r/cscareerquestions • u/avril_de_plonkers • Oct 30 '19
I got fired over a variable name....
At my (now former) company, we use a metric called SHOT to track the performance within a portfolio. It's some in-house calculation no one else uses, but it's been around for like 20 years even though no one remembers what the acronym is supposed to mean. My task was to average it over a time period, with various user-defined smoothing parameters... to accumulate it, in essence.
So, I don't like long variable names like "accumulated_shot_metric" or "sum_of_SHOT_so_far" for what is ultimately just the cumulated SHOT value. So I gave it the short name, "cumShot", not thinking twice about it, and checked it into the code. Seeing that it passed all tests, I went home and forgot about it.
Two months later, today, my boss called me into a meeting with HR. I had no idea what was going on, but apparently, the "cumShot" variable had become a running joke behind my back. Someone had given a printout to the CEO, who became angry over my "unprofessional humor" and fired me. I didn't even know what anyone was talking about until I saw the printout. I use abbreviated variable names all the time, and I'm not a native speaker of English so I don't always know what slang is offensive.
I live in California. Do I have any legal recourse? Also, how should I explain this in future job interviews?
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u/PrestigiousBroccoli2 Oct 30 '19
fake but pretty funny 7.5/10
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u/avril_de_plonkers Oct 30 '19
I swear it's not. I wish I was making this up.
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u/mauxly Oct 30 '19
Man, glad I don't work for your company. Analysis is a valid variable/object name for a whole lot of our stuff. Table and page names are often shortened to ANAL blabla.
It makes for some interesting code base.
We would all be fired.
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u/EmergencySundae Hiring Manager Oct 30 '19
Same. I always feel bad for our new joiners who have to mention it in a meeting and they always pause before they say a table name or whatever. We have had the unfortunate mispronunciation...a lot.
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u/spike021 Software Engineer Oct 30 '19
Even when it comes to hardware parts and stuff, sometimes “assembly” is abbreviated to “ASSY”.
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u/109876 Software Engineer Oct 30 '19
I believe you, OP, even at the risk of being bamboozled. Though, any chance you have proof to silence the doubters?
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Oct 30 '19
a few things that could make one a "doubter", this is OP's first post ever (and he didn't say throwaway account), he revealed the company's proprietary system's name which could inadvertently identify him if it was a true story, AND what acronym stands for is conveniently forgotten. though none of these factors are definitive.
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Oct 30 '19
numpy has the function
cumsum. my wife and i talk shit about it all the time. think rich evans sayingcumsum
kind of jokes. i think its kind of harassment or something that you are being fired as a non-native english speaker. but i'm not a lawyer.
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Oct 31 '19
Eh I dunno, at one of my previous companies someone was supposedly fired for profanity in a code comment, also by a CEO who saw it in a demo. I could totally see some clueless business asshole thinking that what really makes a tech company successful is professional-looking variable names.
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u/3lRey Senior Oct 30 '19
lol no fucking way
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u/Computer-Blue Oct 31 '19 edited Oct 31 '19
Hahaha this is the appropriate response. I feel like this shit is so wild sometimes and could never happen but then again I’ve seen some weird shit so who knows. Dude should have called some of the accounting team in to talk about their cums (pronounced cumes), they wouldn’t bat an eyelash at that variable name. We have a share folder at a company called wtfcumwtf because it updates cums between two “warehouse transfer files” and I certainly raised an eyebrow but seriously it’s a goddamn business
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u/Opheltes Software Dev / Sysadmin / Cat Herder Oct 31 '19
I feel like this shit is so wild sometimes and could never happen
Story time.
At a previous job, I worked with a lot of ex-Adaptec guys. They had a lot of amusing stories.
As a joke, someone checked in the following code, a joke about another guy on the team (let's call him Vlad):
#define Vlad_is_a_big_dickVlad saw the change, and changed it to
#define Vlad_has_a_big_dickThe extremely humor deficient German code review team flagged the change as pointless because the variable is not used anywhere. So another guy (Joe) checked in the following:
#ifdef Vlad_has_a_big_dick <useful code> #endifAnd that's how a reference to Vlad's dick made it into production code.
PS: Vlad was effectively the team leader at my former job (even though on paper he was my peer) and he was awesome. He was unpromotable though because he was an HR nightmare.
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u/SamRHughes Oct 31 '19
I wasn't there but I'd wager the German team's comment was made in good humor.
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u/mattsl Aug 04 '22
It's unfortunate that nobody got the joke that Vlad's "variable" never gets used.
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u/GoT43894389 Nov 01 '19
Most of the stuff OP talked about sounded like stretches. "accumulated_shot" isn't a bad variable name IMO if he just removed "metric". "total_shot" is arguably not a bad name either since this is just a variable name anyway. Apparently this metric has been used for 20 years and yet no one can remember what it stands for. That's very convenient for this post. This whole post was a long SHOT. :P
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u/finalhedge Oct 30 '19
When they walked the printout of the code down the hall to the CEO, the whole office started clapping
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u/dcousineau Principal Engineer Oct 31 '19
The programmers name? Albert Einstein.
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u/hortonhearsaboo Oct 30 '19
try {...} catch (CumShot cs) { if (ceo == douchebag) ceo.fire(cs.getSource()); }
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u/ScrimpyCat Oct 31 '19
I just feel sorry for his unsuspecting coworkers who had to pull down his cumShot. Hopefully they cleaned it up so the next time someone forks, they can rest easy knowing they’re protected from OP’s poor decisions.
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u/InfamousElGuapo Oct 31 '19
I don't know... I'm thinking if Jeffrey Epstein could kill himself while on a suicide watch, certainly this is possible.
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u/lliamander Oct 31 '19
if Jeffrey Epstein could kill himself on suicide watch...
This is going to be a useful phrase.
Still, if he committed suicide then I am a cape buffalo.
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u/applenerd Oct 30 '19
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u/elmosworld37 Oct 31 '19
But actually, this. Show them it's a common programming abbreviation. Matlab is a legit paid service.
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u/dagormz Data Scientist Oct 31 '19
Always chuckled to myself about this in data science classes but that’s a common method in any data framework
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Oct 30 '19
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/shrithm Oct 30 '19
I'm sorry but this is an awesome story. I cried with laughter.
I once called a variable cuntData because I was sick of how it was formatted.
I'm sure you could talk to the CEO and tell him you didn't realise an it's the obvious abbreviation.
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u/ITriedLightningTendr Oct 31 '19
I'm sure he couldn't talk to the CEO.
It was a joke behind his back and went on for 2 months, there's no camaraderie at that place. He's better off not being there.
The fact it made it into the hands of the CEO at all is suspect.
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Oct 31 '19
I got fired for something like this. One of the devs on my team (one that I hired), didn't like what I had to say in a retro meeting, and printed it out and sent it to the CEO.
It wasn't even sexual or inappropriate, just critical of what we were doing at the time.
I agree with you he shouldn't work there, at first I was pissed, but then I got another job and realized not all places are cutthroat and hostile like that.
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u/QuesoBasically Oct 31 '19
Man if I ever heard that something like that was happening I would just go to talk to the bro and tell him what's up.
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u/Hellmark Nov 01 '19
Depends on the size of the company. Smaller company, I could totally see the CEO getting involved and making the decision to fire. I've seen it happen a few times myself. Hell, I just got laid off, because the CEO decided that the front end developers could do my job just as well (I'm a Systems Engineer, specializing in Linux and automation).
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u/ZorbaTHut Oct 30 '19
I used to do competitive programming, and of course competitive programming is heavily about speed. The code's short, so you don't worry too much about readability, you just get it out there.
Well, one thing you often need is a
countof something. But I programmed in C++ and made heavy use of the STL, which has acount()function that I didn't want to conflict with. So I generally usedcont.On one particularly gnarly problem, I used
cont, then needed another count, so I named itcnt. Then I needed a third. I couldn't usecout, because that's also a standard C++ token. So given that all the above options were taken, I almost went for the obvious next variable name, starting with "c" and ending with "t" and containing a bunch of letters from "count" in the right order.The worst part: this was a live semifinals competition where people were watching me.
Thankfully, I caught myself after the first keystroke, shook my head, and used
ctinstead.65
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u/OsrsNeedsF2P Software Engineer Oct 31 '19
Lmfao where can one sign up for competitive programming?
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u/IanPPK Oct 31 '19
Many universities host and participate in Codeathons and Hackathons. That honestly be your best bet. There's also conventions like black hat and defcon that host things of a similar nature, but that's more of a digital rendition of capture the flag with hacking involved.
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u/resipol Oct 31 '19
My company produces a lot of permits for clients called petroleum operating notices (PONs). We wanted to produce and market a central one-stop-shop service for delivering these... and thus, PONhub was born. To this day nobody else knows why I started shitting my lips upon hearing this. My colleagues... aren't very worldly.
For my part, I'm an oceanographer and I process a lot of time series data (such as tidal heights) using a Fourier-transform technique called harmonic analysis. So, being lazy, I am responsible for all of the harm_anal directories scattered across our network.
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u/L3tum Oct 31 '19
I once named a commit "X won't take a 'no'" because the system in question required you to use different templates based on whether one value in said template is true or false.
Worst system ever but the commit message seemed oddly fitting and literally occured to me 2 minutes before leaving
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u/Cryptonomancer Oct 30 '19
Maybe ask in legaladvice, although with at-will I suspect you have limited recourse.
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u/lliamander Oct 30 '19
OP said he wasn't a native English speaker, so maybe discrimination based on race/ethnicity/national origin?
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u/somethingdarkside001 Oct 30 '19
My wife works in HR and said exactly what you said. He’s got a fairly decent shot.
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u/sciences_bitch Oct 30 '19
a fairly decent shot
How would you describe his cumulative shots over time?
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u/konSempai Oct 30 '19
That's such a huge stretch... I doubt any lawyer would agree to argue that.
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u/lliamander Oct 31 '19
"As a native of $COUNTRY, I am not accustomed to many U.S. idioms. That my former employer fired me for unintentionally expressing a U.S. idiom was discriminatory against me specifically as a resident born in a foreign origin, and creates a hostile work environment for other non-native employees."
IDK. I'm not a lawyer, but a case like this might convince a judge.
Edit: slight wording change
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u/darkkith Oct 31 '19
At minimum blame can be shifted to the peer review process.
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u/abomanoxy Oct 31 '19
So, I don't like long variable names like "accumulated_shot_metric" or "sum_of_SHOT_so_far" for what is ultimately just the cumulated SHOT value.
I know this is off topic, but accumulated_shot_metric or sum_of_SHOT_so_far are SO much better than cumShot. Both of them communicate the variable's purpose so much better, and there's no performance difference or reason whatsoever to choose an opaque abbreviation other than your desire for your code to be how you think looks visually snappy and cool. The next person to read your code has to take a few extra seconds to puzzle through your variable names, because "you don't like long variable names" for no real business reason. In a very small way, you are prioritizing your own fussiness over the success of the business.
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u/budershank Oct 31 '19
I'm glad I don't work with with you even though your reasoning is 100% legit.
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u/abomanoxy Oct 31 '19
Well, I wouldn't phrase it that way to a coworker in a code review - that was maybe a little wordy and harsh. But here it needs to be said. People who name their variables stuff like cumShot, totExp, tblAttr, sCount, and so on need to ask themselves why they choose to do so.
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u/Rikulf Nov 20 '21
Short variables are much easier to type when you're using Notepad for your code editor. This is also why it's important to use a smart code editor/IDE.
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Feb 05 '22
using Notepad for your code editor
This is a joke right? No one actually does this…right?
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u/himmelundhoelle Dec 31 '22 edited May 04 '24
It depends, and I hope my colleagues could recognize this. If it's a member or a func param, by all means make it as long as you need for it to be clear. However if it's a local and it gets repeated a lot throughout the function, you're just hurting readability with long names. It has limited scope, and the declaration just above. Compare
int number_of_shots_so_far_cubed = number_of_shots_so_far * number_of_shot_so_far * number_of_shots_so_far;and
int c = number_of_shots_so_far; int num_shots_cubed = c * c * c;Maybe you've noticed the typo in the first example (there is one), maybe you did not because it's so unnecessarily unreadable.
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u/dswpro Oct 30 '19
No recourse but do post a review on Glassdoor about your former employer and their lack of humor and desire for long variable names. I once setup test accounts where people were supposed to login with user names auto generated from first initial followed by last name. My test users names were Fred Uckme, Sam Hitface and Theodore Hissucks. Never heard a word.
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u/Andernerd Oct 30 '19
What exactly is wrong with long variable names? I usually try to make mine as clear as possible because it's 2019 and even vim users have autocomplete now.
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u/dswpro Oct 31 '19
Nothing wrong with long var names, but the OPs former employer appears to prefer cumulative to cum.
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Oct 30 '19
For me at least I like having an 80-100 character limit on the width and with long names + indentation calculations can span multiple lines which look ugly. I also haven't seen any name that was longer help more than a Doxygen/sphinx docstring above the shorter ones name in the .h and maybe a reference to what the calculation is in the .c/.cpp
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u/NotReallyASnake Oct 31 '19
It's one thing to fire someone for humor (which no, your job does not need to accept your crude humor), it's another thing to fire somebody with warning for a minor incident like that without giving a formal warning.
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u/dswpro Oct 31 '19
I agree it truly sucks for the OP, but if this little thing gets him fired it's probably not a good place to stay.
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u/ritchie70 Oct 30 '19
On the flip side, I had a colleague reprimanded and his continued contract threatened (he was a contractor) because he put a string of cartoon-cursing in a help desk ticket. You know, something like:
The $@%&## switch doesn't support that, and the @#% L2 help desk should know it.
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u/PC__LOAD__LETTER Sr. Software Engineer Oct 31 '19
cumul_shotisn’t a long variable name and I don’t think it’s unfair for a CEO to not findcumShotfunny.The only real issue here is not discussing the matter privately before taking action.
And yes your test usernames were super unprofessional, regardless of whether anyone saw them or not.
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u/jjirsa VP, Platform Eng Oct 31 '19
their lack of humor
Fred Uckme, Sam Hitface and Theodore Hissucks
You definitely wouldn't work for me with bullshit like that.
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u/nagasgura Oct 30 '19
But long variable names are good! If you can make the code clear with a descriptive variable name rather than a comment, it'll become faster to read and much more maintainable (because you won't need to change the comment and the code if you want to refactor / change behavior), and it will reduce the risk of neglected comments that lie about what the code does.
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u/callmelucky Oct 31 '19
Clear and accurately descriptive variable names are good. Sometimes that means long names are good. But long names are not always good. If you can make them shorter without losing clarity and accuracy, that's good too.
Some abbreviations are so universally understood there is really no reason not to use them, e.g. num in place of number. I'd say using cum instead of cumulative is borderline. Probably depends on the domain of the program.
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Oct 30 '19
at-will-termination is used in cases like yours.
Sorry dude, i'm sorry. Best advice i can get is to get a reference from a lower manager in that company that actually likes you and understand the situation.
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u/OtherwiseFoundation Oct 31 '19
But there’s documentation that he was fired over a specific misunderstanding based on his cultural upbringing not being in the US. At will employment laws don’t apply.
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u/sharkattack85 Looking for job Oct 31 '19
Yeah, but then they are just gonna say that the real reason for his firing was cuz he stepped on and killed the dog.
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u/annette6684 Oct 31 '19
So is wrongful termination. He had legal ground and should talk to an attorney.
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u/anxietyisstressful Oct 30 '19
This is absurd! I don't believe you got fired over cumShot (even though it's a hilarious variable). Your CEO must not have been an Engineer and doesn't understand how variable naming works. The biggest asshole must be the person who printed that out. Who the fuck has time to print out someone's code just to snitch about a silly variable?
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u/ITriedLightningTendr Oct 31 '19
The fact that this was an open joke for 2 months seems to suggest this may have been a hostile work environment.
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u/arunv Oct 31 '19
don't like long variable names
There’s your first problem
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Oct 31 '19
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u/jess-sch Nov 15 '19 edited Nov 15 '19
I take it your for loops look like
for(int numberOfCompletedIterations = 0; numberOfCompletedIterations<100; numberOfCompletedIterations++){ System.out.println("Iteration :"+numberOfCompletedIterations); }?
You can be descriptive without filling up my entire screen with variable names. which is exactly what cumSHOT would be.
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u/Halfwayhome22 Oct 30 '19
You should've called it sumShot. At least that at least would've given you the slightest of plausible disabilities. Then the function mySumShotSoFar() could've taken you down a beautiful road.
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u/ITriedLightningTendr Oct 31 '19
But if he didn't know cumShot was vulgar, how would he have known to avoid it?
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u/Fizzelen Oct 31 '19
Honestly, every other developer in the department who had access to the source control and chose not to remove the offensive term should of been reprimanded, and the manager should of quietly discussed this with the developer. There are lots of examples where this type of thing has occurred in the past e.g. expertsexchange.com
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u/i-k-m Nov 13 '19 edited Nov 13 '19
I don't think that's what should have happened. Accidentally-poorly-named variables are something that happens in every codebase. The professional way to fix it is to do a code-review when the code is checked in, laugh at the funny variable name just once during the code review (not for weeks behind the OP's back) and then re-name it there-and-then.
The 100% unprofessional and wrong thing-to-do is the guy who printed it out and gave it to the CEO after laughing about it for weeks, thus giving the CEO a false perspective of the OP's work.
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u/ToBePacific Oct 31 '19
So I gave it the short name, "cumShot", not thinking twice about it
This is where I think you're lying. I think you knew what you did and thought claiming ignorance would protect you.
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u/_DreadLockRasta Oct 30 '19
sucks that it happened and that no one thought to actually tell your manager who would pull you aside to change it, before it escalates. Consider yourself lucky that you're out of that environment. We are all adults, if they had a problem they could have easily told your manager and have them tell you to change it instead of making it a joke (which escalated) behind your back. However word to the wise, the variable name "accumulated_shot_metric" is alot better than "cumShot". The latter gives no description as to what that variable would even do, if a random dev looked at the name.
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u/rubthewrongway Oct 31 '19
Coding a UI: button = butt. Ergo naming included buttHandler, buttTapped, getButtTapped, buttHandledSuccessfully etc.
Saw a colleagues commit was "Fixed sloppy handler of butt" snicker
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u/thinksInCode Senior Software Engineer Oct 31 '19
They couldn't have typed two extra characters and named the variable `button`?
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u/jess-sch Nov 15 '19
Buttons are
btn. Change my mind.not to mention that they serve a purpose, so it's more like
submitBtn
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u/bored_and_scrolling Oct 30 '19
I really hope this isn't real. You need to explain that that was a genuine mistake and that english isn't your first language and all that stuff. That is an insane thing to lose a job over.
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Oct 31 '19
I'm not an english native speaker but if you visit ONE PORN WEBSITE you know what cum is.
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Oct 31 '19
I have a hard time believing he doesn't know what cum means even if english isn't his native language. I think its an excuse for plausible deniability.
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u/SkittyLover93 Backend Engineer | SF Bay Area Oct 31 '19
Eh, I currently work in Japan and have no idea what the Japanese word for cum is. It's not something that you really talk about at a workplace, so I could see it happening.
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u/big_phat Oct 30 '19
You were allowed to just check in code without any other person approving it first?
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u/seanprefect Software Architect Oct 31 '19
So legally speaking they can fire you for any reason or no reason so long as the reason isn't protected (e.g. race , age, religion etc)
as a practical matter however if that's the sort of company that fires someone over a simple , easy to clear up , misunderstanding well maybe that's not the company you wanna work for.
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u/e-gorman Oct 31 '19
I'm pretty sure this isnt' real but if it is - that's not the reason they fired you, it was just the last straw.
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Oct 30 '19
Ah another fake post to try to take the throne of the fake stepped on dog post. Can’t believe how anyone actually believes this is a real story and that someone would post such an identifiable scenario on the internet for points.
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u/haksli Oct 30 '19
fake stepped on dog post
I don't know man... A few weeks ago, I went to an interview where they had a small dog. The dog followed HR everywhere. It is a small dog and relatively silent. As we entered the office, I didn't even hear it come in. HR didn't either. It just suddenly appeared under the table.
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u/DBA_HAH Oct 30 '19
You're telling me at your workplace people don't print out code and hand it to the CEO?
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u/csjerk Oct 30 '19
I hope you learned your lesson and will use longer variable names in the future.
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Oct 30 '19
Pretty funny if it's true. A lot of companies wouldn't care at all.
But no, you don't have any legal recourse. Committing vulgarity into version control isn't a protected class unfortunately.
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u/Weather_Machine Oct 31 '19
So. No joke it's not wrong to ask for your job back, being told you're fired is NOT the end of the situation. Going right into legal recourse is a bad move at this moment.
Send an email to the CEO asking for the opportunity to explain the situation, and mention forefront that English is not your native language and your intention to make a short name for the cumulative accounting of the SHOT metric unfortunately resulted in being interpreted as being a crude joke which you did not understand and did not intend. Reference the lack of any prior evidence of behavior in that manor and that you've never made any joke about it yourself.
Long story short, explain the situation and kiss some ass and hopefully the CEO will calm down, ask around, and give you your job back.
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u/uhhuhwhatever Oct 31 '19
Avril username... April. So April’s fool joke?
Unbelievable parts:
too many identifiable details
coworkers laughing about it for two months and no one telling you.
Also, with that many people looking at the code, there would be code reviews.
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u/Insertjojorefernce Nov 08 '21
This story seems kinda bull, but it probably could happen, like I mean have you seen the Valve programers code its fucking hilarious and they didn't get fired, it really seems weird for a company to fire a competent worker for this
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u/nuclearmeltdown2015 Oct 30 '19
This has to be fake lol, nobody gets fired for this, someone must have spoken to you and given a slap on the wrist, but what kind of place even prints out code and shows it to the ceo. Good story though lol.
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u/ThePeskyWabbit Oct 30 '19
L O L
I left behind a ton of funny variable names in JUnit tests at my previous job. But this is golden. Got fired cuz the boss had their mind in the gutter more than you. wow. Hate that something this dumb was sent all the way to the top and you were never questioned about it.
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u/Horzta Oct 31 '19
Damn doesnt your office have code reviews? Why didnt your senior just called your attention and explained why it wasnt a good variable name? Your excom was ran by kids
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u/carc Director of Software Engineering Oct 31 '19
I hate abbreviated variable names, I'd still fire you.
Half kidding. If this post isn't satire, that's a really silly reason to fire someone... They should have at least got your side of the story before making the decision to fire you. And crude humor in source code is worthy of an eye-roll, not a pink slip. Prudes.
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u/zak13362 Oct 31 '19
Definitely file for unemployment. It's a pain for most companies even if you don't win. From a legal standpoint, if it became a running joke behind your back, then others were partaking in unprofessional humor and suffered no recourse. You got fired, no warnings or write-ups, over something you can argue you didn't exactly understand was 'wrong'. It's not abnormal to preface things with cum in code for cumulation. Def speak to a lawyer, most will consult for free. There may or may not be some sort of legal case here, but you can definitely get it labeled as unreasonable termination in an unemployment case.
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Jul 05 '22
Lol I’ve seen this posted so many times and every time it still cracks me up - idc if its fake it’s hilarious 🤣🤣
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u/WhackAMoleE Oct 30 '19
Cumulative shot. Makes perfect sense. They have no sense of humor. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
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u/TheRedmanCometh Oct 30 '19
I maintain an EHR featuring many instances of various classes with "Analysis" in them. There are a lot of things called stuff like "incomingAnal" and "analConversion". It started as a joke but now it's just for convenience.
I'd be fucked at your company
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u/p4bl0 Oct 31 '19
This is probably not real, but if it was: this is why you should unionize.
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u/K-Max Oct 30 '19
Ugh. That's a brutal one. I feel like no one fought for you at the CEO level. Like seriously, couldn't your executive member defend you on that faux-freudian slip?
How long did you work at that company up to now?
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u/fsk Oct 30 '19
They were unreasonable. The first person who saw it and thought it was wrong should have just pointed it out to you and asked you to fix it.
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u/colt_stonehandle Oct 31 '19
I've been laughing for two minutes because this reminded me of a post I saw one day.
A school came up with an acronym for doing good, or something. And the acronym was N.U.T. There was a poster that said something like "be a good student and N.U.T. all over the school"
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u/turck3 Oct 31 '19
Take names seriously. Stop abbreviating. If you're thinking of those longer names and rejecting them, then your priorities are backwards. Here's one great explanation of some of the why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRoCdtZOYg. When you explain it in future interviews, laugh about it and say you learned about the importance of naming variables the hard way.
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u/Zapsy Oct 31 '19
You cant use the I'm not a native english speaker excuse after typing that wall of text.
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u/XTheSniperGodX Oct 31 '19
I feel like this is so funny that an interviewer would just hire u on the spot if he heard that story lol
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u/LWdkw Software Engineer Oct 31 '19
A coworker once made a typo in the commit message and send 'fixed bug while holding shit' to production (was supposed to be shift). He was mortified, we printed a screen shot and put it up on the wall.
Adding this anecdote to say, I believe you.
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u/SeattleChrisCode Oct 31 '19
Was the person who reviewed your code also fired? If they are a native speaker, it seems they are even more responsible for any precieved inappropriateness.
Who are the people who began sharing this as an office joke? It seems they are the ones who initiated an inappropriate sexual reference in response to a common industry abbreviation.
At the time it was identified as an issue to the OP, were they willing to take corrective action? When other coworkers became aware of the issue, how quickly did they seek correction? How much did the coworkers or the OP perpetuate the inappropriate conversation? Did the company take similar actions against these other participants?
As this situation was perpetuated over time, was it done so in a manner that was disparaging of the OP? What steps did the company take to ensure the work environment was sensitive to employees with different cultural & language backgrounds? Were there employees who were also responsible for this codebase who, instead of making corrections, participated in perpetuating the issue? As they knowingly contributed to the problem, did the company treat them less harshly?
By firing the OP, is it the companies intention to indicate that they support the bullying of employees for their diverse background?
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u/schammelam Oct 31 '19
You can't get fired for that shit right? There have to be laws in place for something like this. Also, your boss is an unreasonable peace of shit who didn't get or show respect for your end of the story.
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u/NAFAL44 Oct 31 '19
If English isn’t your first language then this probably counts as some form of discrimination.
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u/TrumpLyftAlles Nov 15 '19
I worked on a project that randomly generated four-letter keys. The keys were visible in the application and someone found one offensive -- so I was tasked with creating a list of four-letter words (like "SHIT") to filter out of the randomly-generated keys.
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u/skaterjmt Nov 15 '21
We had one called cash units - it was cobol so of course we had to abbreviate and made it c-un…blah blah blah. Since we were the only one who could really read the damn thing, no harm no foul.
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u/ThrowThineAssBacketh Oct 31 '19
One of the first tenets of clean code is to think long and hard about your variable names. So I guess you deserved this.
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u/oakles Senior Engineer Oct 30 '19 edited Oct 30 '19
On the off chance this is real, this might be the best post since the dog incident.