Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by brailsafe 1573 days ago
It's probably true that most work worth keeping on a resume, after some experience, is going to be non-trivial to replicate at best, and awkward to lie about/dance around in explaining purely to accommodate the sensitivities of adults who should chill out. I've worked mostly for companies I wasn't fired from, and it'd be great to avoid talking about the experience directly. Could I re-create the frontend interface for massive auction company? Maybe, but it would take a large amount of extremely unsatisfactory work. Could I recreate the database, backend infrastructure, and conditions that really made the work hard? No
1 comments

Yeah, you're definitely right. If I was in that situation, I think I would be up front about the nature of the work and offer a "sanitized" textual walkthrough of the project. Let people decide if they want to risk being offended.

I'm slightly conflicted here. I don't like pretending that facets of life don't exist, especially when they don't directly harm the involved, but I am also mindful of people's individual sensitivities.

To tie it back to something more general, it seems like a lot of software engineering work is predicated on the cis male perspective. It's hard for me to imagine the psychological impact that sexual harassment might have on a woman, partly because I have the privilege of moving through the world without having my body or attractiveness be a point of interest whatsoever. I feel safe walking outside at night. I don't check my car's backseat before getting in. I have no idea what the fear of kidnapping even is.

In light of the above, of being honest with the gaps in what I will ever experience, how can I venture to link to a site that might offend a woman? Even if it seems ok to me, and it's a joke or whatever excuse, how can I possibly say I fully understand her perspective when her lived experience places her in such vastly different situations?

I agree about a lot of that, but you also don't necessarily need to link to the site or compell someone to go and inspect it. There is a reason Pornhub's parent company is actually MindGeek. Just list it, describe what you did as your job or accomplishments, and if someone chooses to check it out, you never have control over that, and while you may mot share the experience of some or most women, you have your own experiences that other people aren't necessarily worried about, but that you might be bothered by. I can't try and guess what those are, and that's life; it's bound to happen. Many people have been sexually assaulted in this world, and that's just the sad reality. Should everyone always avoid mentioning the word rape? No. Should you regularly mention it in a professional context? Probably not. Same thing for theft, child abuse, bigotry, circumcision, regular assault, guns in general, being audited, adultery, divorce, robbery (different than just theft), sexual harassment, suicide, death of any kind, gaslighting or other manipulation, depression or using the word depressed as an exaggerated expression of ongoing sadness, alcholism, OCD, ADD, w/e...

There's nuance in there of course, pick your situations, but basically none of them are going to be broadly unique or predictable, and part of life is just dealing with those awkward moments if they come up.