insight to offer.

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Judging from the commentary surrounding the piece, it seems like it was mostly tongue in cheek. I think something productive to take away from the piece is to sincerely ask whether any of the points he raises are valid, and I think some of them are.

The points in the article are tired, un-compelling points. They don't highlight anything new that hasn't been meme'd a million times already.

He does, but you're so distracted by the fucks that you didn't notice ;)

>The only thing I got from this post is that I want to seriously avoid working with a person who expresses themselves in such an unproductive way.

God forbid somebody's frustration with BS isn't productively expressed!

You're right of course, but it's always better to fight BS with something as close to objective truth as possible, rather than even more BS.

Reacting to BS with one's own BS is totally understandable given the emotions involved, I don't blame anyone for that. But ultimately it does nothing to help counter the BS that was being reacted to.. It mostly just provides an emotional outlet for the author (which is fine, a lot of great writing has no higher goal).

However, if someone's goal is to help change the state of things for the better, much better to start making shovels and passing them around, than to manufacture one's own "good" BS to counter preexisting "evil" BS. This is an observation about the world in general, nothing specific to this article. Less BS is always better than more BS, always and forever.

Some times the use of blunt language is appropriate - yes its a hard call and you have to be careful how and when you use it

> The only thing I got from this post is that I want to seriously avoid working with a person who expresses themselves in such an unproductive way.

Everything in this world is about being productive

Some consider it an ideology called “Economism”

I remember reading a great article a while ago about how, since the industrial revolution, it is common to judge people against the same criteria that we judge machines. So we ask about "productivity", "efficiency", and "time in operation", rather than the classical virtues like "judgement", "integrity" and "humility". I wish I could remember the name of that piece.

Why would you want to work with someone who actively undermines the productive capacity of the workplace? All that means is everyone else has to work harder to balance them out.

There are plenty of people who'd say frat culture undermines the productive capacity of the workplace, likewise with alcohol or being able to hit on others, or difficulties people have because hookup culture is now a thing. Both extremes of that are clearly terrible... there's really no right answer.

I don't disagree. My comment was specifically geared towards the comment thread calling out productive communication, and whether or not that's a valid characteristic of a desirable coworker (as well as the inverse).

I expressed a personal preference. If you enjoy working with someone who would put out a memo in this style, then that's up to you. But my personal preference (which I'm happy to take even more downvotes for) is to not work with someone like this.

I just didn't find this piece compelling in any way. I think someone like DHH offers a more valuable criticism of the downsides to startup culture - and as a bonus he sets a real world example of some of the solutions he'd like to see more broadly by implementing some of them in his own company.

Meanwhile, this particular author writes a post like this and then goes and works for WeWork. There's a hint of irony somewhere here.

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