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Comment by tessro | Hacker News Reader

Wow. Is this what HN is getting reduced to, that the top-ranking comment is filled with ad hominem attacks?

Whether you agree or disagree with the author's motivations, at least be civil. "Nitwit", "liar", "What are you 8?" ... ugh.

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You are absolutely right.

This response is relevant to you as well. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2501121

Sorry for being uncivil.

Why so much backpedaling? You didn't say anything wrong. The article of the author is being an extremist baby, so you decided to be extreme in your response. Seems fair to me.

Agreed. The author is clearly a delusional moron. You could've been a bit more polite about calling him on it, I guess, but sometimes you call a spade a spade.

I certainly stand behind the substance of what I said, but I definitely could have packaged it a bit different. I agree with pg that HN's comment quality has been deteriorating, and to that end I'd rather be part of the solution than the problem.

But the author is clearly delusional.

He doesn't seem to understand the difference between being an employee for a company that was hired by Google and being a Google employee and instead concocts this story about class warfare and injustice.

it would certainly have been possible for the comment author (bane) to have made that point without all the nasty name-calling.

The blog author made his fair share of 'nasty name-calling' as well (bordering on slander, really).

...which does not, in fact, suddenly make it acceptable for others to follow suit.

also to you as well (see my other comments)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2501121

Sorry for being nasty. You are absolutely right.

He doesn't seem to understand the difference between being an employee for a company that was hired by Google and being a Google employee

He differentiated between being a red badge contractor and getting many of the on-site perquisites, versus being a yellow badge, who gets no (visible) benefits whatsoever.

He also clearly states that Google leaned on his employer to fire him, not that Google fired him.

I don't see how your statement is correct.

Well then he doesn't seem to understand that contracts vary from one employer to another and that temp/contract workers are there to be fired and be hired again by someone else, it's the nature of the job.

As far as most people see it whether these people are contractors, subcontractors, part-time employees doesn't matter. This story is becoming an issue because most people don't care. This is how it looks and this is how people react.

<sarcasm> For some reason, some have an aversion to situations where a group of different race ends up having to wear a different color badge and start work at 4am and get less benefits than those of another race ... </sarcasm>

They way Google reacted and the way it looks is what makes the story interesting. Classification based on badges, surprisingly matches well with a race-based classification as well. Isn't that interesting? These employees work in a separate building, get to work at 4am! Isn't that interesting to at least talk to them? Mention it to your friend? At least I found it interesting even without any class or culture overtones mixed in. Even with a class critique attached onto this, one can at least make another tired comment on the lack of education and job prospects for minorities in California and Google is just one example.

I think the author wanted to do just that. The way Google reacted to it, they pretty much guaranteed for this to become an issue. It is akin to someone who does something that is slightly shameful and a little wrong, and then there is an ambiguous reference made to whatever they are doing, but then they start overreacting, thus betraying that they know they are doing something that not quite right. They could have just acted cool and got away with it. But it is the reaction that in this case betrays the guilty corporate conscience.

He implied that google leaned on his employer to fire him. He never himself got in touch with google, so we don't know if this is true, do we? For all we know, his managers felt that he was being an unnecessary troublemaker and not wanting to jeopardize the company's relationship with google, decided to fire him on their own.

Well, actually, he said that his employer implied that google leaned on him, but I agree that this doesn't actually tell us much. When firing someone, it's much easier to play the good guy and claim that the individual is getting fired for reasons beyond your control.

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