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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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I know anecdotes aren't data but there are two people I know:

  1. A software developer at my company was on a performance plan for poor quality of work and poor communication with others. Also, the thing he excelled at and the reason he was hired, web development, was no longer a thing our company needed, so he was stuck doing something he wasn't interested in. People throughout the organization constantly complained that the tools he built were terrible. His bosses were discussing firing him for years and were about to pull the trigger.

    Then he transitioned, divorced his wife, left his kids behind, and told everyone he was a woman. Suddenly she was untouchable for six months. No one dared criticize her or her work for a while. Then eventually the effect wore off and she was fired about a year after transitioning.

  2. Someone who transitioned as a teen who then worked odd jobs but had poor attendance due to the side effects of her medication. At one point she was my kids babysitter, but she would have to leave the baby alone for 30 minutes at a time while she processed her bowel movements. After she left us, she went to work for a major tech company as a game tester, where she was let go a month later due to poor attendance.