[HN Gopher] I Stayed
___________________________________________________________________
I Stayed
Author : speckx
Score : 108 points
Date : 2024-10-05 15:40 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (zeldman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (zeldman.com)
| butterfly42069 wrote:
| Believing in the work the author was/is doing is one thing, but I
| can't help but wonder if/how they still believe in their boss.
| pastaguy1 wrote:
| What's the background on doing a soft layoff (or w/e) and hiring
| at the same time? Many of us have seen one of these close-up,
| just wondering what the case is here.
| f3z0 wrote:
| It's an alignment layoff "I'm an asshole and if you aren't on
| board GTFO". It's right out of Musk's playbook. Although I
| think Musk does it better.
| threetonesun wrote:
| Musk is an ideological asshole, this is Matt recognizing
| further growth probably requires pushing WP Engine out of
| their market. If you disagree with him on this, you probably
| disagree where Automattic as a whole is going.
| jzb wrote:
| I hope the decision works out for him. Six months salary is
| really only a big bag of cash if 1) you have a decent salary, and
| 2) you can be confident of landing a job of equal or better
| salary within the six-month window. Otherwise you're just going
| to burn through it. Given the way hiring has been in the tech
| world of late, it's easy to imagine it taking six months or more
| to get a decent job -- you can easily spend several months
| interviewing to have a role disappear.
|
| FWIW I'd have to be pretty pissed and/or have no confidence in
| the direction of the company & its leadership and/or have another
| job/work lined up already to jump ship on a few days' notice like
| that.
| peteforde wrote:
| Zeldman would have zero trouble getting hired anywhere tomorrow
| if he indicated that he was available.
|
| This isn't the case for most people, but he is anything but
| most people.
| ValentineC wrote:
| I'm guessing one other reason he's staying is that he's
| probably still on Automattic's advisory board [1], and has
| significantly more influence on the company's direction than
| most other people who have taken the offer.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/zeldman/status/403874979512877056
| rendaw wrote:
| It's a nice sentiment, but are you helping people by granting the
| wishes of an unshackled combative owner? Could you take the money
| and help people more by working for a company with more careful
| leadership? Wordpress isn't the only CMS out there...
| cobertos wrote:
| Is it really that easy to just leave and find a company/work
| you vibe with? It seems just as hard as trying to find a
| quality partner
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| Come on, pretty much all work is hurting the world now by
| furthering unsustainable capitalism. I have yet to find a job
| that truly helps people in the tech line of work.
| hitekker wrote:
| The "We're hiring" link shows the first position offered is a
| "Happiness Engineer", https://i.imgur.com/zSVeuYq.png.
|
| > Our software and services aim to provide a seamless experience,
| but when things don't go as planned, our customers rely on us for
| help. Happiness Engineers are the frontline heroes ensuring we
| deliver the best experience for our users. Their role is crucial
| because they interact with our customers the most and make the
| biggest impression in their time of need.
| vunderba wrote:
| As if the title of engineer couldn't get any more diluted.
| Reminds me of how everyone now is a "specialist".
|
| _Call Flow Optimization Specialist_ - Works at the front desk
| answering the telephone
| talldayo wrote:
| George Orwell is kicking himself for not thinking up that name
| first.
| wojciii wrote:
| Someone should rewrite "1984" as it would work with todays
| technologies..
| outrun86 wrote:
| It is, in fact, being written. It's called the modern West.
| robin_reala wrote:
| We're more _Brave New World_ than _1984_.
| dqv wrote:
| Yeah, it's a cutesy title for customer support because you
| can't take yourself too seriously in jobs like this. Put very
| simply, people are fucking ass holes (and yes - you have to
| acknowledge this to excel at being a "Happiness Engineer" -
| it's not cynical to recognize that people have angry outbursts,
| because you have to know how to calm them down; pretending that
| people aren't mean is a one-way ticket to burnout). Even "nice"
| people can be ass holes; humans are complex and represent a
| whole spectrum of emotions [0]. Sometimes they don't know
| they're doing it, sometimes they do. There are social
| differences (what someone on the West Coast thinks is rude is
| not the same as what someone on the East Coast thinks is rude,
| and there are even difference between "microcultures" on the
| rules of social engagement; these rules might be
| _intersubjective_ , but differ) that have to be negotiated
| often in one-time ephemeral interactions. Negativity is
| contagious and I cringe at the times that I unnecessarily
| injected negativity into an interaction where the other
| person/people didn't do anything to deserve it.
|
| I think there is maybe one other "weird" job title in that
| list, but otherwise they're all pretty normal, so this is
| probably one of the last things I'd criticize Automattic for.
| The fact that they describe customer support as "Happiness
| Engineering" suggests the nature of the title - we have to be a
| little goofy to help people.
|
| As a final note, for anyone thinking "I work in customer
| support and I don't like this yada yada", it's just not for
| you, and that's OK. No need to think up a huge rebuttal, it's
| just a different philosophy for those of us who like to help
| people and have a little bit of fun at the same time.
|
| I don't work at Automattic, but I like WordPress and don't
| really care too much about this drama.
|
| [0]: https://feelingswheel.com/
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I have a tough time relating to "[believing] in the work we do"
| at a for-profit company, especially one that just makes blogs. I
| work at a somewhat similar commercial open source company, I
| really enjoy my job, and I adore my direct collegues, but I've
| thought a lot over the past few years that if in a similar
| position I would almost definitely take the offer.
|
| A job you like where ~10% of your colleges leave is a job I would
| probably enjoy a whole lot less.
| vunderba wrote:
| 100% agreed - given that they published this under their own
| name though, I wonder how much of that was just echoing the
| corporate mission statement of Automattic for the sake of any
| colleagues who happen to stumble across the blog.
| saghm wrote:
| I was a bit dubious about this point of view before reading
| the full post, but wow, the last couple paragraphs lay it on
| thick. Suing someone for using your open source product in
| their own product takes "courage"? Comparing the work of
| developing Wordpress to Rodney King? I want to give the
| author the benefit of the doubt, and maybe I'm too cynical,
| but this sounds even more corporate-y than a lot of stuff
| I've read on company-hosted blogs.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think there was a comparison between WordPress and
| Rodney King. If so, what is the comparison being claimed.
| Is WordPress the cops? The one saying can't we get along?
|
| The way I read it at least, it was a simple reference and
| sentiment, not a comparison.
| saghm wrote:
| Fair enough. It still feels shoehorned in to me though,
| almost like an essay in school students are told to
| include a quote in their conclusion (something that
| happened in my English class at least once from what I
| can remember), which just adds to the vibe of this being
| "homework" to support their employer rather than coming
| across as authentic.
| flutas wrote:
| > I wonder how much of that was just echoing the corporate
| mission statement of Automattic for the sake of any
| colleagues who happen to stumble across the blog.
|
| It's fairly obvious that's what it is.
|
| Or they are being forced to post "I stayed", as nearly
| everyone that I've come across that works there is posting
| it. To the point where it doesn't even feel organic.
|
| For anyone else that wants the latest drama: Matt seems to be
| weaponizing Automattic and CVE's against WP Engine now.
|
| https://x.com/automattic/status/1842612123488473341
| Kye wrote:
| Post deleted. What did it say?
| ValentineC wrote:
| The tweet has been deleted, but this other submission was
| in reply to it:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41752289
| flutas wrote:
| The Tweets original content was[0]:
|
| > Automattic's security team has responsibly disclosed a
| vulnerability in @wp_acf to @wpengine. As is standard,
| they have 30 days to issue a fix before public
| disclosure. We have reserved this CVE for the issue:
| https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-9529
|
| Basically announcing to the world that there is a CVE in
| a very widely used ("2MM+ sites") WP plugin, that also
| can't be patched as they banned the developers accounts
| from updating said plugin[1].
|
| [0]: https://imgur.com/a/wf73amz
|
| [1]: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Thats an interesting sentiment to me. I dont have much trouble
| believing in the work, even in for-profit companies. For me, it
| is about the end product, and if it makes the world a better
| place or not. If it is net positive, than the work (as a
| whole), is meaningful. Everything beyond that is just degrees
| of efficiency.
|
| I conceptually like non-profits, but that seems tangential. Why
| would I discount my work due to comparison with a hypothetical
| alternative that is more efficient at doing good.
|
| >especially one that just makes blogs
|
| What's wrong with blogs? I like blogs.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >I dont have much trouble believing in the work, even in for-
| profit companies.
|
| One of the things I liked about selling software is the
| knowledge that customers do value your software. If they
| didn't then they wouldn't put their hand in their pocket.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I feel the same way about drug making. Customers might wish
| new drugs were cheaper, but they are free to with cheaper
| options or generics. Meanwhile, today's blockbuster will be
| tomorrow's generic, and progressively more lives are saved.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| That may be true when we're talking about investing in
| new drugs, but a whole lot of the pharmaceutical industry
| engages in rent-seeking behavior, and people are often
| not deep thinkers so their natural inclination is to just
| throw the baby out with the bath water.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The rent seeking is pretty negligible when you zoom out
| in time. It is extremely hard to find a specific
| medication that is still on patent 20 years after
| approval.
|
| I think people are generally confused by things like
| insulin, where there are newer and better versions coming
| out continually, despite it being invented in the 1920s.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| So how does a diabetic get one of the older, worse
| insulins that they can afford? Certainly that's
| preferable to the better insulin that they can't afford.
| autarch wrote:
| > _if it makes the world a better place or not._
|
| This seems like a pretty big "if". Arguably, Automattic is
| better than most for-profit companies since they develop a
| FOSS product, and I think you can make an argument that any
| sort of FOSS makes the world better.
|
| OTOH, it's not clear to me that making it easier and cheaper
| to blog or host websites makes the world better. I'm sure
| there's lots of people using WordPress and similar products
| for horrible things, like tobacco companies, arms
| manufacturers, animal ag companies, etc. And that's not to
| mention the no doubt plenty of personal users who are
| blogging about conspiracy theories, white supremacy, or Hindu
| nationalism.
|
| I think the best case for most software is that it's net
| _neutral_. I work at a database company. Our products are
| used by many, many different companies, non-profits, and
| governments. I think some of our customers are horrible, some
| are great, and most are neither. But that would be the case
| for me at nearly every software company I might work at.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think the plan that software is not neutral is any
| more supportive than it is good or bad. If anything,
| neutrality seems extremely unlikely because if you were to
| total all of the impacts, it seems exceedingly unlikely
| that they would perfectly sum up to zero.
|
| That said, you are right in that these judgments certainly
| depends on your mental model of the world. Ex. Are blogs
| and websites good or bad. A proponent of radical back to
| the trees movement would probably disagree. I tend to think
| logs are a good thing for the world
| mattmaroon wrote:
| There's a lot of anti-capitalist brainwashing these days that
| exists to make you just feel guilty about the
| social/environmental effects of everything that isn't free.
|
| Being relatively far-left, much of the tech industry is
| indoctrinated into it.
|
| It seems to them like a not-unintelligent, non-controversial,
| or even obvious viewpoint because they've been swimming in
| that water their whole lives. It's a first principle to them
| and they don't even know it.
| gopher_space wrote:
| The relentlessly pro-capitalism folks peed in their own
| pool by getting too excited about modern day fascism, and
| everyone saw that happen right in front of them.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Leftists can be proud of making, building, and growing
| things too.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Nothing wrong with blogs, but I think it's useful just to be
| real what it is we're doing. I don't think there's a moral
| obligation or a unique social benefit to creating WordPress.
|
| You can enjoy your job, and I do too, but I don't claim to be
| doing anything extraordinary.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Oh, I agree. I just don't think believing in the work
| requires it to be extraordinary or ground breaking. For
| example, you can believe that growing potatoes is
| beneficial work.
|
| Of course, as stated, "believe in the work" is an imprecise
| sentiment. Believe what exactly? They probably don't
| believe it is bad tho, haha
| radley wrote:
| > especially one that just makes blogs
|
| Uhm, that's pretty reductive. Perhaps that's the difference?
| mplewis wrote:
| Why? This is someone else's fight. Do you have a high amount of
| equity in Automattic?
|
| You have to look out for number one.
| sonofhans wrote:
| FWIW Jeffrey Zeldman is a living legend. He was one of the first
| print designers to transition to the web, did it well, and wrote
| about it constantly. He designed the "Batman Forever" website in
| 1995; it was visited by something like one-third of all Internet
| users.
|
| He created the Web Standards Project, hugely influential in
| getting browser manufacturers to support standards rather than
| pee in the pool. And if you think cross-browser support today is
| rough, at the time you could reliably _crash_ production browsers
| with valid CSS.
|
| Never mind A List Apart, one of the best early mailing lists on
| the web, a kind of transitionary form between Usenet and
| forums/Discord. And A Book Apart, which published lots of high-
| quality stuff.
|
| If you develop for the web today, every time a browser behaves as
| the spec describes, thank Jeffrey Zeldman.
| rudasn wrote:
| Zeldman, Bowman, Molly, ppk are the ones I remember reading and
| learning from back in the IE6, pre-firefox days.
|
| Legends indeed.
| robin_reala wrote:
| RIP Molly.
| triyambakam wrote:
| > I already miss them, and most only quit yesterday. I feel their
| departure as a personal loss, and my grief is real. The sadness
| is like a cold fog on a dark, wet night.
|
| I can't understand this. I do not view my coworkers as part of my
| personal life, so while I enjoy working with some, I wouldn't say
| I'm sad if they leave. This sounds unhealthy
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| Is it possible for you to understand why others might feel this
| way about their colleagues and work?
| peteforde wrote:
| Why are you spending your finite life working with people who
| you wouldn't fight for?
|
| This might not be a "them" problem.
|
| I'm not advocating that your coworkers have to be at the same
| rung as your family or [in-group X] but it's weird/sad to many
| reading this that you're okay not caring about the people you
| spend your days working towards a common goal with.
| MiscIdeaMaker99 wrote:
| LOL
|
| When you spend 8 hours a day around folks and become friends
| with them, it's natural to miss them when they leave. It's OK
| if you don't have any meaningful relationships with your co-
| workers, but, to me, that sounds unhealthy.
| tolerance wrote:
| His evocation of the assault on Rodney King and the L.A. Riots is
| perplexing.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| For those of us of a certain age, the phrase "can't we all just
| get along" connects quite naturally to Rodney King. So if you
| heard it, or for some other reason wanted to use it in a
| written piece ...
| tolerance wrote:
| I don't know what you're trying to imply. Rodney King was
| beaten and shocked by four police officers, 63 people died
| and approximately $1 billion of damages resulted from the
| Riots. Zeldman's grief is understandable to the extent that
| one can emphasize with the internal conflict of choosing to
| remain employed by a company that is under scrutiny by people
| in your professional/personal community and ran by a man who
| is proving to be rather unpredictable.
|
| There's likely more to Zeldman's personal struggles with
| respect to his health and other financial concerns than what
| he discloses (rightfully so). But at the same time, evoking
| the rhetoric of King during the Riots is indeed perplexing
| when measured against what Zeldman _does_ speak about more
| openly: his commitment to the open web in light of the
| aforementioned drama. In this regard, as the kids say, "It's
| not that deep".
|
| Edit: +++ "in light of the aforementioned drama"
| projektfu wrote:
| I think it's to say that, in the face of his beating and
| the aftermath, King said, "can't we all just get along?"
| instead of calling for the heads of the cops, the mayor, or
| whoever else he might have considered blameworthy.
| Gimpei wrote:
| I was going to say this too. I'm guessing PR didn't get to vet
| this post.
| Kye wrote:
| It will be hard to do that work from within an embattled
| organization that's only in that situation because of the CEO's
| behavior. Things don't get better from here. Any good-faith
| assumptions people made before are just gone. Every action has
| new layers of scrutiny, every move becomes suspect.
| skybrian wrote:
| > I also know that the Maker-Taker problem is an issue in open
| source, just as I know that a friend you buy lunch for every day,
| and who earns as much money as you do, is supposed to return the
| favor now and then
|
| Informal agreements like this work between people who know each
| other, not for agreements between strangers. The terms in an open
| source license are intended to be universally applicable, to make
| the obligations clear for anyone who reads them. This includes
| total strangers and companies that didn't exist when you
| published the code.
|
| Those strangers shouldn't be expected to abide by anything not
| explicitly written down in the license. If the license doesn't
| document the obligations you expect of _anyone_ , you used the
| wrong license.
|
| We should be suspicious of people who try to claim that there are
| additional unwritten obligations for reusing source code. Open
| source licenses have very generous terms, maybe too generous.
| They _allow_ takers. That's how it works, you can take it.
| marcinzm wrote:
| It's I think sort of clear from everything that Automattic's
| leadership doesn't seem to understand that running a business
| means you're running a business. You're not making a side
| project, working on a hobby or running a non-profit. You're
| running a for-profit business which means others will treat you
| as such and you can't make excuses for it.
| mlyle wrote:
| Nah. Or at least, not entirely. (I'm not really writing about
| Automattic here).
|
| Contracts -- and law in general -- describe in detail what
| kinds of actions will allow another to bring legal force into
| play against you or vice-versa.
|
| But there's all kinds of actions that I can _legally_ take that
| don 't conform to norms that will invite condemnation and
| reprisal through means other than the legal sphere.
|
| Not every obligation should be given legal force; not every
| action that's strictly legal will turn out to be socially okay
| or consequence free.
| nycticorax wrote:
| I am just reading about this whole Automattic vs WP Engine fight
| today, and I'm a little surprised that most people seem to think
| Automattic is the unambiguous bad guy. Automattic has still given
| away a huge amount of open-source software away over the years.
| WP Engine seems like it is entirely a mercenary operation. (Which
| there's nothing wrong with, per se. But it doesn't exactly warm
| the cockles of my heart.)
|
| And paying people to leave if they don't agree with what the
| company is doing seems like a win-win.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _WP Engine seems like it is entirely a mercenary operation._
|
| WP Engine also acquired and maintains Advanced Custom Fields
| [1] and Local [2] from their subsidiary Flywheel [3].
|
| [1] https://deliciousbrains.com/wp-engine-acquisition/
|
| [2] https://wpengine.com/blog/better-together-wp-engine-and-
| flyw...
|
| [3] https://wpengine.com/blog/wp-engine-to-acquire-flywheel/
| lolinder wrote:
| > Automattic is the unambiguous bad guy.
|
| I wouldn't say that's what people are saying. I've been a vocal
| critic of Matt's actions in these threads, and my perspective
| is basically this:
|
| WP Engine may be exactly as bad as Matt says it is. They may be
| contributing too little and taking too much. I've seen enough
| of corporations to believe that that can happen.
|
| None of that matters any more after Matt's actions in
| September. WP Engine has put forward convincing evidence that
| Matt attempted to extort them into paying tens of millions per
| year to Matt's for profit under threat of launching a smear
| campaign. Matt then demonstrated that the boundaries between
| Automattic (the for profit) and the open source project don't
| exist by locking millions of WordPress users out of the plugin
| ecosystem over this dispute with the for profit.
|
| That plugin ecosystem _is_ the WordPress project. By messing
| about with that ecosystem Matt showed that he is both able and
| willing to singlehandedly screw over anyone who uses WordPress
| because he has a dispute with their hosting provider.
|
| That's the issue now. I don't see WP Engine as white knights
| fighting a villain, but Matt turned what could have been a
| united effort to improve the WordPress ecosystem into a battle
| between greedy corporations and it's _Matt_ who showed that he
| doesn 't care who gets caught in the crossfire. The issue isn't
| that Automattic is the unambiguous bad guy in this suit, it's
| that Matt has demonstrated he has more power than he can be
| trusted with.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| Why does someone who works at Automattic have meaningful medical
| debt? That's awful. I would expect Automattic to have both good
| insurance and sufficient pay such that no employee suffers from
| medical debt.
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