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Comment by masklinn | Hacker News Reader

> informing your boss that you're quitting is a reasonably easy thing to do which could help real people at that company and seems like common decency to me

Decency and respect in general is a two-way street. If your boss is an asshole and the company doesn't give a single lonely shit you don't owe it "common decency".

It's not like that sort of company puts a single dime in "common decency" when time comes for layoffs or firing people, instead they get company security and their stuff shoved in a cardboard box.

If the company is decent and you're quitting because you've found a great job or you think you deserve a raise and they don't agree, sure put in your two weeks and everything. The article specifically talks about bad bosses though, so that probably ain't the subject.

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"Decency and respect in general is a two-way street"

No it isn't. Decency and respect is a way you choose to conduct yourself.

I treat everyone with decency and respect. I choose not to associate with people that are immoral or toxic, but I will treat them with decency and respect because I will not let someone else's conduct dictate how I act. If your boss is bad, resign as soon as possible with 2 weeks notice and wipe your hands of it.

This is what is referred to as the Golden Rule. https://www.gotquestions.org/Golden-Rule.html

It's an interesting hack on quid pro quo that I recommend to everyone.

Then you can upgrade to the Categorical Imperative: "do unto others as they have done to you" becomes "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which becomes "do what you would want all others to do." It's subtle, but important.

It's a subtle change with great appeal to universalizing thinkers, but one which, as commonly formulated, makes many suggestions that seem intuitively wrong without adding a lot of qualifiers, and at that point you've just punted the task of formalizing ethics one level up.

Can you elaborate? As far as I understand it, the difference between the Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative is acting in ways that don't involve reciprocity. The former is a rule against stabbing other people; the latter is also a rule that people going around stabbing themselves would be a bad idea.

While the categorical imperative is kind of okay at justifying abstract prohibitions, most concrete actions don't universalize very well in the presence of people who are not precisely you; just take a look at any "falsehoods programmers believe" list. Some of these are occasionally useful to. Even something as simple as "sit on toilets" is hard to naively universalize unconditionally, and once you've filled in the blanks you've done no less work than if you hadn't started from the categorical imperative in the first place.

And then there's the "lying to a murderer"-type problem, where the apparent implication of the categorical imperative seems to be flat-out wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#Lying_t...

The golden rule is almost the opposite of quid pro quo ("you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours")

A common statement of it is "Do unto others as you would have them do to you". It has equivalents across human history and cultures. It says nothing about the actions of others.

Except if you think about it for any length of time there is no way the Golden Rule either good, desirable or workable.

There are some people who have preferences that you just don't like and they would do unto you in a way that they would want to be done unto but that you certainly do not.

I'm convinced the subtext of this rule says something very different than the text of this rule...

I want others to treat me in a fashion that I like. In return I try to treat them in the fashion they like. This is the Golden rule.

Even that formulation still fails. You don't know everyones preference. You can't actually do it.

I know what the text of it says. I just think the subtext says something much different. Or the whole thing is just plain wrong, but in an accidentally useful way.

You know a reasonable approximation of everyone's preference, and with a modicum of empathy and communication you should be able to suss out the areas where it might be unclear.

That sounds good on a surface level analysis but closer inspection of how political correctness has changed over the last century suggests it's actually not at all as simple as you make it out to be. We're actually crap at pulling it off.

If it requires communication then the formulation is actually closer to "treat others how they state they'd like to be treated". We're getting further and further away from the original formulation.

Think of it another way... If you were a 19th century man, it's not likely you would have a cordial chat with a woman or a gay man, deploy empathy and come to 21st conclusions on how you should treat them.

The change is hard fought and hard won. How we state we want to be treated is a matter of both public and private discourse and it's a long process for enough communication to happen for the baseline of what social norms should be to shift in a noticeable way.

I agree that if I were a 19th century man I likely would not have treated women or minorites the way they wished to be treated. I don't see how the unlikelihood of me having employed the golden rule invalidates it in any way.

It's not the unlikelihood of you having employed it. It's the likelihood of you having employed it and that not having the results your 21st century self might assume that it generates.

So maybe 2 decades ago people bandied it about like they meant it and then still unironically said things like "I didn't like that movie, it was gay."

I'm simply saying the function of the golden rule is different than what you think it is.

You seem to be suggesting that the golden rule is a flawed premise because people generally suck and fail to live up to it. I don't understand how one implies the other.

It's not possible to live up to it with the golden rule alone. It's the lengthy political and social processes that shift the behavior over time. Then people remind each other of the golden rule as if thats how we got to where we did.

The golden rule as a meme certainly has a function. I'm implying that it's the perception of the golden rules function that is flawed.

You're confusing courtesy and decency, to say nothing of respect.

>If your boss is bad, resign as soon as possible and wipe your hands of it.

Look, I removed the 2 weeks notice and boom!, you are the person in the Article!

The article is about leaving without resigning or doing anything. Even quitting with zero notice is better than what is being talked about here.

Is it though?

Seems to me Employees are walking off jobs due to being treated like shit for so many years.

We're complaining about someone who went from being a Lifeguard to a Pizza Delivery Driver. Let's not pretend that these are the types of jobs that need to be "resigned" from and that employers are treating these people with respect and dignity.

Walking off in a rage is still not ghosting. Unless you do it silently when your boss doesn’t see.

I’ve had shitty jobs including a stint at Walmart. You may leave without notice but the vast majority of people had the decency to tell their manager they were out. People working crap jobs have self respect and common decency too.

> vast majority of people had the decency to tell their manager they were out

The ghosting is sending a message to people who value money over people. That to me is the undercurrent theme of all this. That is why it is a trend. The companies are not "people" they are entities and the managers are simply lever pulling proxies for the company.

You may not realize it if you haven’t worked these jobs - but the person you hurt most when skipping your shift is not the company. It’s the poor soul promoted to frontline management getting an extra $1 an hour. At Walmart you’ll see them with the red vests.

They’re the ones who get yelled at by the customers for the crappy service and upper management for not being able to find someone to come in on zero notice.

I can guarantee that the one place the message doesn’t go is upper management in corporate.

it does when there is a net decline of $20,000 due to a shutdown.I guarantee those get noticed because I am in the job that notices them. The message gets sent, whether it is received is another story. Sadly, idiots are being promoted to corporate too.

This why a trend where labor is unreliable (in the old days it was a strike) will get people's attention.

If a union goes on strike they have the decency to tell the company they are striking. That's the difference between ghosting and quitting in protest. If you had no employees because they all quit you still have to shutdown even if they told you they were quitting.

This has very little to do with whether someone actually comes into work and everything to do with what they say or don't say.

> If your boss is bad, resign as soon as possible with 2 weeks notice and wipe your hands of it

2 weeks is a guidelines, and there are a lot of exceptions for the guideline. To be quite honest, there are some jobs where I'd give more than 2 weeks, and there are other jobs where walking up to the boss and saying, "I quit" is completely appropriate.

IMO, ghosting is (almost) never appropriate. I think the only exception are situations of personal safety or situations where contact with the employer would have legal consequences. In those cases, I'd get a lawyer involved ASAP to handle communication with my prior employer.

But, getting back to quitting with less than 2 weeks notice. If a situation is truly miserable, but people are generally reasonable, (IE, no personal safety or legal issues,) I think it's best to explain the situation. I certainly would never expect a miserable subordinate to stay.

I once quit a beer money job on short notice. There were a few things promised that weren't delivered, and a few expenses that weren't explained. I didn't feel guilty.

How much notice they get is often related to their fulfillment of the social contract, or literal implied work contract. Changing the terms after the fact, abrogates the agreement.

This is a central point under debate, I suppose, but literally walking away with no notice is petty and petty people have a place in the world despite their pettiness - rarely because of it.

I could, with time, construct a story about how a greedy person harnesses that greed as a motivator to do great works for a society. Same with selfishness. They aren't pretty, but they can sustain someone as they complete a large, complicated project. Pettiness, I can't do that. Maybe it is possible, but I've only ever seen pettiness as an ugly (and worse, unproductive!) trait. It isn't something that can sustain long-term action.

Some bosses are worse than petty, so we're trawling the bottom of the trench of behavior here, but correct response for an employee is to show a little pride in their character and tell someone that they aren't coming back and wait a little bit. Going through life without being petty once is a tough but worthwhile goal, and if an employee wants to disrespect their boss being petty does not work. There are instances where no notice is appropriate, but they are pretty extreme.

> 2 weeks is a guidelines

Denends on the jurisdiction. In Alberta, notice period is governed by labour code and is not optional. Employers can choose to pay in lieu of notice.

https://www.alberta.ca/termination-pay.aspx

When one party conducts themselves with decency, and the other doesn’t (employer), the decent one is ripe for being taken advantage of.

Instead of descending to their level, how about you take yourself out of the bad situation? This sort of grievance morality is just, "An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind."

When your focus is on removing yourself, you will eventually run from everywhere having limited options where to go. Also leave all the bullies targeting even weaker people. Or just become enabler, because not enabling became something bad.

Ghosting is running. Not only is it running, but it's degrading our collective life and common courtesy.

You can be decent without being a doormat.

In general yes, but if ones definition of good behavior requires you to leave and have no other options for bad situations, then that definition is suspect - because it leaves people in truly bad situations powerless and often amounts to enabling.

I definitely don't require people to be heroes and take action. But, if definition of good behavior turns such actions into something bad, then the definition is wrong.

A man and his son are walking down the street. The man tips his hat in greeting to a passing woman. The son asks "Why did you tip your hat to her? She's no lady!" The man replies "You're right she's no lady. But I am a gentleman."

Thank you.

> Decency and respect in general is a two-way street. If your boss is an asshole and the company doesn't give a single lonely shit you don't owe it "common decency".

People seem to forget that quitting with no notice also screws one's co-workers. And often times it's the "innocent" co-workers that are affected the worst. I've learned far too late in life that there is never a justification for being a jerk, especially as the unintended and unwanted side effects will reap subtle mayhem around you.

I disagree; I and a few other good coworkers were managed by a pretty horrible boss (pretty horrible as in he is known by name as a horrible person to work for by multiple corporate HR departments and recruiting agencies in our metropolitan area who all wanted to poach us), and I think we all gave our two weeks notices when we could.

You should always act in a way that optimizes your own desirability as an employee or a person to be associated with in order to keep your options open. It's very rare to find yourself on a hill worth dying on, and to have that hill be clearly seen by others. For me, that standard is not letting an employee go to a funeral, or be at the birth of your child, or something timeboxed and will cause similar extreme emotional/mental pain and duress.

Of course, the flip side is to not have your internal judgments skewed by constant interactions with said boss or bosses. I'm guessing that's how you become a bad boss or employee over time.

Decency and respect in general is a two-way street.

No. If you have a morality which says you can act as badly as the worst life throws at you, then your moral conduct isn't stable. You can't have a morality like that, and have something like human rights. Human rights are supposed to be inherent. You can't take them away simply because you're ticked off, or you're practicing tit-for-tat. You can't simply nominate yourself as judge, jury, and executioner.

If you would advocate for human dignity, you not only have to advocate for yourself. You have to do it for others. You have to advocate for human dignity for people you do not like, and for people who you might find offensive or who may even have offended you. If you don't, then you don't believe in human dignity as a principle. You just believe in dignity for yourself and what you can get through whatever power happens to be in your reach.

Don't equate "your boss" with "the company". You're absolutely right, your boss could be the reason you're quitting, but by and large, your boss is probably just another cog in the same machine that is causing you grief as well.

If your boss is a great person, you probably know about it even if they get put in a bad way by the company and that's got consequences for you.

If you're getting no respect back for the respect you put in, and you're not quitting despite your boss, the distinction is immaterial.

> If your boss is an asshole and the company doesn't give a single lonely shit you don't owe it "common decency".

The important word here is "common". Precisely and pedantically, if you think it's only earned by some, then decency is uncommon for you.

It’s called “character.” It does matter. The way I choose to conduct myself is a reflection of me, not a reflection of the failings of those with whom I deal. Treating everyone as you wish to be treated is good policy even if they don’t do the same for you.

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