This is good satire about overly-aggressive folks / jerks heh.
I guess the one nit I have is about the predilection to rag on weightlifters. It's just a hobby for many people. I don't do it myself, but I have met loads of the friendliest people that do. Working out, having protein shakes, and eating hard-boiled eggs do not make someone a jerk. /shrug
Crossfitters do seem to be a bit more... intense... about it than people who just lift. It can be this whole lifestyle and almost religion with some of them, particularly if it is dual-classed with other health & fitness fads, which is a little tiresome to be around.
I don't think anyone is against CrossFit. The general concern is that many of their athletes lift weights with poor technique and eventually end up injured, which isn't healthier at all.
I have my doubts about Crossfit being a healthy long term proposition. From what I have seen only a few people keep it up long term. It seems more like a short term rush. Reminds me of people who get into running, then train for marathons, do one and then stop running because the effort is too much.
The best is hand exercisers for an entire 30 minute 1x1. That was my first 1x1 with said manager after I got reorganized under him. He tried to hand me a really awful Excel project at minute 29.5 after asking me what SRE means and what I do for the first 29 to a wonderful squeak squeak squeak soundtrack, and I immediately handed him my badge and left the premises. (True story. Not proud, but I couldn’t stay sane 30 minutes, let alone 30 quarters.)
While I am familiar with the type of person you are referring to, I humbly suggest that you change gyms. Most psychologically mature people who lift weights do so because it’s damn good for your body and mind. I agree with GP that most of the people I know who lift weights are very chill.
This is hilarious. Although I do use a mechanical keyboard at work (MX Brown though, and got the boss's permission first). And my team doesn't use git (yet).
We (my team and and 5 others joined over time) started doing wallsits and planks outside of the open space twice a day for 5 minutes total. Are we assholes?
So much misguided angst. The author of this satire was probably listening to Taking Back Sunday while using a fake profile to stalk a girl from a high school he attended 14 years ago while writing this.
This is just the same joke told over and over again.
Also, just from a personality perspective, the crazy weightlifter types in the offices I've worked have always been the nicest people. I can't say that about the nerd's nerds (I'm in that category!).
I agree that ragging on weightlifters isn't the strongest part of the joke. But I liked the caricature of the a-hole at standup who is both the take-it-offline police and the primary offender. I've been that a-hole and fully deserve the send-up.
I've done some mentoring calls with a guy who is a competitive weightlifter in his spare time. He's a junior dev, extremely polite, and very eager to learn.
Our company just hired a remote developer who really focuses on his physical health, and it shows. Quiet, respectful, and an A+ dev.
The article underlines and pokes fun at the culture of "asserting dominance" and "alpha (maleness)" which involves being aggressive, loud, intimidating.
E.g. "lock eye-contact with the person to your left, and do not break until they look away")
How acceptable are mechanical keyboards in open offices? In China, I used a model M since our office was loud anyways, but in the states I went with something with cherry brown switches even though I really wanted the louder cherry blue ones. Is there some kind of standard etiquette to follow?
Standard etiquette might just be empathy. If you have ever felt annoyed by audio you could not control, then you should strongly consider a quiet keyboard for your office.
Having a loud keyboard anywhere where other people are working is really obnoxious... don't do it. People may not confront you about it, but they will hate you internally.
I’m constantly flabbergasted by peoples’ lack of awareness when it comes to noise in the office. It’s up there with other attention seeking behaviors like whistling in the office. WHYYYYYYY
open offices are a clusterfuck you have no option but to wear headphones anyways, I don't know anyone who doesn't have headphones handy in an open office.
1. People having meetings at their desk cos conf rooms are never available.
2. People talking random non work related stuff in groups.
In China, there was some guy in the next cluster over who would often snack on sun flower and watermelon seeds. Oh, and he had a chronic cough. Also, succulent pear day (we got fruit every afternoon) would lead to an hour of slurping unproductively.
I would guess those wouldn’t be a problem in the states but...
I have a keyboard with cherry browns, and other than a bit of lighthearted ragging no one seems to mind (we have much bigger noise issues—meetings being held in open areas, etc.).
My keyboard is my primary physical interface at work, and I use what I find most comfortable. But I try to not be a jerk about it.
It's not always a problem depending on how open and how quiet your office is. If you type better with less wrist pain when your keys click, you can probably convince your officemates to be okay with it. Don't get me started on how disastrous those newest Apple keyboards are for wrist health. Buckling spring all the way.
In my open-office experience it ends up not mattering. There's always someone who will take it on as their mission to percussively disassemble whatever keyboard they're given.
Have you ever noticed that people who find light-hearted satire "unfunny" typically tend to be deeply insecure about the subject being satirized? Like they never admit to being offended but instead pretend the joke was boring, uninteresting or some other sleight.
I'm a weightlifter, my friends are fitness freaks. We can laugh at ourselves, and we can certainly laugh at wannabe-alpha's.
Sure but I’d say the juxtaposition of those jokes freshens them up. A gymrat treating an office like his fiefdom is a fine enough premise; not the funniest but also not repetitious.
Long-time Mac user and as a result long-time Mac keyboard user. Loved the low-profile desktop and laptop keyboards.
Didn't realize until I gave a mechanical board a chance (felt super weird hitting full-height keys!) but I was making a ton of typos and going slower on the Mac boards.
Now that I've gotten used to my mechanical keyboard I feel more confident in my touch typing and my speed has gone up considerably.
I did install dampener rings, though, because I didn't like how loud things were and how the keys felt.
Satire articles are valuable when they highlight a real problem. If they fail to do so, they just sound like complaining. This article falls into that latter category IMO.
There are plenty of actual jerks out there, with habits you can write about satirically, but weight lifting? Come on. It just sounds like jealousy of other people who take better care of their own health than the author does his.
Also, if I were a co-worker of this author who lifted weights, I would probably feel personally offended, as it implies he had me in mind when writing the article.
I suppose you have be involved in weightlifting for some of the humor to resonate. I have been, for years, and that part had me in stitches. Completely skewers some of the stereotypes, which of course have a grain of truth.
Note to anyone who does this: I know, I know you think it’s cool but it’s so not and you’re an asshole. The only way you can redeem yourself is by taking the keyboard home immediately and resigning because no one wants to work with assholes.
Try typing on a new Macbook Pro. Impossible not to bottom out. Not quite as loud as a MX Blue, but it's probably comparable to an MX Brown. (The Apple Magic Keyboard 2 is a bit better, if you've gotta stay with Apple products)
Making fun of people's diet, clothing, and hobbies is a pretty low form of humor.
It's funny, in years as a software developer I've never heard someone made fun of for wearing a ratty Nintendo t-shirt or a greasy ponytail or whatever, but I've heard mean-spirited remarks about fraternity shirts and people coming to interviews in a suit.
I don't know about fraternity shirts, but in my experience, all and I really mean ALL candidates who came in a suit proved to be very poor qualified. Almost none could pass technical interview (think "fizzbuzz") and those who managed to get hired were fired in first few months.
Incidentally this is precisely the "natural law" that james damore broke when he bragged about how natural laws are supposed make genders different in the workplace.
He was fired for breaking the most important law "you must fit/adapt or get excluded" while pretending to know better how life and biology works lol. What a retard
Realest HN comment of the day. Damore ignored all natural laws (re: conform or get ostracized) to try and make a point about how natural laws will always assert themselves. Ironically he proved his own point that natural laws will always assert themselves by failing to conform and then getting ostracized.
The rest of his argument was pretty incoherent tho.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 116 ms ] threadI guess the one nit I have is about the predilection to rag on weightlifters. It's just a hobby for many people. I don't do it myself, but I have met loads of the friendliest people that do. Working out, having protein shakes, and eating hard-boiled eggs do not make someone a jerk. /shrug
Not people who do a 5k once a week as part of working out, or run a couple miles.
The people who obsess about it. Everything is about running.
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20software%20engineer%E2%8...
lobo_tuerto's other submissions are https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=lobo_tuerto
Surely a true alpha would declare that scrum and agile are "dead".
Also, just from a personality perspective, the crazy weightlifter types in the offices I've worked have always been the nicest people. I can't say that about the nerd's nerds (I'm in that category!).
There was a guy I nicknamed Fidel, because he would go on endless tirades during standup.
Our company just hired a remote developer who really focuses on his physical health, and it shows. Quiet, respectful, and an A+ dev.
The article underlines and pokes fun at the culture of "asserting dominance" and "alpha (maleness)" which involves being aggressive, loud, intimidating.
E.g. "lock eye-contact with the person to your left, and do not break until they look away")
I’m constantly flabbergasted by peoples’ lack of awareness when it comes to noise in the office. It’s up there with other attention seeking behaviors like whistling in the office. WHYYYYYYY
(Sorry, venting)
1. People having meetings at their desk cos conf rooms are never available.
2. People talking random non work related stuff in groups.
3. Keyboard noises.
4. Food smells.
I would guess those wouldn’t be a problem in the states but...
Hm, I don’t mean to be glib, but what do you think the etiquette is?
My keyboard is my primary physical interface at work, and I use what I find most comfortable. But I try to not be a jerk about it.
I'm surprised when people think it's ok to assault my sense of hearing when I'm trying to focus on my work.
We have other senses, and people are offended when those senses are assaulted. Why is sound not considered?
Don't listen to anyone here who tells you no. Get yourself the browns. They really aren't that loud.
also consider o-rings.
I'm a weightlifter, my friends are fitness freaks. We can laugh at ourselves, and we can certainly laugh at wannabe-alpha's.
Didn't realize until I gave a mechanical board a chance (felt super weird hitting full-height keys!) but I was making a ton of typos and going slower on the Mac boards.
Now that I've gotten used to my mechanical keyboard I feel more confident in my touch typing and my speed has gone up considerably.
I did install dampener rings, though, because I didn't like how loud things were and how the keys felt.
There are plenty of actual jerks out there, with habits you can write about satirically, but weight lifting? Come on. It just sounds like jealousy of other people who take better care of their own health than the author does his.
Also, if I were a co-worker of this author who lifted weights, I would probably feel personally offended, as it implies he had me in mind when writing the article.
I did find the standup section funny though.
Note to anyone who does this: I know, I know you think it’s cool but it’s so not and you’re an asshole. The only way you can redeem yourself is by taking the keyboard home immediately and resigning because no one wants to work with assholes.
And how does that make you an asshole?
OR
It shows how little you have invested in understanding but just went to the stereotyping.
Still interested in your number though.
It's funny, in years as a software developer I've never heard someone made fun of for wearing a ratty Nintendo t-shirt or a greasy ponytail or whatever, but I've heard mean-spirited remarks about fraternity shirts and people coming to interviews in a suit.
Incidentally this is precisely the "natural law" that james damore broke when he bragged about how natural laws are supposed make genders different in the workplace.
He was fired for breaking the most important law "you must fit/adapt or get excluded" while pretending to know better how life and biology works lol. What a retard
The rest of his argument was pretty incoherent tho.