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Comment by itsdrewmiller | Hacker News Reader

While of course it could truly be for unrelated reasons, the direct response from VW is inconsistent with a company trying to change a culture of coverup and fraud:

>VW said the information provided proved to be “irrelevant” and that “the employee was terminated due to fundamental differences in the way we work together”.

Better PR would be something like "While the reported issue turned out to be a misunderstanding, we appreciate and encourage all employees to speak up if they have similar concerns. Our separation from the employee was in no way related to their reporting of that incident - if anything, it was a mitigating consideration."

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I've been in a similar situation. To put it mildly, it's very hard to have a respectful professional relationship with someone who "should know better."

IE, it's hard to have a professional relationship with an experienced engineer when I need to explain things like "never trust the client because a hacker will 0wn you with Curl."

I suspect that VW has someone who's been there a long time, who is a "lead," and just doesn't understand basic security concepts. Some newcomer challenged them, and it probably grew unprofessional. It speaks poorly of their management if they need to terminate someone in a situation like this.

It's also possible that the senior employee was raising false issues and wouldn't let it go. Or he was being very unprofessional about it.

We just don't know. (Can't read the article because of paywall.)

It's like divorce. I know many, many people who've been divorced. The story from one party is usually very, very different from the story from the other party. Who knows what the actual truth is.

No paywall https://archive.md/WMRDD

Something to keep in mind is that when a breakup is a corporation vs. an employee, then the former has vastly unequal PR resources.

A bit different from two ordinary individuals.

I think there is a bias a lot of people have towards believing the organization, because the idea that bad things happen to decent people is discomfiting.

I hate the phrase "just world fallacy", it's not a fallacy, but it's certainly unpleasant to contemplate misfortunes that could happen to you, or me.

Experience with corporate litigation will change your opinions on whether individuals or organizations are more to be trusted.

I've been cheated by individuals far more than by corporations. I've also been involved with corporate litigation with a company that cheated me. (I won.)

I have had better experiences as an employee with large organizations than with small ones or individuals, myself.

But your first sentence sounds to me like "I've been walked on by mosquitos far more than by elephants".

On average, the elephants you meet probably won't be in the mood to bite or step on you. On average.

To put it mildly, it's very hard to have a respectful professional relationship with someone who "should know better."

Then leave. That's your only recourse.

Even if you think all the people around you are fuddy-duddies and "should know better" - that's no need to resort to tones of exasperation and condescension. You probably figured out pretty early on what the environment was like -- and for whatever reason, you made an adult decision to stay in that environment. When someone around you doesn't understand something -- just explain it to them with respect. And yes, patience. You're there to help, after all.

Or maybe you're not. In which case you should just leave.

> Then leave. That's your only recourse.

Only if the culture over values conflict avoidance. By other management philosophies, it is preferable to encourage (healthy) conflict, which can include waves of emotionality which can be uncomfortable for many people. It's a business, not a therapy zone, so that seems like an occasionally appropriate tradeoff.

I've definitely known people who seem to favor that approach (in both business and personal contexts). "Drama for its own sake", we might call it.

Yes, it can seem to sort of work for a while. But over time, not so well. Resulting in burnout, and the desire to seek greener pastures.

I found that some people completely lack of way to think security. They are too good to not able to think as if evil.

Whether it's "goodness", naiveté, or simply ignorance, in the end it's the result of cognitive dissonance - they've built a worldview where such perversion/evil doesn't exist (or is contained or warded by "good") so explaining to them their worldview is flawed takes a lot of effort that they will resist changing. Even those who seek to change find it difficult.

Many people for whom factual truth is anathema to their self-esteem.

> I suspect that VW has someone who's been there a long time, who is a "lead," and just doesn't understand basic security concepts. Some newcomer challenged them

I worked in Automotive for quite a while, and this wouldn’t surprise me. A lot of the roots of my company was mechanical engineering, and software at the time was very secondary. It was changing rapidly (and positively) over my last few years.

I am not sure that you can change a culture without firing thousands upon thousands of people.

At a minimum, you are starting with a bunch of people who default to cheating and lying as a solution to problems. You can put in new barriers to it, but these people are skilled at beating barriers.

I say this as a cheater and a liar.

It also doesn't help that careers with companies are so short. I have no stake whatsoever in whether a company I work for succeeds long term or not. Just want a nice resume line really.

>> I say this as a cheater and a liar.

I really appreciate the honesty that can be obtained via anonymity. It might be interesting to have honest discussions with "bad" people, but most of them appear either not self-aware, or refuse to be honest about things.

People distinguish heavily between intentional and accidental harm to them, so lacking self awareness is a survival mechanism.

I have worked for a company that had a data breach.

- If I said in the post mortem that I didn't report the issue as it was more work and I could not be bothered, people would be enraged, but beyond the yelling, I would probably survive in that role.

- If I said that I didn't report the issue as I wanted to seem like a hero when I fixed it (real thing my boss did from my days at another company), I would be fired.

- If I didn't report the issue due to not knowing the right channel, they criticize my lack of initiative, but it is understandable.

- If I did not report the issue due to not knowing about it, I am blameless.

You cannot admit to being a bad person without taking a lot of flack.

That's why people don't admit it to those affected. I suppose strangers chatting at the bar will be more likely to admit wrongdoing, but they are often still worried about judgement. So the only place they can completely admit things is where they're totally anonymous and that's just not the same - nor as interactive and engaging - as real life.

You know... is everything you do bright-line OK? Do you ever exploit gray?

Ofttimes, I think the people most willing to self-label this way are those most aware and conflicted by their behavior.

Interesting. I've definitely seen such people, but not often.

In my experience the people I've seen self-label this way (in a non-anonymous way) do so because they think it reflects well upon them (it's 'cool', demonstrates intelligence or superiority, etc.). It is usually the limit of their self awareness and they are never outwardly conflicted. My inner arm-chair psychologist thinks it stems from varying combinations of insecurity and lack of empathy.

Self-deprecation used to be a social norm.

>> Self-deprecation used to be a social norm.

Seems like more of a British thing. They're also IMHO more willing to take an honest ribbing over screw-ups without getting all pissy. They take it and dish it out.

Don't be silly, everyone knows the best way to stop fraudulent cover-ups is to make sure there's no discoveries to cover up in the first place, and ensure everyone who would make such a discovery is fired or cowed into submission before anything can be investigated at all! /s

(In seriousness, that hypothetical PR statement is one of those sentences that makes you reflect on the power that messaging has. It also means that you can't trust a PR-driven image on the culture of a company!)

At a past employer, this was a lot of the reason for a lot of the things we did. If we looked, we were accountable. If we were ignorant, that was sufficient defence to our bosses and their bosses.

Culturally, Germans tend to say what they mean and rely less on corp-speak bullshit.

Two words: Brandenburg Airport

Ahem, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

Kinda understandable when everyone else were also doing the same

Does this still apply to people in power? As "don't piss off the king" seems like a very cross cultural concept.

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