The first time, I lacked the self-confidence to speak up in the face of dominating people. So I internalized their behavior as "proof" of my incompetence - in the face of the patently obvious facts to the contrary, in the face of my own experience and judgement. Naturally, this made things much worse - I consider myself "part of the problem" in that case, though not the largest part by any means. Anyway, I was fired a few months later.
The second time, it was a breaking point - the CEO, who said those things was incorrigible, and the situation was unworkable. I called my boss in the morning (the fucker CEO had been yelling at me at 11 at night) and gave notice. He quit too - exhausted of losing engineers and being party to the abuse. Within the month, they lost most of their engineering team, and the few who stayed had received promotions and substantial pay increases to incentivize sticking around. They also "saw the light" and halted feature work for several months while (I assume) the worked on fixing their tech debt problem.
I've done really substantial work on myself since then, and I feel like I'm in a much better place to appropriately execute the soft skills required by my position. So I'd like to think that if (or rather, when :) ) the first situation occurs again, I will be self-assured enough to push back in an effective non-confrontational way, or at least speak my mind instead of being silenced by the unreasonable shame of an inappropriate dressing down. I would find ways of halting the narrative every time bullshit was spoken, and address the "inaccuracy" instead of behaving in a way that that manager took as confirming his suspicions that I was the problem.
And, in the second case, I'd have quit way, way earlier, when I saw all the previous red flags.
Mostly though, I'm not going to work for hotheaded, first-time founder-engineers so recently graduated from college, so bereft of the experience required to lead an engineering team. :)
Quality control is a LOT lower in China than in the US, and that's even considering the US's bias towards industry in its legislation. This is why chinese electronics catch fire a lot more (than Japanese ones, for example, too).
There's a huge amout of corruption, and almost no regulation.
This is definitely true. I have a friend that runs a corporation that does a significant amount of manufacturing in China. His company is known for extremely high Quality.
He has told me that he does need to hire a lot of folks to ride herd on production; more than in other places, though (he has had many places that run his production).
If he does that, he finds they do an excellent job.
You misunderstand the utility of masks, where it is significantly more an infected wearer of the mask who protects others by their wearing. So, being infections before you have symptoms is the problem, which is why people should - as is standard in Japan, for example - wear masks in public whenever they feel unwell or feel a 'cold' coming on.
Except the experts are mostly objective. However, the waters have been muddied in the public's view by anti-maskers, like anti-vaxxers. This is a real catastrophe of the pandemic.
You are using a perfection fallacy, or black-and-white thinking here. That a significant number of ordinary peopple do not mask well or do not have / know of the correct mask to use doesn not make the masks or the process ineffective.
It's not a fallacy. You're saying that masks work and if they don't you're just doing it wrong. Under what conditions, exactly, would you accept that masks don't work or are so unwieldy and ineffective as to be impractical? People wore masks over many years, and studied it, and found no conclusive evidence that they're worth it. Your argument is basically a No True Scotsman. If it didn't work for those mask wearers, they weren't True Mask Wearers and their masks were No True Masks. Nevermind that the masks were available, people did in fact wear them, and wearing a mask is simple (and it's supposed to be very simple). If a study was performed, it was No True Study, especially if it concluded that masks aren't worth it.
> Under what conditions, exactly, would you accept that masks don't work or are so unwieldy and ineffective as to be impractical?
I accept that as more of the following items are true, masking is less effective:
1. Wearers are unmotivated - if you don't want to wear a mask properly, you won't.
2. Wearers are uneducated - if a person has not been trained to fit a mask properly, AND to CHECK that fit, the mask will be less effective.
3. Masks of the proper standard and fit are unavailable. If a person cannot get a mask that fits them and meets standards, then masking will be ineffective. (This includes price)
4. Masks are too uncomfortable. Uncomfortable masks are very demotivating. Proper fit includes comfort; However the proper fit is not always the most comfortable. This dilemma is the reason that motivation is required. (If this feels like a paradox, consider human fitness - people who are more fit are more comfortable in their bodies, but sweating can be very uncomfortable)
5 + Anything that can affect any of the items above, including political or religious objections. (Basically this one brings in the whole universe)
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I've been accused of being a nihilist when I say things like the following, but I would call it being realistic:
The universe does not owe you proof, and especially does not owe you satisfying proof in the form you seek.
The linked study DOES NOT show that masks are ineffective.
The linked study DOES show that prior studies are UNSATISFYING.
My original comment attempts to address this:
> > Studying disease spread at the level of rigor that this paper anticipates is very difficult, would never get sufficient funding, and would never pass a review board.
I also do not have satisfying proof that a mask mandate has beneficial effects at a population level.
However I am personally satisfied that: Well fitted masks of the proper standard, worn by motivated and educated people, will reduce both pathogen ingress and egress.
So, you think people are too stupid or unwilling to wear a mask that authorities promised was beneficial, despite years of practice and constant browbeating. Of course I don't deny that unwilling/unmotivated people exist, but that should not preclude the generation of a convincing study somewhere in the whole world. It should at least be possible to collect data in healthcare facilities where masks were strictly imposed.
>The linked study DOES NOT show that masks are ineffective.
Right, it is a survey arguing that existing positive studies are inadequate to show benefits from masking.
>The universe does not owe you proof, and especially does not owe you satisfying proof in the form you seek.
The universe might not owe it to me to make things evident. However, people who want to argue with me do owe me proof. Especially when the outcome is a major imposition on my personal autonomy, and they have failed to collect adequate evidence over decades. We can argue that masks sound like they ought to do something for various particular scenarios, but that is a far cry from proving they are worth the time and effort to implement. Are they worth using in a room full of people who are eating and conversing without masks? Certainly not, even if they do work to some extent.
It's implied. Masks are an extremely simple thing, and you're suggesting that masks can't be tested because people can't figure it out, instead of blaming the masks themselves for not being effective or easy to apply. We call people who can't figure out simple things stupid (though perhaps not to their faces lol). I don't believe people who don't wear masks "properly" are uneducated. They don't care, because they know that the whole ritual is pointless. They don't care to fight it, and just want to conform the minimum amount to be left alone.
Thank you, I hadn't seen this yet, and it's a legitiately well-researched piece by medical scientists with methodological expertise and communicative clarity, which is not always the case.
