Comment by aftoprokrustes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aftoprokrustes | Hacker News Reader

I will not comment on the technical part, as others already did it better than I could, but it just reminded me of an anecdote that reminds of the importance of such trivial things as a period at the end of a sentence:

In Germany, where I work, it is usual at the end of employement to ask for a letter of recommendation ("Zeugnis") that lists the tasks performed, and how good the employee was. It is an important document, as it will typcally be required when applying for jobs. Obviously, no employee would accept a document explicitly stating "this guy is a lazy bastard, do not hire him", so there is a "Zeugnissprache", a "secret code" to disguise this information as praise. One part of this code is that a missing period in the last sentence means "please ignore everything said here, this guy is horrible".

How do I know? I let a lawyer check my Zeugnis after my last employment, and (I assume out of lack of care, as all my performance reviews were positive) the last sentence was missing the period.

Secret codes being used in recommandation letters are an urban legend. HR people have no incentive to create a secret code for them and their potential rivals, let alone teach it to new HR people while also keeping it secret.

This legend comes from the fact that HR people cannot be too explicit about the fact that you've been a pain in the ass (you could probably sue if it's too transparent), so if they have nothing positive to say they will commend your punctuality or something equally as mundane. It's not secret codes, it's like... "bless their heart", but in HR talk. Plausible deniability if you want to sue, I guess. "But it's a good thing, your honor! They were always on time!"

So.. secret codes are a myth, and here are some examples of secret codes?

Please refrain from willingly picking the naive interpretation when you've understood my point perfectly fine, it's against the rules of this website.

...sigh:

Secret codes as in "watermark-level omission of characters" are a myth. Lingo and jargon do however exist, and convey meaning in a particularly subtle way. They are shared and taught by culture, not by a secret handbook passed down from generation to generation. See also dogwhistling.

The goal is to protect the issuer, not to selflessly inform the recipient.

This reminds me of the joke whose punch line is

> You will be lucky to have this person work for you.

"I cannot recommend X too highly. X always served as an example to their colleagues. The quality of X's code was unequalled in our department, and X's work always merited special attention." (etc)

> I cannot recommend X too highly

This isn't a veiled statement. It's outright dunking on the applicant.

It can be interpreted both ways: "I cannot recommend X too highly (because they suck)" vs "I cannot recommend X too highly (because whatever praise I give will be inadequate)"

If praise is the intent, it would be phrased as "... cannot recommend X highly enough"

I disagree.

Not every opinion is equally valid

My take away from this is that any positive thing written in a letter of recommendation can be read as sarcasm by an English speaker.

I think there's some deeper issue with the language/culture here.

Every language has turns of phrase that are not necessarily intuitive to non-native speakers.

I think the line is

> you would be lucky to get this employee to work for you!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)

"In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded or suggestive language..."

May HR personnel live in interesting times.

"Damning with faint praise" is hardly a secret code.

You skipped over the fact that "bless their heart" itself is (or at least used to be, before it became too well-known to really be a “secret” any more) precisely such a secret code. (Like, probably, most “HR talk”.)

As other commenters said, what you describe could actually be considered a secret code.

But in the specific german case, the code is not even that secret. This is a formal document with a very specific structure, and very standardized phrases. There is even specific software to generate the text out of performance ratings. Basically something like this:

- John was overal engaged: he is a lazy bastard

- John was engaged: he is OK

- john was very engaged: he is good

- john was always very and thoroughly engaged: he is very good

> One part of this code is that a missing period in the last sentence means "please ignore everything said here, this guy is horrible".

Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

Did you check your performance reviews to see if they were missing periods also?

Why would they need to keep it secret if its a review and internal-only?

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