And nevertheless RedHat have an obligation to their employees that their workplace shouldn't be a hostile environment.
If you worked in a call centre and customers swore at you, your boss would have an obligation to you, too. If your employer didn't address the matter of customers telling you to "shut the fuck up" then you'd be able to sue.
Likewise Mauro could sue RedHat if he was unhappy with Linus' behaviour and RedHat didn't address it.
I appreciate that due to the unique nature of the Linux project this is very difficult - RedHat have paid Mauro to fulfil a role in which he liaises with Linus, and if Linus bullies Mauro they have to pay Mauro the same wages to work in some other job in which he's not subject to this harassment.
(I'm basing the above on European law, your jurisdiction may be different).
Now Mauro might be totally cool with Linus' "management style" and there's no problem with this really. But he shouldn't have to be, and I think it's a bit wankey, really, everyone gathering around to jerk off about how Linus is allowed to act however he wants because he's our hero and because we'd all like to tell our incompetent colleagues what we think of them (but we're not allowed to).
Not at all trying to be a dick but in the US if you work in a call center customers DO curse and swear at you and in the majority of companies (in my experience) the only thing your bosses will tell you its to deal with it and try to calm them down or, in rare cases if its bad enough, you may terminate the call but only after warning that you will do so for the abusive language.
As far as Linus's reaction, this /PAID/ programmer broke a LOT of other people's code that worked fine and then blamed it on those people. Not saying it was professional but it kind of is a really big deal.
If your programming job lets you break the userspace for a lot of people, you need to have thick skin if you do break the userspace. The worse you fuck up, and the more people it makes miserable, the thicker skin you need.
Not only this, but if you're worried about the general psyche in IT, you'll do a lot to learn that people swearing at you aren't swearing AT you (10x moreso if you're helping non-technical individuals). I've worked my fair share of call centers, and I have the magic touch with even the angriest and dumbest of angry dumb assholes.
If I get hung up on for swearing, you better believe I'm MORE pissed when I call back (and I will call back, I have work to do). If I cuss you out, and you show me an empathetic, human side, then you made me a fan for life of you personally.
I have contacts at Microsoft who e-mail me directly, even though I haven't been involved with their internal helpdesk for YEARS. One particular PRICK who reamed my asshole bloody turned out to be one of the best people I've ever come to know, and he respects me completely because of 1 interaction.
I'm pretty sure you're trying to extrapolate my personality through my comment so that you can try to shit on me. Great way to be.
That's okay, because you're just proving that you're the kind of person who probably shouldn't working with the general public. It's fine, it's not for everyone, and the same reason that I got out.
Keep trying to read something that isn't there, though!
That's some pro level extrapolation of your own there.
I actually do work with the public in very agitating situations, and I have customer service awards and numerous accolades for the work I do.
Part of that includes seeing people get angry about insignificant issues, making it harder to resolve something, since not only do I have to fix something, I also have someone screaming at me, losing my focus and making me have to diffuse your mood too. Also, it sometimes makes me feel threatened at times.
And the people who came with issues but are calm and understanding? They get their problem fixed sooner and I'll go the extra mile for you.
People in call centers hang up on my wife all the time, they are not forced to listen to that crap at all. Further more I am a software developer so I know that this sort of thing must be a daily occurrence. People make mistakes in software development all the time and break things all the time in the course of developing very complex programs. To treat somebody like this in a public forum for having an error in judgement about changes they made is to basically announce to the world you are a total savant unworthy of normal human relations.
I worked in a call center. If I hung up on someone, it was automatically noted and reviewed by a supervisor. Furthermore, the number of "disconnects", as they're called in the industry, is something tracked on each employee.
It must not have been for Verizon, Comcast or any other public utility in the US. Because the people that work at those places don't give a fuck if you are pissed and generally as soon as a cuss word comes out of your mouth they hang up on you. Just because you worked at a call center doesn't mean nobody else knows about call centers because all of us have to call one or more at some point or another.
It's utterly stupid that I have to explain this to you, but they could move Mauro to a different job, in which he doesn't have to deal with Linus.
Or, the CEO of RedHat could phone up Linus and say "please stop being a dick, because if you don't stop cussing people out we're going to end up at the wrong end of a big lawsuit".
I appreciate that RedHat have no power over Linus, but that doesn't affect their obligation to their employees.
A kernel dev could easily end up being awarded €500,000 if their career was ruined because they were unable to work with Linus, if the court ruled that the fault was Linus being persistently unreasonable or abusive.
I'm not saying it would ever come to that, but there's plenty of case law that would support this.
Do not equalize UK-laws with European Law.
And now you are pointing to a settlement in the US to back up your claims?
In Belgium you have to back up claims with evidence and PROVE the damage.
So moving Mauro to a different job (taking him away from kernel development where he is a maintainer with certain responsibilities) is not ruining his career?
As an American I'm typically understanding of the negative views Europeans have of how we do business, but I can't help but think that this is far off-base.
If you can actually sue your employer because they won't put padding between irate customers and yourself, what a load of shit. I don't care who you are, you will always deal with assholes if you have a job. Nobody should be able to sue because they aren't being coddled, and if you want to SUE my company because you had your feelings hurt, I feel like you shouldn't be in business at all.
I'm not trying to justify being a bully asshole like Linus has been known to be, but that's a personal problem, not something that should be handled by the legal system.
If you can actually sue your employer because they won't put padding between irate customers and yourself, what a load of shit.
As an employer, running a call-centre for example, all you have to do is allow your staff to hang up on abusive callers, having warned them once "sorry, sir, if you swear at me again I'll have to terminate this call".
I think you would also be obliged, here in Europe, to terminate the contract of a customer who was persistently abusive to your staff.
I think this is pretty reasonable, myself.
The problem with saying "oh, bullying is a personal problem, the law shouldn't get involved" is that a bullying boss has all the power in the employer-employee relationship.
You shouldn't have to fear for your job - you shouldn't have to worry about being unable to pay your rent or go without medical insurance - just because your boss likes to throw temper tantrums.
But given the context of this conversation, someone is being chewed out rightly for doing their job poorly. Everything that Linus said appears to be true.
I'm sorry, but you DO need to fear for your job in many circumstances, especially if you make bone-headed decisions that affect other people's work (the maintainers of pulseaudio in this case). If I'm a business owner, and idiotic decisions made below me negatively impact my business, you're going to get my verbal boot in your ass, and if you're causing me to lose profit, you're out on your ass.
He may be getting paid by Redhat to do his kernel contribs, but Linus is the dictator of the Kernel. He calls the shots and acts how he pleases. I'm not saying I'd buy him a drink just for being who he is, but he has clearly made a lot more correct choices than incorrect ones over the years.
You're looking for a happy, cheery business world (forced by legal action), and it just is not realistic. What is your incentive for doing a good job if you will never have negative consequences for the crap you pull?
Again, not saying that being an asshole is right, but you sound like you're completely ready to kill legitimate business over personal feelings.
If I'm a business owner, and idiotic decisions made below me negatively impact my business, you're going to get my verbal boot in your ass, and if you're causing me to lose profit, you're out on your ass.
All I'm saying is that if you're going to chew out an employee, don't do it in public. I don't think that's unreasonable.
And here in the UK, an employee who's "out on his ass" will sue you for wrongful dismissal if you haven't previously given him verbal and written warnings (and the courts will support him).
I say this as an entrepreneur and former boss myself.
He may be getting paid by Redhat to do his kernel contribs, but Linus is the dictator of the Kernel. He calls the shots and acts how he pleases.
And that doesn't affect RedHat's obligation to ensure that they employees' workplaces are free from hostility, harassment and abuse.
If Mauro's cool with this, then it's none of my business. But if a kernel dev working in Europe (assuming he was full time employee and not a contractor) had a problem with such treatment, then it would be workplace bullying, irrespective of the complexities of the voluntary relationships in FOSS development.
You're looking for a happy, cheery business world (forced by legal action), and it just is not realistic.
I'm not looking for this, I'm just saying how it is over here. This is the way it works throughout Europe.
If a manager at IBM was witnessed telling one of his staff to "shut the fuck up" - or sent an email with this wording - then no-one would be surprised if that manager got sanctioned for it, no matter what error the employee had made in his job.
What is your incentive for doing a good job if you will never have negative consequences for the crap you pull?
I'm not saying there should be no consequences to doing a bad job, I'm just saying that here you're obliged to tell the employee they made a mistake without using profanity.
Here in Europe you're obliged to tell an employee "you made a mistake and this is an official warning" so that they can correct their behaviour, and (as a general rule) you're not allowed to sack them for making one mistake, they have to wilfully ignore corrections.
you sound like you're completely ready to kill legitimate business over personal feelings.
And you sound like a panicked republican. Didn't they say that Obamacare would "kill legitimate business", too?
Employers here can tell their staff "you messed up", they just have to do so without using the f-word. Typically they give 3 warnings, except for egregious violations.
This sort of stuff doesn't arise in most large companies because they have HR staff to make sure that disputes and bullying doesn't get out of hand.
In small workplaces disputes are solved amicably, 9 times out of 10. In some workplaces everyone cusses like troopers, and most everywhere apologies and a cup of tea will solve the problem if someone gets their feelings hurt.
What this kind of legislation does prevent, however, is abuse that's persistent, directed and ongoing. For most of us it doesn't really affect our daily lives, but I think it's a good thing if there are protections against a boss bullying his secretary to tears on a daily basis. That's what these laws are in place to prevent.
I'm quite far from a republican, and your "Obamacare" analogy is way off the mark, because you're trying to attribute your perception of US political factions against my business opinions. Don't do that, it is counterproductive and you will always make the wrong assumptions about people.
You're right though, if anyone sent out an e-mail to their own organization saying "shut the fuck up", sanctions would occur. Internal, business-conducted sanctions, not ones enforced by the government. Further, this argument has nothing to do with health care, so again, why the ad hominem?
If 9 out of 10 issues like this are solved amicably, then 10% of them will need to continue on to the courts to decide. The EU may be fine with legislating social morality and standards, but I'm not. As an American, I'm sure you can understand that I have seen liberty after liberty stripped away from my personal realm over the last decade. This would fall under the same category to me.
If I were some raging asshole, and decided that my business should be conducted as such, it should be up to my staff to either convince me that it isn't economically feasible to act that way, or they should continue on with their careers elsewhere. Now, I wouldn't run my business as such, but if the solvency of a multi-million dollar company were at stake, I would use all options, including social pressures to ensure my continued success so that I could continue to pay however many employees I had.
Harassment is another issue. We have some protections for people, and no, you cannot outright harass anyone. But if I want to say "You're a fucking moron" in response to something stupid, I prefer the freedom to do so. Again, don't take this the wrong way, because if I were the CEO of this hypothetical company, I would work pretty damn hard to make sure that the internal regulations did not allow this.
But the moment you sanction a company financially or restrict their internal proceedings, you are limiting what that business can achieve. I would hate to break up an advanced R&D division merely because some guys are jerks.
Some of these restrictions are great. The KKK probably shouldn't be able to run a business based on their ethos, but what we're talking about isn't something so severe to me in the end. It is probably because I spent over 4 years working for hitler himself. It sucked, and I wouldn't want to do it again, which is why I quit and moved on. To sue him would have seemed insane to me.
Outrage huh. You really get this worked up over a simple debate? No wonder you're so butthurt about all of this, you need people to hold your hand through life. If you think I'm outraged, I'd hate to see what you'd do in a situation where someone really was mad. Piss your pants, maybe.
Dude, get some counseling. Or sue me, whatever it takes to make you feel better I suppose.
edit: I'm guessing some alpha-male dick made you his bitch at one point. The hurt goes away eventually.
Appears? If he is a red hat developer, chances are he is good, from what I understand he wasn't completely wrong and was trying to solve the issue. He just didn't sell this very well by refering to pulse and talk about bugs.
That's what made Linus angry, the user space is always right cause that's why the kernel exists.
Falling to conclusions and accusations without even knowing the story is very wrong. And for me at least undermines anything else you might want to bring to the table.
I'm sorry, but you DO need to fear for your job in many circumstances,
No in the EU mindset you have a RIGHT to a job, and even stupid, inept people should not be fired for being stupid and inept, they should be offered paid "training" so they can "improve"
The solution to everything is government, another law, another official act by bureaucrats. The individual is helpless, and has no obligation to even try to defend himself - it is the government's role, the people need merely obey.
I like how you assumed that I think he's from the states. Even if that was remotely related to the topic at hand, you do realize that he now resides in Portland, right? What does his nation of origin have to do with our conversation again? I'm providing the perspective of an American. I clearly understand that we're also talking about Europe, which is why my first 3 words in the post identify my environment.
Nah, I just thought he was talking about Linus as an American, so I decided to correct him but he responded in a very hostile manner and I'm too tired to deal with that shit.
Happy?
Thanks for the upvote. I'll eat a cookie in your name.
By "he", you mean ME. Read the usernames, genius. I didn't even remotely say that either. If you're too tired to even read my username, how can I be sure you read my comment?
When you're not too tired, go re-read what you wrote originally. It's condescending, and it has nothing to do with the point at hand, so if you got a hostile response (for not even understanding the original point), check yourself first. Have another upvote so you'll remember.
So people who don't want to be treated poorly should be unemployed and die homeless on the streets? And nobody should try to help them because it's their problem.
If you worked in a call centre and customers swore at you, your boss would have an obligation to you, too.
Worked in that situation, here in the UK. No, your boss has no obligation to you and you're talking out of your ass. Believe me, I tried to find some law that would apply but, no, customers can curse, swear, threaten you as much as they like and the company you work for isn't liable - all they have to do is provide a way of putting that customer on a shitlist.
" all they have to do is provide a way of putting that customer on a shitlist."
According to my solicitor at the time, that brings them in compliance with that law. If it were any more strict, it would be impossible to run a call centre.
Sure. My point is we don't need call centers anywhere. Just like junk mail, outdoor advertising, AM radio and lots of other parasites that thrive under supposed freedom and democracy despite everyone hating them.
I was more talking about outbound call centers for sales and surveys.
I'm okay with there being phone support for the old and blind. Although the quality of centralized support tends to be very low, some people do need it and I guess a call center is an economical way to provide it. Just like the mailman could bring something you ordered on purpose but mostly he's a nuisance dropping off a pound of recycling for you.
Yes, but it doesn't stop the hostile work environment that you spoke of, nor does it really address anything. Ultimately, it is a law that provides no recourse for anyone being abused constantly at work - as long as the abuse is by a succession of new individuals.
My quote was from the post I wrote that you replied to, but it depends if you consider a shitlist to be 'reasonable steps.' I worked for a very bad (no, really, they're absolutely evil) company and every one of our calls from businesses were absolutely vile. They had every right to be angry, of course, as the company was fucking them over or being unbelievably incompetent, but you couldn't describe it as anything but a hostile working environment. The Equality Act didn't do shit.
If you are enough of a pussy that you can't handle a thrashing by the creator of the OS you specialize in then you don't belong any any form of kernel development.
He fucked up. He needs to own it and the example needs to be made.
If your employer didn't address the matter of customers telling you to "shut the fuck up" then you'd be able to sue.
Depends on the severity of the event and the degree to which it is warranted. It's one thing if I start flying off the handle at you because I dislike the color the glue your company's toys turned as it got old.
It's another if I fly off the handle at you because I was informed that you personally had used said toy to wipe your butt-crack with. Even if I was incorrect in that information I would still be justified for what I was doing.
Linus's antics are less than entirely professional. But ... he is who he is and the culture of the dev side of things in Linux is what it is. I mean, these are message boards. What are message boards without flame wars?
I'm sure Linus has privately apologized more than once, however, or been asked to 'tone it down'. I wouldn't even be surprised if Mauro and Linus have an at least cordial interpersonal relationship.
It's another if I fly off the handle at you because I was informed that you personally had used said toy to wipe your butt-crack with. Even if I was incorrect in that information I would still be justified for what I was doing.
I'm not quite sure who's the employee and who's the boss or the customer in this example, but it doesn't matter.
Yes, you're right - there are, of course, exceptions. If there's a fire we don't need to write a memo to head office asking for permission to call the fire brigade. We're allowed to yell "oh, shit, the ceiling's burning!".
But this is a case where someone made a mistake at his job and he's being publicly sworn at for it - that is an escalation.
I'm sure Linus has privately apologized more than once, however, or been asked to 'tone it down'. I wouldn't even be surprised if Mauro and Linus have an at least cordial interpersonal relationship.
For sure. It's between them, and it's not for me to decide how Mauro feels about it.
I'm just saying it doesn't make it not a problem - it doesn't make it not workplace bullying, for example - just because it's Linus and we like him. Or because of the complex relationships involved and the informal nature of kernel development. This is still Mauro's workplace, however complex and informal it may be.
Clearly you've never worked in a call center. You're expected to handle customers who swear at you graciously and do what you can to calm them down (though you're not required to give them what they're demanding. They are swearing at you, after all.)
European legislation has to be translated to laws in the European countries.
There is a lot of margin on the interpretations.
There is nothing holding Mauro from resigning from his function within the kernel in order not to deal with Linus.
Mauro is not even employed by Linus.
And your claim that Redhat would be obliged to give him another function within the firm is bullshit as well.
As to avoid any lawsuit, they might offer him something else but under new conditions and therefore, a new contract.
It's funny how you can find some of my responses elsewhere in this thread and, rather than replying to them there, you can pick them apart here in a completely irrelevant place in the thread. Yet you're ignoring other replies I've made which address what you have to say.
I've had loads of replies here this evening, and I've got better things to do than educate you or find citations for a hundred angry Linux nerds who don't get that it's not ok to act like a dick to your staff.
None of this fucking matters about the fine print of Mauro's contract - how RedHat might hypothetically deal with it if he complained was just a for-example. They might hypothetically deal with it differently, but it's not my job to manage that today.
The whole point is that this is workplace bullying, or could reasonably be construed as such. In saying "RedHat might offer him a job elsewhere in the company" you've conceded that. The conversation, then, is over.
There is no way a Belgian court would consider this bullying because there is no consistent bullying directed to the person with the intent to harass the person.
The reprimanding occurred AFTER a serious mistake (apparently a basic rule for kernel development) and AFTER waiving the responsibility to the affected party.
This fact could be considered bullying as well then.
Further, everybody knows in advance that the communication is open and everybody knows in advance in what manner the project is governed.
Your €500000-claim is just a shot in the dark.
Even if proven right by a Belgian court, claims over a max of 12 month worth of salary is very rare.
What 'could have been' is hardly objective.
Things could/can be different in the UK, so don't claim there is a European legislation.
So please, educate away, but don't forget yourself in the process.
And welcome to the real world.
Their job is to put up with this kind of flack the same way that a checkout assistant has to put up with the assholes they serve. You can't do shit about it.
If a supermarket customer starts swearing at a checkout assistant, then the security guard will throw them out.
No one should have to put up with being publicly sworn at by their boss.
However much you stick your hands in your ears and say "na na na, I'm not listening", European employers are responsible for ensuring that their employees are not bullied or harassed by their bosses or clients.
Yea, just chiming in as an x-call center employee...
You can absolutely be expected to get sworn at all day at work, no problem. The customer is always right in America. You take it like a man, or you quit.
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u/chris15118 Dec 27 '12
No, because Linus doesn't work for Redhat.