following is an AI generated summary of this article, so you won’t have to read it!
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A user on LinkedIn suggested that terminated employees should always return thier laptops, and that issue was cut and dried.
disco, a tool for bringing real human subjectivity to AI was then used to examine public sentiment about this statement.
The responses varied, with some people feeling that employees should keep the laptops as a small consolation or to help with job searching, while others felt that keeping company property was unethical or a security risk.
Some people suggested that companies offer a buyout option for the laptops, while others felt that a clean break was best.
The responses highlight the complex and multifaceted nature of the issue, with no easy answers or universal agreement.
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i recently saw this unsolicited and undirected “suggestion” on linked-in (home of the weak sauce), suggesting that the only ethical move is to return your laptop when you’ve been fired.
while i do not condone brazen theft or just being a jerk, i personally considered this post astonishingly tone deaf, in light of the fear so many who have recently been laid off are feeling. for many, a computer, and the internet, are their only lifelines to a potential future.
this situation is one i have experienced personally. i’ve been laid off, a few years back, and went through a very, very difficult period (still to some degree) where getting a job was a strangely recursive scenario - that is to say, i needed money to buy a computer capable enough, to keep up with the times, to stay sharp, to get a job. this is a real phenomenon experienced by many. a nice laptop for a developer costs a cool $4k.
dan seemed pretty sure of himself so, i decided to run his theory through my new thing, which i am calling disco. as you can read for yourself, i think the issue is more nuanced than he suggests, and that, in this period of history, considering the massive ill will the general public is snowballing, and getting ready to toss at corporations, it’s worth seeing what others might think. fwiw, disco lets you ask any question, and then get back answers that are informed by real human beings, at scale.
it’s my little attempt to use their weapons against them.
take some time, to review these results
ps. in a future post, i’ll show you how you can do way, way, way better with your development environment by ditching apple, microsoft, etc. and moving to linux and a chromebook. my current dev box costs me $320 at best buy and i’m more productive than ever.
