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Comment by l8again | Hacker News Reader

Here we go normalizing verbal abuses to just "not being polite enough". This culture is now so pervasive in our industry that people are wearing their rudeness to their fellow coworkers as a badge of honor. I have seen incredibly meek guys on the outside turn into monsters as soon as they get into their roles of lead devs or tech leads. Repeat after me - "Kindness is cool."

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I'm sure what you're talking about happens (although I personally haven't seen it). What also happens is that cultural differences lead to two people having different perceptions of the same event. One views it as "honest and blunt" and the other views it as "rude." I think a lot of the pushback comes from people who have personally delivered things they view as "honest and blunt" and have had others say that they are being "rude" or "mean-spirited," and they view things like this CoC as a push by the thin-skinned to institutionalizing niceness at the expense of honesty.

There's a huge difference between being 'very frank' and being a true douche. Both can be perceived as jerkoff but I think only the later really counts as that.

As far as 'meek guys' turning to jerks with a taste of power - it's very common for all types.

Without going into my background I had a chance to witness 100's of young people come into, and go out of power. Almost everyone 'over identifies' with their power when they first get it. It takes 'coming out of power' to have self reflection and awareness about it.

Tragically - so many people in their careers just go 'up' the power ladder and never develop any awareness. It takes going 'down' or 'laterally' a few notches to really internalize the lessons.

The situation I was in, I witnessed a lot of 'power rotation' i.e. people taking turns being lead/manager. It was a really, really powerful thing. Though this was not in high tech and a completely different field, not sure it would work in tech.

I'd love to read more about what you've seen with power rotation, with any specifics or stories you could give. It's not something I've heard before.

It's a feature of Boy Scouts and the patrol method, in which youth are encouraged to take on leadership positions for six-month periods.

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