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Comment by ape4 | Hacker News Reader

Jeffrey Toobin: "I was fired today by @NewYorker after 27 years as a Staff Writer. I will always love the magazine, will miss my colleagues, and will look forward to reading their work,"

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I think about the worst public mistake I've made, multiply the panic and embarrassment by about 1000x, and that maybe starts to approximate what must have gone through Toobin's mind when he heard his colleagues calling out to him on the Zoom video. First, the confusion -- "why is everyone calling out my name all of the sudden?". Then he shifts his attention back to the conference... "there's no way they saw me". Then "How did they see me!??!?". Then "can I deny this?" Then eventually... "I think my life is ruined." How do you look someone in the eye again, when you know they know? His life over in an instant, all because he misjudged the line-of-sight from his camera (while making the horrible decision to "relax" while on a work call). One slip, and his world collapsed.

Most of us skate right up to the edge of disaster on a daily basis, and aren't even aware of it. One distraction and you forget you had something frying in the kitchen; or you crash your car; or you reply-all by mistake; or you bitch about your boss on the team-wide Slack channel instead of the 1:1 channel you thought you were on.

"Now let me address, in detail, why I was fired..."

Yah, I don't know anything about Jeffrey, but reading about why he was fired - it's not right.

Humans make mistakes. Over and over. People need to forgive.

Just wankin' it in front of your coworkers during a meeting nbd cancel culture run amok! If you aren't okay with me wankin' it in front of you, sweetie, you're not cut out for this business.

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