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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I used to think that blogging couldn't hurt your career. Then I read this post.

From the sidebar:

This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years.

Then we have the following professional-sounding quotes:

I used to play Dungeons & Dragons in high school. Just as predictably, I didn’t lose my virginity until I stopped.

any D&D “gang” member would find themselves tossing salads faster than you can say

I stopped reading at about this point. If you are going to do a legal analysis on your bullshit placement firm's blog, try to err on the side of being too professional. If you are going to make jokes, try to at least be funny.

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He made it pretty clear it was self-depreciative humour. If this blog post actually offended you, instead of merely making you think that others might be offended, then I suggest that you lighten up a bit.

I'm offended by such bad writing.

Unprofessional and bad aren't the same thing.

And I'm offended by your general lack of humor and dismissal of the merits of the article (which I did not find that enjoyable) based on something so trivial. I used to think that commenting on HN could not hurt your career, but the smug attitude you displayed (ie: your answer towards nowarninglabel) could be an indication that I'm wrong. C'est la vie.

Remember, you can't give offence, you can only take it. If you are offended by something, you have nobody but yourself to blame.

That's a fairly silly attitude to take. Once can quite easily (common English idioms aside) give offence. One can't go around being gratuitously offensive to people and then blaming them for being offended. That's called "being a dick".

In this particular case, though, one would have to be extremely thin-skinned to be offended.

Nobody but you can be or should be responsible for your emotions. It is entirely up to you how you respond to somebody "being a dick", not to mention that's a completely subjective thing in the first place.

By that same logic, I should never do business with you because I find your opinion close-minded and should express that you shouldn't comment if you are not going to try to at least have a sense of humor.

Sounds good to me. A win for both of us.

"If you are going to do a legal analysis on your bullshit placement firm's blog...."

If you're going to knock a website at least take 2 seconds to look at the title before doing so.

"Above the Law: A Legal Tabloid - News, Gossip, and Colorful Commentary on Law Firms and the Legal Profession"

It's far from a "bullshit placement firm's blog", it's a tabloid focused on the legal industry. In fact, it's extremely popular in the legal world. Being light hearted in nature is a great way to entertain and grab the attention of people stuck reading legalese all day.

I'm pretty sure the article is by Elie Mystal, as it says at the top. The article in the sidebar is by Robert Kinney and Evan Jowers of Kinney Recruiting (the sidebar "article" more of a job list). Still, it's an easy enough distinction to miss that it could lead the guy to some trouble. Such is the price one pays for sponsoring content.

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