Github names & avatars

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 13 May 2016 at 21:01:17 UTC, Meta wrote:
> On Friday, 13 May 2016 at 18:56:15 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> If some company won't hire you because you contributed code to 
>> D, I'd say you dodged a bullet working for such!
>>
>>   When I was young, I worried about what other people thought 
>> of me.
>>   When I was middle aged, I stopped caring what other people 
>> thought of me.
>>   When I was old, I realized nobody thought about me.
>
> Unfortunately, you can't just say whatever you want nowadays 
> and expect people to respect your freedom to do so. So many 
> careers have been lost over some flippant tweet or Github 
> comment that complete anonymity is the only sane option, 
> whenever possible.

There's a difference between losing a job and losing a career, 
and whilst losing a job may not be much fun it is not the worst 
thing that can happen to a person, and may looking back from some 
years be better than not losing a job.  The public instances of 
people being fired for violating politically correct norms are 
highly salient but can easily lead to a distorted picture of the 
real risks.  And what appears to be going on is not always the 
real story.  For example Larry Summers appeared to be fired as 
President of Harvard (or whatever his title was) for some remarks 
he made about the implications of differences in variance of two 
groups.  But that can't be understood without realising that he 
lost the support of many people before that for standing up for 
Schleifer, a very talented economist but one who certainly did 
some things wrong in relation to certain activities in Russia.  
So when the later hoohah was raised, he didn't have much support.

I think Andrei and Walter are right about the value of 
establishing a brand for most people.  One's strengths may also 
be weaknesses, and it is much better to have people hire you 
because they value what you can do and understand and know up 
front what difficulties that might imply and don't mind it than 
try to be bland and fit in and have them discover that later.  
It's a big world, and there are many people that are looking for 
someone exactly like you (and you only need one of them), so it's 
not the end of the world if by exposing yourself as you are some 
people realise that you are not their cup of tea.

I am not speaking theoretically but based also on practical 
experience - myself and people whose situations I have known.

Of course people are in different situations, and I am sure there 
are cases where this might not apply.

Political correctness though is dead - its very brittleness and 
shrillness is also its death rattle - but it will take a little 
while for that to be completely clear.  People at the best firms 
are slowly starting to realise that the incredible risk aversion 
about hiring and the work environment has led to having an army 
of trained monkeys, and in the long run its not good business to 
have only such.  There's an advantage to being one of the earlier 
people to not be afraid to present oneself as one is because it 
is still quite rare.  A little courage goes a long way in life.