[HN Gopher] A Twitter engineer who created cartoons poking fun a...
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       A Twitter engineer who created cartoons poking fun at his own
       company was fired
        
       Author : jmuk
       Score  : 48 points
       Date   : 2022-11-03 19:01 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
        
       | comprev wrote:
       | "Don't bite the hand which feeds you"
       | 
       | It's not rocket science.
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | I think that the work of this employee was to bite this hand. A
         | company can have good reasons to allow it internally as a
         | social control measure.
         | 
         | Kings used jesters as a way out to break tense moments and
         | fights between their subjects; also to read the social
         | undercurrents and detect hits against them.
         | 
         | The jester was also uniquely allowed a free card pass to
         | transgress and jump over the rules. The fool jumping over the
         | rules and providing comical relief reduces the desire to the
         | rest of employees to break the same rules. They can fantasize
         | about doing it, without actually doing it or suffering
         | consequences. They can be also educated about the consequences
         | as a moral of the history.
         | 
         | The cons of the job is that if the king is demoted, the king's
         | personal buffon became useless, and first candidate to
         | exemplary beheading or, in this case, being fired.
        
       | sn0w_crash wrote:
       | Publicly insulting the company you work for will lead to
       | immediate termination almost anywhere.
       | 
       | Not sure what the news is here.
        
       | manv1 wrote:
       | Do what you want, and your employer can do what they want.
       | 
       | In some ideal dream world the management would just grin and move
       | on. In another ideal dream world the employee would be part of
       | the solution instead of taking potshots at management.
       | 
       | In real life this person could be considered a toxic employee
       | that sucks the life out of everyone. Fire them fast. If they
       | don't like their environment they can find another one.
        
       | realgeniushere wrote:
       | Self test for whether you're full of it or not: if you think this
       | was unjust, do you feel the same way about Google firing Damore?
       | If not, why?
        
       | fasthands9 wrote:
       | >He wrote that after he tweeted a cartoon last year, Twitter HR
       | asked him to take it down, along with one he had posted
       | internally.
       | 
       | I do not understand the perceived right some people think they
       | have to publicly harm the entity that is paying them. A private
       | company is paying you to make them money and you accepted the
       | role because you thought it was the most money you could make. If
       | they decide that you have gone out of their way to create
       | PR/money problems for them then of course they will/should let
       | you go.
        
         | Barrin92 wrote:
         | maybe he was emulating the chief twit, who continues to
         | denigrate the company even after he bought it
         | 
         | or are we already ad the mad king stage where everyone is
         | forced to laugh when Elon posts a bad meme about twitter but if
         | one of the peasants makes the same joke you get fed to the
         | dragons?
        
         | BeefWellington wrote:
         | I worked at IBM years back. If there's one thing that binds
         | current and former employees together it was the shared stitch
         | & bitch about the company's way of doing things.
         | 
         | That would frequently happen in large public slack channels and
         | to my knowledge (first and second hand) nobody was ever
         | punished for that kind of talk. However, that was internal,
         | between employees. Often it was about frustrations with how the
         | company was run, sometimes using satire.
         | 
         | If that sort of thing happened in front of a client (which I
         | never saw personally), I firmly believe that person would
         | rightly be shown the door. It's one thing to complain about
         | your company's problems internally, it's another to publish
         | them.
        
       | hoono wrote:
       | Comments are full of bootlickers, as usual.
       | 
       | Clearly you're all paid to worship the ground your CEO walks on.
        
         | PicassoCTs wrote:
         | If one got no skills, social ones may keep you afloat in any
         | more complex hierarchical organization. And its part of the
         | village psyche since the dawn of time. Having two plans, two
         | bosses, two options or opinions, steers some deep dread
         | instinctive fear of infighting and the tribe breaking apart in
         | some.
         | 
         | Its a retardation, but a understandable one, though those
         | suffering from it, do subtract from whatever they are part.
        
       | mrlonglong wrote:
       | Looks bad for Musk, firing someone like that.
        
       | jleyank wrote:
       | This is to be expected. Elon wants to say whatever he wants. He
       | wants his friends and associates to be able to say what they
       | want. The rest of you all... No, do as you're told. Note that
       | _he_ bought Twitter, not you.
        
         | willcipriano wrote:
         | So business as usual at Twitter then? I still recall the chorus
         | of the "private platform" folks, you can even go into my
         | comments, I warned them this would be the outcome.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | kakali wrote:
       | This is the same person who did comics at Google. Their work was
       | a highlight during my time there. Google even used their comics
       | for basic employee training.
       | 
       | I'm surprised folks say that we can't be critical of own
       | employer. Our employers are not lords or kings. We choose to work
       | for them and can replace them.
        
         | tssva wrote:
         | > I'm surprised folks say that we can't be critical of own
         | employer. Our employers are not lords or kings.
         | 
         | No one is saying you can't be critical of your own employer.
         | They are saying there are repercussions to being critical and
         | loss of employment is a common one which should be expected.
         | 
         | > We choose to work for them and can replace them.
         | 
         | They choose to employ us and can replace us.
        
           | chrisco255 wrote:
           | > They choose to employ us and can replace us.
           | 
           | It's really a mutual agreement, innit? The relative power in
           | the situation is merely a supply / demand equation, for
           | talent / jobs.
        
           | simplotek wrote:
           | > No one is saying you can't be critical of your own
           | employer. They are saying there are repercussions to being
           | critical and loss of employment is a common one which should
           | be expected.
           | 
           | Why do you feel that the expected outcome of being critical
           | is being punished instead of addressing the root causes of
           | these issues? I mean how do you expect problems to be pointed
           | out and addressed?
        
           | wildrhythms wrote:
           | I think it was clear the person you're replying to is saying
           | that the repercussions for being critical toward your
           | employer is what makes it effectively 'not allowed'.
        
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       (page generated 2022-11-03 23:03 UTC)