Jeremy Kahn

work director just tried to console us after the layoff

with the parable of the house on fire from the Lotus Sutra, chapter 3

i guess that makes us lowly employees... the children in the burning house? and he has bravely deceived us into running out, by telling us there are toys outside?

i don't even understand this as a Buddhist parable

but i _definitely_ think it was inappropriate for a director of engineering to say it to a group of colleagues mourning their laid-off friends.

Mar 28 at 12:26amWeb
Show threadJeremy Kahn2d ago

My team is all linguistics people

I had the thought that

> Perhaps it was as banal & un-thinking as prompting [chatbot] to "write a soothing message for upset staff, perhaps with a Buddhist parable from the Lotus Sutra, about how change is hard and scary"

One of my linguist colleagues put that prompt into ChatGPT and it FARTED OUT THE SAME STORY, with very similar language

I'm laughing and furious at the same time and I hate that my model of what this director might do is this accurate

Show threadAvner3d ago
@trochee fucking yikes
Show threadPaul Lalonde3d ago
@trochee I do wish part of management training was learning to say "We chose to do this as the best of the bad choices in front of us, and we know it will be difficult for a while" and then just STFU.
Show threadJeremy Kahn3d ago

@Flux this.

One thousand percent

Show threadCap Ybarra3d ago
@trochee ah there's that tech leadership meeting the moment they're so famous for
Show threadsb3d ago
@trochee so the workplace is burning up? ending?
Show threadJeremy Kahn3d ago

@stefani

I think it was "we have escaped the current crisis with our lives, is that not the finest thing in life" but it really read like abuser language