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Comment by js2 | Hacker News Reader

She uncovers incompetence and gets fired. The article makes no allegations that she stepped on Newsom's toes, but it sure seems like it. She deserves a medal, not to be fired. The article doesn't say who hired her in the first place, just:

> Stebbins was hired as the agency’s executive director in February 2018 to bring fresh scrutiny to its finances and operations.

Who hired her?

Also:

> “I find this outrageous!” Batjer wrote to her old colleague. “I’m terribly worried. Thanks much for any advice/help you can get before this gets much worse.”

> “Let’s get together and figure this out!” Lee responded. “We will help you fix, don’t stress.”

I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've used an exclamation mark professionally. Batjer then proceeds to essentially conspire with other board members to fire her, breaking the law in so doing.

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> "I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've used an exclamation mark professionally."

I feel self conscious now.

In use exclamation marks in professional communication every day. It's not unusual at all.

I think gendering language is dumb, but women do tend to use more expressive language like exclamation points to “soften” our communication. Not that men never do, but I do think there are different standards of “professionalism” depending on how you are perceived to fit into the social order.

In particular: thanks!

Okay, I've probably included an exclamation mark after a "thanks", but that's a very different usage than "I find this outrageous!" which is more like "I'm shocked, shocked to find out that gambling is going on in here!"

I use ! a lot when asking someone to do something for me: Good Morning! or Let me know if you have any questions!

That's about the only use case of exclamation mark I have in professional, corporate communications. Unless we take "professional" to mean "stuff people do to make money" - at which point, well, let's say that the stuff I read when working at small companies was often below what I'd consider baseline in a civilized society. And the spelling! One of the nicer things about working for bigger companies is that people feel they need to put some minimum effort into communicating, and don't just dump their stream of thoughts as fast as they can type.

It's basically required in real estate. Everybody needs to sound nice and cheery!

And everyone, literally everyone, must own fish-eye cameras.

Don't worry! I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of exclamation marks I see on a typical work day. It's perfectly alright, at least here in Austria.

Don't! An email or text without a single exclamation mark in it is seen as distant and impersonal in 2020.

Is there a whistleblower's playbook? Case studies and legal stuff.

Imagine some day I decide to expose something. What steps should I take? How should I proceed? What's the calculus for deciding? I imagine it'd resemble spy craft.

Also, I'd like some philanthropic group to become a resource for whistleblowers. Pretty much like outreach programs for victims of domestic violence. Anonymous, no strings, coaching. Plus a mountain of cash for legal stuff. I imagine your case worker would help you assess the merits of your case. They'd plug in some numbers and predict the enormity of the undying hell you're about to unleash.

I looked a bit after the Sibel Edwards event. The whistleblower NGOs I found seemed little more than a support group with other survivors.

I keep thinking of that group of lawyers that's made huge money suing pharmaceutical (or maybe it was pharmacists) under the whistleblower statutes. Surely more such groups could pop up, each with their own expertise.

Tom Devine, Legal Director at Government Accountability Project has several resources. https://whistleblower.org/gap-resources-publications/

One of his books might be helpful for a future whistlebower: The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide: A Handbook for Committing the Truth. (2011) with Tarek Maassarani.

I have no association with GAP. They can be contacted at info@whistleblower.org. Heard an interview of Devine via podcast On The Media episode "Nice Democracy You've Got There..." Sept 19, 2019. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med...

Sounds like you are judging that exclamation points are unprofessional.

I agree this use of ”!” is unprofessional. This is like yelling at someone in person where as the sibling examples are being extra cheerful and thankful.

> I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've used an exclamation mark professionally.

What does your preferred language use for the logical negation operator?

Python uses `not`, `and`, and `or`

> I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've used an exclamation mark professionally.

You probably come off as a bit stiff then.

Of course, in formal documents, you never use it, but in person-to-person communication in 2020, you use it about once in any email or text as a softener.

"Good to see you the other day! [...] Let's do this."

Or the exclamation mark comes at the end, which might be a bit too much for me.

This has been the habit for a couple of decades now...

Professionalism is nihlism. It's mostly the same thing. Hence why it's improper to exclaim.

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