Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people - <AUTHOR> https://staysaasy.com/engineering/2020/06/09/Don%27t-Joke.html <comment><USER2> This is sound advice. You have a significant amount of control over people's lives as a manager, and that should be treated with a level of respect. You have no idea how people feel, and it is quite possible that someone you manage doesn't know where they stand with you. At times that is more than enough to cause them stress and even convince them to look elsewhere. Work is stressful enough, and you don't need to add to it.

I should also note. If you're a manager, your job is to do things that make you uncomfortable. If you can't handle sitting there and telling them you're letting them go in person, it's probably not the path for you. Have the decency to look someone in the eye. Don't pass it off to HR, because that's more convenient.

<comment><USER3> Do you have significant amount of control? Maybe I've been lucky to be part of mostly healthy organizations, but even managers have to justify/explain decisions. Either be for termination, compensation adjustment, reassigning to a different team, etc.

I always had to document and explain why I thought an employee deserved a raise, or should not get a bonus, etc. Even as a director with ~20 reports I don't have unlimited firing power and I still need to regroup with HR when it comes to that.

Yes, of course you have some control, but it's not unchecked.

<comment><USER4> _I always had to document and explain why I thought an employee deserved a raise, or should not get a bonus, etc. Even as a director with ~20 reports I don 't have unlimited firing power and I still need to regroup with HR when it comes to that._

Having that system in place isn't enough. You need that system to have teeth, and you need to have someone with as much power as you who will review your decisions and play devil's advocate.

In many teams I've seen with documentation and HR hurdles, they're not real hurdles, they're just there so that there's a paper trail at all. That's because:

1\. Most people in the company including the manager's boss and possibly even most teammates of the employee don't see enough of the employee's work, so it's often the manager's word vs. employee's. A bad manager will exploit that, intentionally or unintentionally.

2\. When in doubt, the management hierarchy tends to side with the manager on things, because they by default trust the manager more than the employee and their view of the facts of the situation usually comes from the manager. A bad manager will intentionally or unintentionally editorialize the facts on their way up the hierarchy.

3\. HR tends to avoid making waves. The only time I've seen HR (excuse the metaphor) plant the flag on the hill they intend to die on, it's because the person being fired or managed out was a protected class of worker. I have never seen HR push back just because the manager had insufficient reasons or suspect reasoning. A bad manager will just shove decisions through HR, intentionally or unintentionally.

In all of those places, there were systems in place where managers had to document those decisions, but there wasn't _real accountability_ , so the systems were nominal at best.

<comment><USER5> > HR tends to avoid making waves. The only time I've seen HR (excuse the > metaphor) plant the flag on the hill they intend to die on, it's because the > person being fired or managed out was a protected class of worker. I have > never seen HR push back just because the manager had insufficient reasons or > suspect reasoning.

Second guessing management hiring/firing decisions that don't expose the company to unacceptable risk of liability for labor law violations generally isn't HR's function.

<comment><USER4> Sure, it may not be HR's function. That's my point. Even with the paperwork, HR effectively never acts as a counterbalance to a bad manager. That's why I list it as one of the reasons why the paperwork that the grandparent poster has to do is often part of a system that only keeps honest people honest.

When I think back to some of the most egregious workplace culture issues in recent memory, such as Uber (Susan Fowler) or Riot Games, HR was, by the most charitable interpretation, unable to stop obviously bad things from happening. By a more literal read of the news at the time, HR was complicit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Early in my career, a manager once had me repeat to him that I would be terminated if I failed to do X, like I was a 5-year-old.

X was referring to a technical implementation detail that he had zero understanding of. He read something in a blog post I guess.

My reaction was to act like it was a fun joke or something. But inside, I absolutely loathed him every second of every day until I quit, and now I take great satisfaction knowing that I've surpassed him and would never do a thing to help his stagnating career. (In other words, I'm holding an extremely petty and lasting grudge.)

But my point is, he probably thought I was fine with all his joking. I always laughed.

To expand on the article's point, I think the biggest thing young managers don't understand is that people are going to be insincere to you as a basic showing of respect and a basic desire for career preservation. They're going to smile and appear to enjoy you and laugh at your jokes and seem ok with everything, much moreso than they otherwise would. So don't make the mistake of using their reactions to define your boundaries of what's acceptable or what's funny, because it's not a typical relationship, and you will invariably believe that you are funnier than you are and that a wider range of unacceptable behaviors are acceptable.

<comment><USER7> > To expand on the article's point, I think the biggest thing young managers > don't understand is that people are going to be insincere to you as a basic > showing of respect and a basic desire for career preservation. They're going > to smile and appear to enjoy you and laugh at your jokes and seem ok with > everything, much moreso than they otherwise would.

I know it's hard and it took me until my 30s with a long career behind me but I really wish people would be more vocal about their issues to their managers, even if it's about their management style or them burning people out, etc. There is a huge chance that you're not the only one with those feelings and there might be people newer to the team or career that are afraid of speaking up for things that they really truly disagree with, or just the people who get anxious with confrontation.

<comment><USER6> Your perception of the risks associated with providing that feedback isn't the same as everyone else's.

When you're young, and especially if you come from a lower income background (where authority is treated as an absolute, and abuse of authority is generally more common and accepted), it can seem very risky and feel very unacceptable to give this kind of feedback to your manager.

It's easy for me to agree with you now, but there are very different feelings about this across different backgrounds and cultures, and there are plenty of managers who would react harshly to this.

<comment><USER8> There is also tremendous internal pressure not to rock the boat, if you are in a place with not much job mobility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is along the lines of "Ha, taking half the day off, are we?" when somebody leaves a little bit earlier than usual. It sounds like (just) a bad joke, but it has severe consequences for your working relationship.

I get that it's tempting to make jokes when you start managing for your old team members. Just accept the fact that you've switched positions and that your relationship will change. It will only make it more awkward if you don't.

<comment><USER10> One of the few memories I have of my old job was my grandmanager saying "leaving early today?" As I passed them in the hall at 5pm.

<comment><USER11> At my current position it's quite usual for my manager to ask why I'm still at the office when it's 3:30PM on a friday. One of the reasons I'm still working where I am.

<comment><USER12> If I were manager I would not even imply that I'm time aware either way, unless there is an ongoing issue (someone staying too late often), (or someone who is not putting in an effort). Otherwise why even bring up your consciousness of time? It signals you're tracking it one way or another.

Edit: for addressing burnout, overwork, etc., for me personally I would start with bringing up the issue in team meetings.

Do we have enough resources, does anyone feel they've got too many tasks; remind everyone (no singling out) that we're not here to be superheroes, we're here to work in exchange for compensation and that you need a good work-life balance in order to perform well at work. If it continues to be an issue after several proclamations, then I could address individuals one on one.

<comment><USER13> I'm a manager. Why bring this up? To watch for people working too much and potential burn out. If people are working excessively, that's not good for them or the company. I want to be able to rely on people. That means knowing how much they can do. This means if they are putting in extra hours now, I come to expect that level of output from them. This is not fair to them, and not fair for the company. I don't want them burning out. I don't want them feeling as if they have to work excessive hours.

This is also why I actively encourage taking time as needed and being flexible when it comes to taking time off to take care of things during the day. It's a non-issue. Finally, it's why I pay attention to taking vacations. I actively encourage it. Often people feel the pressure of deadlines which are always looming. Through my actions, they don't feel as if they can never take time off.

Yes, I can see how you might feel if someone is watching your work hours. But it's not a single thing. It's a continuous effort and comes from a relationship you develop with the people you manage.

When I ask people why they are still working at a certain time, they know why I'm asking. The net result has been really positive for my team.

<comment> squeaky-clean As a non-manager I'd like to add it also normalizes healthy work hours to all the employees. I've worked places where one or two devs outpaced everyone else by a fair margin because of the hours they put in. They're usually very skilled developers, but they're also putting in double the hours of anyone else. Management of course always praises their output and calls them "rockstars" or something, while ignoring the fact that they were in the office until 9pm every day this week and have dozens of commits in the past month that occured on Saturdays from Noon to 3AM.

Ignoring my personal feelings of how unhealthy I think this is for them in the long run, I just simply don't want to feel like I'm competing with them. And yeah not all workplaces feel like a competition, but in my experience the places where you constantly hear "I was up until 10 fixing that bug, but I finally solved it." "Nice work, rockstar!" do feel very competitive internally.

Also as someone with lots of anxiety (which I feel is somewhat common among developers) it really helps to hear that taking reasonable hours or a vacation is not only allowed, but encouraged. I worked at a place that switched to "unlimited vacation", but the process for getting it approved was so stressful that the majority of the developers didn't take a vacation that year.

<comment><USER14> At the same time if they're willing to do 60 hours a week of work ( _not_ if it takes them 60 hours to do 40 hours worth of work) they should probably be pointed out positively in the team meeting for putting the effort in, and privately told that it's probably not maintainable in the long term, and if they need to work that much to meet their objectives they have too much work.

But I don't see anything wrong with praising more output under the right circumstances. Everything ebbs and flows. As an IC there are times I go 3-4 days without a single commit. And there are times I have commits for 12 days straight because I'm on a roll.

I've been fighting for an "unlimited with minimum" vacation policy for the developers at my current job for a while now. It was fight to get the base increased from 2 weeks to 3, and the system doesn't allow negative PTO balances, which seems kind of draconian to me. But I'd love to see my coworkers taking 4-5 weeks a year.

<comment><USER15> So glad I live in a country with sane labor laws. We have mandated 4 weeks vacation, most places have 5 weeks. The law actually says that the employee is mandated to take 4 weeks vacation and the employer is mandated to make sure the employee takes their vacation. It's possible to "transfer" vacation days from one year to the next, but most people take their vacation every year. Looking forward to July off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The basic rule of comedy, or making jokes, which is amateur comedy, is that you always punch up. It's funny when you say "ha! you're fired!" to your boss, but never when you say it to someone you can actually fire.

Same reason why parents (should) never joke about punishment or disciplinary action with their kids - when you have power and authority you also have a responsibility not to belittle it. People will take your power over them only as seriously as you take your responsibility towards them.

<comment><USER10> A US President once gave a speech joking about assassinating the Jonas Brothers with a predator drone to protect his daughter from dating them.

[https://abcnews.go.com/WN/president-obama-tells-joke- jonas-b...](https://abcnews.go.com/WN/president-obama-tells-joke-jonas- brothers-draws-criticism/story?id=10548687)

(Not singling out that President, but the incident was shocking.)

<comment><USER17> It's shocking but not because it's punching down on the Jonas brothers. The part making people ill at ease is not Obama as a father talking about murdering famous boys trying to date his daughters.

The actually shocking part is that the president views drone stricks, which is to say extrajudicial murders in foreign countries, so casually he thinks it's appropriate to make jokes about them.

<comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure Obama's administration pioneered the double-tap, where a drone strike is followed up several minutes later by another one, which is intended to kill those who are providing aid to the fallen. This is considered to be a war crime. He caught flak contemporaneously for this issue, and not just by Fox News, et al.

I'm generally a strong Obama supporter, but this is one area that I feel like his actions were totally indefensible. I'm not surprised by his callous attitude on the subject.

<comment><USER19> > I'm pretty sure Obama's administration pioneered the double-tap

I am pretty sure it is not a new technique - it was famously featured in the 2010 children's book Mockingjay, and I am sure Suzanne Collins didn't make it up either.

Double-tap bombing are a staple of the asymmetric warfare arsenals of spec-ops forces/guerilla/terrorists since at least the second world war, probably much longer.

(Also, it is rather unlikely that Obama ordered the airforce to start double- tapping, or even that he knew ahead of the fact, given the amount of extrajudicial killing/assassination the US forces do every month...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly - It's easy for technical people promoted to a people management role not to realize that their words now have a significantly greater affect on morale.

The author did a good job expanding on situations that are now not funny, but here's another one that I see all the time:

Butts in seats. As a manager, anything you say about the clock, the vacancy ratio of an employees chair, anything about time management really is not a joke. It is making the employee feel as though the work they do is not valued and that you expect them to be meat decorations prettying up an office chair.

I used to think that when I was promoted I could still be "one of the guys" - and I try hard to get quality time with the team, joke around, etc - but over time it's become clear that I can never escape the new context in which my words and actions are perceived.

I can no longer shit on bad code like I used to - I now need to discover how we ended up with the deficiency, plan to correct it, and assure the rest of the engineers that we _do_ have high quality standards we need to live up to.

<comment><USER21> Yep. And it only gets worse as your scope grows.

There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X.

If you ever wondered why manager emails to a large team always look super- formal? We've touched that particular live wire, and would rather not do that again.

<comment><USER22> > There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks > interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have > some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word > that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X.

This is somewhat avoidable. You can communicate this to your team. You can make it clear you invite feedback and corrections, and demonstrating that in practice by responding well when people take you up on that. You can ask questions in a way that invites answers. You can make your relative level of expertise clear in an area when you ask questions.

And on the occasions when this still happens, sometimes it'll be because your musings sparked an idea in someone, and _they_ thought it was a good idea to investigate X.

<comment><USER23> I worked in a place once where, when you met with any of the senior execs, you had to have 2-3 notetakers present, so that every word the guy said could be jotted down and turned into actions. Everything that came out of an exec's mouth had to be turned into a project, because nobody was willing to stick their neck out and try to distinguish between "random musings" and a "command to do this thing". It was a very toxic environment. It was kind of like those guys always following Kim Jong Il around with notepads recording everything Dear Leader says.

<comment><USER24> Reminds me of the sticky bear sketch from Silicon Valley [https://youtu.be/uAxAVusStCg](https://youtu.be/uAxAVusStCg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Another thing: don't compare people in your team to recently let-go people.

As a survivor after a series of lay-offs, I took over a project from someone who was recently laid off (let's call him Joe), got asked a really vague question about it and responded, IMO reasonably, that clarification was needed. All I got back was "That's a _Joe_ -type of answer" (emphasis theirs).

I don't think it was funny, and it certainly didn't help my understanding of the problem. I brought this up in a meeting and was accused of being "too snippy lately" shortly after. It's the type of thing where if didn't already have 5 years of enjoying my role, I'd probably be looking for a new one.

<comment><USER26> You're not alone. I'd be quite unconformable to hear that. Sorry that you have to experience such awkward conversation and be called "too snippy" after complaining about it on top of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've always had a really dry sense of humor. When I moved into a management role, my director took me aside and said something to the effect of, "I have a dry sense of humor too. When I started managing people I had to build a filter between the jokes that pop into my head and the words that escape my mouth."

This was from my first year of managing when I had one screw-up that led people who overheard the interaction to report it. The joke was something like, "Oh hey, the start time for our meeting has already passed, and here we are still working. Why do you hate meeting with me?" In hindsight, it's now obvious to me that when there's a power differential, the other person can easily be left wondering, "Does my boss really think I don't like him? Oh my god, I can't ever be late to another meeting with him again!"

I'm now years down the road from that, and I cringe at some of the things I said when I was new to the role. I'm glad I've had time to learn some lessons in communication as a manager before COVID-19, because now that interactions have been scoped down to text chats, emails, and occasional video calls, people have to make inferences from a much smaller set of signals. I'm having to work twice as hard to be very direct and clear about what I want people to understand, and I have to go out of my way to deliberately ensure that interactions, both one-on-one and as a group, happen as frequently as is necessary to maintain the health of the individuals and of the team.

<comment><USER28> Good example of how one can grow into a leadership role. About 99% of the basic skills required to lead can be taught or learned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> An _experienced_ CEO joined a mid-sized company that I worked at a few years. His opening line, in his first all hands was a joke about firing the people who were a few minutes late to the call. It was obviously a joke, but you really can't make a worse impression and he was gone within a year.

<comment><USER30> I thought these people are paid multiple millions because they're supposed to be "top talent"?

<comment><USER31> They are paid millions because once you win the birth lottery, and if you are tall and loud enough, failing upwards becomes the default that is very hard to beat, even if you try.

And it's really, really hard to learn from your mistakes unless someone calls you out on your shit, which almost never happens to these people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I find that there are two aspects of good management that aren't talked about enough.

First, power. Managers have explicit and implicit power, and you should understand both. Joking about firing someone is an abuse of your explicit power, but you should also be careful about excessive use of your ability to issue direct orders. Similarly, be aware how the implicit power of a manager affects conversations, and do little things like vote last to give others a chance to speak _before_ they know where you've landed.

Secondly, good management is a lot of emotional labor. A portion of the emotional well being of your team is your problem, especially around things related to work itself. If managing is emotional labor, then do try to not make your job harder by freaking your directs out.

</comment><comment><USER33> I am really surprised one has to write a blog post about this.

I am not a manager, but here is a question for managers, have you or anyone you know, joked about firing someone?

In my opinion, that would be incredibly cruel and stupid.

<comment><USER34> Did you read the article? People make mistakes. They might try to break the tension by cracking a joke without realizing the effect it will have.

<comment><USER33> Yes I did. The point I was trying to make was, this really shouldn't come to anyone naturally. It is like writing a blog post about not bullying anyone. People still do it, but I think those people are psychologically unstable, should be isolated and needs help.

<comment><USER35> In the context of one team member gets promoted to manage the rest of the team, I can see how this type of "joke" could happen. If the team was really close and everyone was friends, it's easy to keep the friend mindset and make what you think is just a dumb joke without really thinking it through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> While we're on this topic, managers don't invite your direct reports for one- on-one meeting out of the blue with no agenda. I've heard multiple people tell me they assume they're about to be fired.

<comment><USER37> This goes for HR too. HR at an old job invited me and a colleague to a meeting with a nondescript title. I thought my colleague must have some issue with me. But no, they wanted us to _draw our vision for the company_ with colorful markers.

<comment><USER38> Haha, reading this made my day.

<comment><USER37> You have to imagine the scene. I walk to the meeting. Sweaty palms. I re-play every interaction I've had with that colleague in my head, trying to think of what I could have done that offended her. I can't think of anything, which is somehow worse, because I have _no idea_ what I'm walking into.

Then HR rep shows up with a box of markers, paper, and are like, "we're doing drawings!" and I'm just like, "we're what now".

After talking to her, my colleague also thought she was in trouble somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The reverse situation is interesting.

"I mean, you could just sack me if it goes wrong" is a personal go-to.

Built an emergency fund at age 20 and stopped giving a fuck, it's just business.

Obligatory "I'm not American, we don't die on the street if we break our leg whilst unemployed here" I guess.

I find dark humour amusing in general because it's just like, yeah, you actually could wake up tomorrow with a brick in the back of your head. Live as if it matters today. Important now more than ever.

</comment><comment><USER40> Similarly, marriage protip: Don't joke about divorces. Even if you think your partner can handle it. Mine can and we still don't do it, as policy. It's a known policy, too; we mentioned it to each other before (briefly, a long time ago, not as some big event).

This is certainly far from "the one key to a happy marriage!", but it's a brick in the house.

It generally fits into the larger social IQ element of thinking about the worst way someone may take something you communicate. This is a particularly easy place to see how you may have felt it was a light-hearted joke, but someone else could easily take it entirely seriously, or as a passive- aggressive "ha ha only serious".

<comment><USER41> You mean not to joke about it in front of other people? I agree of course. But between you two? seriously... A married couple should be able to talk freely, including about things they don't like. No need to create policies in advance like it's a work relationship between employee/manager. I would worry if my married life looked like a work relationship.

<comment><USER42> As a man who's been married for 15+ years, I would absolutely advise young couples to consider the disciplines and policies they expect their relationship to abide by in much the same way managers and employees discuss their policies and procedures. "Talk freely", yes, but also, as this article so correctly points out, understand the effect your language has on your relationships (direct reports, friends, spouses, family members) and make sure to not treat heavyweight issues with an air of flippancy or triviality.

My wife and I decided, before we got married, that divorce was off the table for us. Understanding that it is not even an option for me (and trusting/believing my spouse that it's not an option for her) gives us so much stability to launch into uncomfortable topics and conversations with each other. If we got into a habit of treating that topic lightly, I could easily see many instances over the past decade where life has gotten hard, we would be in the middle of a stressful situation, and we would have doubted each other's commitment.

There's a broad range of experience out there in marriages, so it's likely possible to have that same stability while regularly joking about divorce, it just seems like a foolish thing to risk so huge a downside (actual divorce) for so little an upside (getting to joke about divorce).

Bringing this back to the article, that's the same idea at play. For the manager to restrain themselves from a few key topics which are inappropriate for them to joke about, they avoid a huge minefield of stressful issues for them and their direct reports.

<comment><USER41> > My wife and I decided, before we got married, that divorce was off the table > for us.

Well, you can decide whatever you want before you get married. People change, things happen, it's called life...

<comment><USER43> Catholics believe that marriage ends only with death. While obviously a civil divorce is possible, the actual sacramental marriage is indissoluble. One of the consequences of this belief is that Catholic couples are considerably less likely to get a civil divorce than other Christians or atheists[1].

[1] [https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholics- continue-t...](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholics-continue-to- have-lowest-divorce-rates-report-finds)

<comment><USER44> Except that Catholics also practice annulment, which is, for all intents and purposes, a divorce (That you carry out through the church, as opposed to secular courts.)

Instead of breaking up a marriage, they claim, post-facto, that it was not a 'true[1] marriage', and is, therefore, invalid in the eyes of God and men.

This is a loophole big enough to drive a bus through, and is practiced quite frequently.

[1] The technical term is sacramented.

<comment><USER43> Any number of factors can cause an attempted marriage to fail. Impaired consent is one major one. Unwillingness to have children is another. Even entering marriage with the expectation that divorce is possible means no sacramental marriage was formed. I suppose one can choose to view those factors as loopholes and I imagine some poorly formed Catholics do just that. That said, a validly celebrated marriage cannot be annulled.

Whether or not tribunals are erroneously issuing declarations of nullity is a question I don't know the answer to. In any event a Catholic who tries to game the system this way would be well advised to consider that God won't be fooled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I know the tech community likes to hate on company policies and bureaucracy, but this is exactly why you need SOME rules - to protect employees from bad managers.

If you have a process in place that managers must follow in order to terminate an employee, employees don't have to be afraid of tasteless jokes about firing. If there is a process that involves the employee (like a PIP), you also don't have to be afraid that you'll be blindsided with a termination.

Same thing applies to "unlimited" vacation. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but when you get rid of your vacation policy, you are transferring all handling of time-off to your front line managers. My experience with unlimited vacation at Netflix was poor because I had a manager that made little comments here and there that made me feel guilty about taking time off. If I had days off that I accrued then I would know exactly what I'm entitled to take.

I wrote a blog post about why we got rid of our unlimited vacation policy at our company.

[https://www.facetdev.com/blog/posts/why-we-ditched-our- unlim...](https://www.facetdev.com/blog/posts/why-we-ditched-our-unlimited- vacation-plan/)

<comment><USER46> Pardon me saying so, though the base vacation policy seems middling in generosity. It strikes me that maybe the unlimited policy didn't work for facet because of that.

essentially: including company holidays in PTO calculation is lame. It's essentially forced PTO, not vacation. I'd consider your vacation policy to be about three weeks, not five, which is "just ok." It's enough for a two-week vacation and some time off for christmas. If your unlimited vacation policy expectation was actually three weeks of vacation, then I could see why it didn't really work for you.

Overall, I think metered is better than unmetered if enough volume is given. I don't know how hard Facet negotiates on extra PTO, but from the baseline offering, I think I could take more in unlimited systems.

<comment><USER45> I agree that 3 weeks of vacation isn't leading the industry by any means.

Like I mention in the blog post, we are a small bootstrapped company. It's the best we think we can offer right now because we aren't subsidized by VC money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Yeah. Also, don't joke about leaving the company.

I have been passed over for promotion because of a complete joke remark like that made in presence of a person with whom I did not have very close working relationship.

\---

Making a joke about firing your subordinate would require perfect understanding of the state of mind of the person you are talking to. As a manager your job is to understand it is not possible to understand exactly how your words are going to be interpreted. Thus, telling a joke about firing your subordinate is a sign of bad judgment at best.

Another responsibility of the manager is to ensure his/her team is productive. This can't happen when people feel unsafe about their financial situation. Strike two.

There is absolutely nothing good that can come from telling a joke about firing someone. Even if the person you are joking about completely understands you are joking, somebody else might overhear the conversation leading to bad results. Another reason to treat it as a sign of bad judgement.

In general, as a manager, never say things that you don't mean. When people know they can depend on every word you say it makes every word this more powerful and better tool to accomplish your goals.

<comment><USER48> > Yeah. Also, don't joke about leaving the company.

One of my personal rules is to not even discuss leaving a company with any colleague. It's far to easy for this information to leak back to your manager. Even if your colleagues had good intentions bring it up, the fact that you didn't says enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I would add that anyone who is planning on moving into management should also avoid joking like this.

I once worked with an engineer who had a lead that would joke all the time about firing him. As a lead he had no authority to fire anyone but it was well known that he wanted to transition into a management position. Within two weeks of the lead actually becoming a manager, the engineer left the company for another job.

I remember speaking with the engineer about it after he left and he told me that he knew it was a joke but it still made him slightly uneasy. He wondered whether there was some grain of truth in the jokes. He wanted to make sure that he was leaving on his terms.

The take away that I took from that was if you're going to go down the management path, consider everyone a potential direct report and communicate accordingly. The joke that you're making as peers can take on a different meaning the day you become their manager.

</comment><comment><USER50> I am going to be contrarian here, because this advice is misleadingly "obvious," and almost everyone is going to reflexively agree with it, because who wants to be the asshole making uncomfortable "jokes" about people's livelihood?

But.

Counter signaling is a powerful tool in the social toolbox, and it works exactly when uncertainty and discomfort may be present. The problem isn't the counter-signaling, it's the poor social models and actual lack of trust and common knowledge between the people.

I think this advice is practical because any given manager is going to create a mediocre-at-best environment, but in my perfect world there would be enough trust and common knowledge about exactly where everyone stands that a joke like this would be a nonissue.

That means in my perfect world managers would be better at creating that.

The reason I am saying this is that if you go away from this thread with the idea "joking about serious things is bad," then your job is done when you simply don't do the bad thing. But if the lesson is actually "you don't have the skill necessary to create the safety and clarity on your team to make a joke like this and have it be fine" then you have affordance to maybe be better at creating safety and clarity--at least you have a trailhead to start looking.

</comment><comment><USER51> Perhaps the greatest reason why joking about job security is so bad is that it forces an irreversible wedge between the employee and the employer or team.

If a person believes their job is in peril they lose focus of their work and shift focus into matters of personal security. People tend to over emphasize the nature of their employment as a matter of personal identity, accomplishment, and life progress. When those things are in peril they become more important problem to fix than their assigned responsibilities, work/life balance, or even familial relationships which can snowball into further problems. While this is frequently more a matter of personal vanity than finances the problem is still there and it's socially contagious, which is toxic.

Counter intuitively I have found many people are less emotionally troubled about losing their jobs when the harm is purely financial. That isn't to say it is free of stress, but rather there are fewer panic moments.

<comment><USER52> > Counter intuitively I have found many people are less emotionally troubled > about losing their jobs when the harm is purely financial. That isn't to say > it is free of stress, but rather there are fewer panic moments.

Exactly. I was at a job for nine years, ready for a change, and honestly hoping for a severance package. (Finding a good job is time consuming, so I didn't want to do it on the side and surprise the people I worked with for years with two weeks notice.)

When the higher up delivered the news to me, I had to reassure him! Fortunately, everything was done with dignity, I had plenty of time to finish my project and transfer knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Oh yeah totally agree.

Leadership roles mean some tasks become 'only you' tasks.

Part of that is a radically changed power dynamic. Asking someone to pick up a coffee for you suddenly isn't just a question they can feel safe saying no to - favors aren't favors anymore. Don't put your direct reports in that position, ever.

That Band of Brothers scene w/ Winters and Compton about playing poker with the troops actually covers this idea really well.

</comment><comment><USER53> This misses the larger lesson: separate your personal and professional interactions, especially with people at different levels of responsibility.

Its a hallmark of a junior manager, someone who doesn't know where the line for their authority is. its trying to coax your subordinates into giving you power over them - but you already have it. its a form of cowardice, of uncomfortability. the opposite of this is the manager who gives all their power to THEIR manager, ie "idk man, this doesnt make any sense to me either but thats the way corporate wants it done." well if all you are is a mouthpiece for corporate, then what good are you?

</comment><comment><USER54> This is a good advice. I did this a few times(everyone involved understand the situations as jokes and had a good laugh+ it's England,so insta-fired almost doesn't exist), however what's funny for one,is outright scarry to another. I had enough situations where people screw up and think they'll be fired, while nobody is even remotely considering it, so it's better to avoid those kind of jokes altogether. A good rule is that religion, politics, immigration,and the work itself should be left out from any professional setting.

</comment><comment><USER55> Yeah. One manager I worked with used to "joke" like this towards a specific coworker in a weekly basis. It was never funny and she always seemed upset by the "joke". It didn't take long before I found out how red that flag was. Worst manager I've ever had the misfortune to work with. He's been fired recently and I couldn't feel more relieved. Not having him around makes working at our company so much less stressful.

</comment><comment><USER56> As an aside, I think it's best that whenever someone is promoted to manager, they then manage a _different_ team, so that their previous peers are not suddenly their direct reports. It's better for everyone that way. The new manager doesn't have to struggle through authority issues with their previous teammates/friends, and the team isn't disadvantaged by having a new manager in whom they confided info they maybe wouldn't have otherwise shared.

Also, on the main topic of the article: personally I seriously limit _all_ my jokes around my team... and also around anyone I could reasonably suspect of moving to my team in the next two years (you gotta always think ahead). IRL most people would describe me as very funny and always joking, and my humor often tends dark. At work, I think a lot of people would describe me as humorless, or amusing at best. This is on purpose. I don't subscribe to the "bring you whole self" theory of modern workplace. I think it's important for the people who entrust their careers in me to see me as serious, thoughtful, and decisive -- not as a goofball whose proudest moments include 40K-upvote memes on reddit!

<comment><USER57> While this may fix the issue you pointed out, it gets rid of a crucial benefit of managing a team you're familiar with: context and trust.

By the time a manager gets promoted, they often have enough context to functional well at that level. They may have built a network within their organization, have seen the product or technology go through several iterations, and developed a good understanding of how their team members work. In turn, this makes them a better manager.

New managers have to work hard to gain these skills, and incur great cost in doing so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is REALLY good advice. When you become a manager, you suddenly become all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful about peoples' jobs, pay, bonuses, benefits, time off, assignments, promotions, all that stuff.

You're actually not all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. You're only part of a management team. But you will NEVER convince your direct reports you're not. Even if you just started being a manager today.

Therefore:

* DO NOT JOKE, ever, even once, about anyone's job, pay, bonus, time off, or other terms of employment. Or your own.

* DO NOT MAKE PROMISES about people's pay, etc, unless you ALREADY KNOW you can keep them. Do not EVER say "I will give you a promotion / raise / bonus / award." Only say, "Hey, you got a raise! Good work."

* do not even say "I'll try to get you a raise" because then if you can't deliver, the person will always wonder why you didn't do it. Even if what you said wasn't a promise, it sounds like one.

People pay a lot of attention to things their managers say, and they NEVER FORGET things that threaten them or promise them something. Peoples' terms of employment are an irony-free and snark-free zone.

<comment><USER59> > _do not even say "I'll try to get you a raise" because then if you can't > deliver, the person will always wonder why you didn't do it. Even if what > you said wasn't a promise, it sounds like one._

But I don't really need to wonder why I didn't get a raise even if my direct manager tried to get me one and it's quite simple: upper management doesn't appreciate my work as much as my direct manager does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Seems pretty self-evident. Reminds me of that office episode where Michael pretends to fire Pam and she reacts as any normal person would expect.

</comment><comment><USER61> Great advice, also along those lines are never joking about pay or quality of work.

There will come a time when you have to talk about these things and you need the other person to take you very seriously.

</comment><comment><USER62> Absolutely, it's a power play and innappropriate.

I worked for a manager that would use "I exited his ass" as a badge of pride. That shows no respect for the person, and it also shows no due diligence and hiring, mentoring or coaching that individual.

We all have our own particular biases in how we measure our own personal success, and as leaders we also apply our biases to how we interpret other's success. As a leader who has control of someone's livelihood, you should ensure a tempered layering of (1) expectations, (2) feedback, (3) understanding, and (4) mutual understanding of fit.

No one should be surprised that they are getting fired or getting on a performance plan. The silent behavior is a tell, but it is ultimately unfair to the employee.

Bad hires do happen, but it's usually pretty clear and pretty mutual when that happens.

</comment><comment><USER63> [https://www.npr.org/transcripts/807758704](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/807758704)

> demonstrated how people are often oblivious to the power that they have over > others

Not just managers...

</comment><comment><USER64> In a broader sense, humor that punches down never really works, even if the person using it has the best intentions. The examples in the article are useful because they're clearly intended to defuse tension, not to punch down or make anyone feel bad, but it just doesn't work. It's an example of how hard it is to intuitively see things from other people's perspectives. We interpret and judge ourselves from the inside looking out, but we (and some people in particular) look way different from the outside looking in and understanding the difference is a lifelong effort.

</comment><comment><USER65> Somewhat related: I had a job once where my manager unintentionally disclosed to me that several of my colleagues didn't like me (unclear whether for valid reasons or not). I quit almost immediately, which came as quite a surprise to him, and I believe he regretted.

At another job, I had a manager put a list of (fairly spurious) complaints on paper that went to HR. He seemed rather shocked when I gave notice.

If you want to be a good manager, you really have to put yourself in the other guy's shoes and think about how they're going to feel about what you're doing.

</comment><comment><USER66> Band of Brothers:

"Never put yourself in a position where you can take from these men."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyLHIobW0HQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyLHIobW0HQ)

</comment><comment><USER67> Manager Tools has a great bit of advice from this vein, where they tell new managers to imagine that, when interacting with former peers, they have a post-it note on their foreheads with the words "I can fire you". Gimmicky, but makes the point that the power dynamic has shifted, and it's there even if you try not to recognise it.

No affiliation and it is a bit dogmatic, but it's a great podcast: [https://www.manager-tools.com/](https://www.manager-tools.com/)

</comment><comment><USER68> Right out of the Michael Scott playbook [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtVMuDYD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtVMuDYD8)

</comment><comment><USER69> Never joke about firing people, but don't hesitate to do it. That is the complete advice.

Joking about firing people never brought anything good; firing people when needed, that is essential for organizations. There is a lengthy explanation in this: "Why our generals were more successful in World War II than in Korea, Vietnam or Iraq/Afghanistan" ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE))

</comment><comment><USER70> How about we extend this to sarcasm in general. It's super easy to not understand when to take sarcasm seriously, especially if you have team members on the autism spectrum. Furthermore, sarcasm is often rooted in negative feelings about yourself or others. It's just generally a poor communication tool, which is tolerable if you're a worker making gallows humor with other workers, but way too easily misunderstood if you're not on the bottom of the hierarchy.

</comment><comment> daniel-thompson In general, internally-directed sarcasm is not a trait that people greatly respect in leaders.

</comment><comment><USER59> I imagine this is less of a thing in countries where you need just cause to fire people.

<comment><USER71> No, they coerce you into leaving yourself in these countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Oh haha, memories.

We had a co-founder who pulled an "April 2nd" joke about 1/3 of the team being let go because of a non-poaching agreement between their old publisher and the studio. Kept it going for about 15 minutes until he finally let on that it was a joke.

They got him back pretty good, stuck an annoy-a-tron in his office for ~6 months. We'd all deny hearing it when it chirped in meetings or during standup.

<comment><USER73> Ok that sounds like a really funny company to work at

<comment><USER74> Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20community%20identity&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Even if you're not a manager, do not underestimate your position. I'm on a small team (<10 devs, <50 employees total) and I'm one of the longest tenured employees and wear just about every hat possible at the company. I am not a manager and I report to the same person every other developer does. I also do not have the authority to fire someone and have never once suggested we do it. But I have a heavy influence on the direction of our team and company, am involved in the hiring process, handle most of our development rule and workflow decisions, etc. Just because I can't fire anyone, doesn't mean other people know that.

A few years ago, back before I had even half my current responsibilities, I was sitting with one of the other devs trying to figure out a bug that made it into production and they asked "How bad is it?" and I offhandedly/sarcastically said "You're going to need a new job" without even looking at them. At that point, those kinds of things were pretty commonly said by devs to one another. But a few hours later, I got a frantic message on Slack asking if they had been fired. They had apparently spent the last 3 hours in a state of high tension thinking they'd be fired by EOD. At that point, I realized my role was ambiguous enough that I couldn't joke about it anymore.

And if you're in a position like me where you have a lot of responsibilities and influence, you need to be aware of how you interact with other teams too. I've had instances where I've gone over to talk to someone in marketing about something and they jokingly ask "What I'd do this time?" and I'll respond with "You're in trouble" and immediately go into what I wanted to talk about, which in most cases is a greeting you'd ignore as obviously ridiculous, especially when followed up with me asking questions about how to best optimize something to help you do your job. But I've had it happen more times than I care to admit where they'll interrupt me a few seconds later and ask if they're going to be fired.

Moral of the story: If you are at any elevated position, never joke about someone losing their job. It might seem okay when you're moreorless equals in the hierarchy, but it causes undue amounts of stress for others when you aren't (even when you have no authority over their job). It's just not worth the stress for them and doesn't help your relationship with them either.

</comment><comment><USER76> The joking dynamic depends a lot on whether we are talking about technical leadership versus line management, a distinction that occurs in some matrix- structured organisations. I.e., where people are grouped into resource teams for admin reasons and are separately deployed to projects. So an individual will generally have at least two people who can 'tell them what to do', namely his line manager (who might hassle them to complete training, performance reviews, etc) and the tech lead of the project(s) to which they are assigned.

Before retiring I was a tech lead for multiple projects over three decades, so was used to having a 'leader' relationship with many of my colleagues, some of whom were good friends. But for a two year period I took up line management responsibilities for the resource team of grey beards I belonged to. This was much, much more stressful than the tech leading. Not because of having to fire them but because I was now the corporate voice who had to explain why they weren't getting a good pay rise, again. Most of them knew it was my role and not me so didn't take it personally but in one case it completely destroyed a friendship with one of my team who was particularly bitter about certain issues.

In terms of 'joking about firing people' – my close friends in the group and I evolved a protocol whereby conversation that took place on our regular lunchtime walks was deemed to be 'normal me' speaking as opposed to 'management-me', and where I could share jokes. The only exception to this stays-in-Vegas rule was with one guy who was a known joker: I made a 'management sign' that had 'No!' printed on one side and 'Stop!' on the other. This was used fairly often and was viewed positively, especially when the individual concerned was being particularly distracting in the open plan office. It also humanised the management role, especially with my friends who knew that I was not a corporate clone.

</comment><comment><USER77> ... Huh. I would have thought this was too obvious to need saying, really. I'm kind of amazed that anyone would do this.

</comment><comment><USER78> A similar mistake is to include your reports in speculation about potential termination of yourself. Especially if they are "The Talent", and you are not so much. I had a non-technical manager (sales background, and probably not bad at it, actually) who somehow ended up in charge of a crack engineering team as part of a re-org. When things were going badly with upper-management, she'd go with "Our heads are all on the chopping block together! You'd better perform or else!" This happened several times. Meanwhile, we were all thinking "Nope. It's just your head on the chopping block, friend." She was gone in a year.

Edit: I should say that the "we" above was the senior engineers. There were some more junior team members who were quite terrified by this speech, until we explained to them how talent (usually) works.

</comment><comment><USER79> If you had to fire individuals in the past or 80% of your department due to economic reasons (what to tell people if they ask 'why me?') then you wouldn't joke about it. It's not fun. Obviously not for the person 'fired' but also not for a manager - at least not for me.

</comment><comment><USER80> I grew up believing having thick skin was really important. I took this to heart, and now nothing phases me (and I've been in a variety of nasty situations that confirmed this).

I realize this is not the norm, but I wish it was. Avoiding trigger words and peoples' sensitivities is frustrating and further complicates complex discussions. I'm not saying we should be robots. I still have feelings. If someone I love shows me that I've let them down, I feel absolutely terrible.

Thick skin + freedom of speech (but not freedom of information or freedom to shout) + people being generally genuinely respectful (as in tough-love) = a pretty good civilization in my eyes

Buuut I accept we live in a world with sensitive people and as such must continue to be considerate of their feelings. At least it's not illegal to trigger people!

<comment><USER10> Thick skin is a fantastic skill to develop in yourself and others.

Amusing yourself by testing how thick other people's skin is not.

Legal doesn't equal good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Also, don't talk shit about my colleagues behind their back.

</comment><comment><USER82> I just have this joke done to me, at my new company, on my 2nd week, just a while ago. I hid my feelings well, but that second and since then, my bond with my company reduced to half.

I don't have much opportunities around because it's a small city and because of COVID, so I kept shut.

</comment><comment><USER83> No matches for the words 'shirt' or 'tie' or 'dress' in any of the comments.

This probably means nothing to anyone here but it used to be auspicious for people promoted into management to actually dress the part not out of prideful superiority but modesty and respect and and acknowledgement of this duty and responsibility.

Think of it as a flag in software.

A lot of the conversations we have are already on the wrong level when it's a manager in jeans looking like it's his day off but what would anyone know about this when comfort reigns supreme and we're all at best only half invested in anything we do professionally.

If you plan to down vote this rather than doing it in the silent way, put a reasoning for your action or move on.

</comment><comment><USER84> The damaging feelings a joke about firing someone can cause complex team dynamics issues.

If anyone is unfortunate enough to be in this situation it's important to recognize its normal to feel <insert any feeling> because feels are always legitimate. If comfortable, you should ask to listen to your peers thoughts and feelings to get a deeper understanding of the jokes effects.

Together, you could provide direct feedback to the manager of "when you said <insert joke> that made me feel <inser feeling>. I wish in the future you <insert desired action>". Hopefully they accept the feedback and you can monitor their actions going forward, if they don't accept... we don't have the ability to control people, but you can be on the same page.

</comment><comment><USER85> This also holds true for the more general case: be very very careful with jokes, especially sarcastic ones, whenever there is any kind of power differential. The response really is very different than from an equal peer. Just think how these come across from a colleague or from your boss:

"Who created this piece of crap? Haha!" "Well, I guess you will have to wake up earlier to finish it haha" "Calling it a day already today?" "Oh yeah this is pretty much the quality I expect from you haha"

Humour can be a very powerful tool in a leader's toolbox but it takes a really really good relationship and a culture of emotional safety to work. When in doubt I'd always play it safe.

</comment><comment><USER86> Another one is never fire anyone who is not on a CAP plan of some sort. Unless of course, they do the bad stuff. That way everyone who is not on a CAP plan knows that they are doing fine, and don't suffer the anxiety that arises from inevitable ambiguity.

</comment><comment><USER87> Advice to New Policemen: Don't Joke About Shooting People

Reminds me of Manwhohasitall

[https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall/status/125901549630264524...](https://twitter.com/manwhohasitall/status/1259015496302645249)

</comment><comment><USER41> Another advice - don't criticize your employee in front of others. Whatever you have to say leave to 1:1. I once had a manager who criticized employees in stand-ups in front of the team if they didn't finish something they were supposed to.

</comment><comment><USER88> So much drama. If a manager in your org can fire good-standing employees on a whim without scrutiny from the rest of the org, quit now. In any other org, go ahead and joke with your buddies, people need the icebreakers. Just maybe not more than once.

</comment><comment><USER89> Leadership Strategy and Tactics by Jocko Willink has a great chapter about how to act when you became a manager of your former peers. Joking around is definitely not the way to go to establish yourself as a leader.

</comment><comment><USER90> > "They try to break the tension with self deprecation and poking fun at the > newfound responsibility. That 'haha I'm the bureaucrat now what a joke this > is' attitude"

this bit is more insightful than the title. there was even a _friends_ (and many others) episode about this.

the power imbalance is a real concern, and makes the concerns and empathies complicated, but as with all relational issues, it goes both ways. be understanding both ways. be resilient both ways. it doesn't mean cut off and throw away a piece of your soul to fit the ideal of corporate sterility.

</comment><comment><USER91> I would stay away from the kinds of places where this conversation even needs to be had in the first place. This type of antagonizing behavior is unprofessional and unsuitable in any industry. This is the sort of thing you should have figured out by the time you got out of college if you were paying attention.

On HN, I would much rather see headlines regarding "How I improved the daily grind of my direct reports" rather than what is effectively "please dont set the office on fire, that is naughty".

</comment><comment><USER92> Don't joke about firing people. Don't joke about using a certain tech or infrastructure because it lets you hire cheaper people. Don't joke about people's housing or what car they own. Don't joke about how people don't have options to go work somewhere else. Don't say to your employee, "let's meet first thing on Monday morning" on a Friday afternoon without being explicit that it's nothing dire.

Don't. You have enormous power over people's lives. Act like it.

</comment><comment><USER93> You are not truly a manager until you lay-off or fire someone "face to face". I knew a manager who would not do the difficult task of laying off someone. I kind of lost respect for them.

</comment><comment><USER94> I would generalize this as don't gossip or speak negatively about other team members.

When you talk to your staff, assume that whatever they hear about another dev, they are thinking about themselves. If you say "so and so is slow", they will possibly worry you think that about them.

There is room for getting feedback among members. Like "I noticed so and so had challenges shipping X on time, what do you think was the cause?" – this is subject-focused, impersonal and helps with growth

</comment><comment><USER95> I've had a manager who made it work. It was deliberately a running joke, it was one of a family of running jokes with similar delivery techniques, it was never aimed at any new hires, and most of this manager's direct reports "fired" him as well, on a regular basis.

It is reasonable to regard even this particular situation with caution, but I mention it anyway, to highlight the patterns that did make it work, that you can regard the absence of these patterns in your own situation.

</comment><comment><USER96> People must have had some bad managers if this needed saying. You'd never joke about someones work or work status, this seems obvious to me. Sad that it's not. :/

</comment><comment><USER97> > When people get promoted to manager their former peers become direct > reports. It's awkward.

This is why in, for example, retail, you will see people promoted, but to another location.

</comment><comment><USER98> My new manager did this to me recently in a group meeting. Luckily, I have a thick skin and I'm sure he was just awkwardly trying to fit in.

</comment><comment><USER99> I think a good parallel would be how would you feel as a manager if your employee jokes about quitting to go get more money somewhere else?

<comment><USER100> That's not a good parallel at all, the manager still has the real power and can fire/PIP the employee for making that joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> I find the responses to this interesting; several mangers have made some jokes like this over the years (it was even something of a running joke with my last one) and I never felt threatened. Perhaps because in my country you have employment protection laws so you can't just terminate someone's employment, which is rather different from many US states.

</comment><comment><USER102> My first job had drunken happy hours complete with fake firings by the Director of Engineering. I thought it was hilarious at the time; now it's just one more thing I wish I hadn't had to unlearn. I definitely regret all of the times I defended this kind of behavior.

And then stepping back... it's super common to joke about violence, too.

</comment><comment><USER103> This is great advice. It is cast in the first sentence as narrow advice, and in some ways it is. In the last paragraph though, it is illustrated that the advice generalizes incredibly well, and that's the part that sticks with me. Recognize the power your words carry, be empathetic to how those affect people.

</comment><comment><USER104> Another thing every Manager should know about perceived power vs actual power. Considerable managers i have encountered think they are the loyal employees where as programmers are sellout's who switch when the get better offer. This is true to some degree but that does not give more power to the managers.

</comment><comment><USER105> Yes. Same thing about joking about people's future raises. There's an enormous power imbalance in managing people.

</comment><comment><USER106> I'll also add "don't joke about pay".

Also, don't even speculate about pay. There are only the hard finalized numbers, and that's it. Anything you suggest will be interpreted as finalized, and they will be very angry when you break this "promise" that you made to them.

</comment><comment><USER107> This feels like the sort of idiot behaviour that makes sense where you don't need to bother correcting it because it's just an indicator that you're also going to get a cluster of other associated behaviours.

It's better they just do this and you take the red flag and go somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER108> The April fool's joke at my last job was, "we got bought, so, move to Colorado or lose your job!"

Hilarious.

<comment><USER59> Because of the COVID-19 situation, HR asked people if they were willing to take a voluntary pay cut this year. Unfortunately it was very badly timed as they decided to ask it on April first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> Definitely don't joke about it - but people should be aware that poor performance or behavior won't be tolerated. The best employees generally appreciate that meritocracy is taken seriously.

Along those lines, advice to new managers: you should let people go if there isn't a good mutual fit.

</comment><comment><USER110> Don't be an asshole. Don't abuse your power.

Seems like it would be obvious, but for many shitty people, the above two things are seen as _perks_ of being a manager. Even more of a problem is people hiring managers sometimes look for those traits on purpose.

There are so many shitty managers.

</comment><comment><USER111> If you're an executive don't joke "That's why they pay me the big bucks".

</comment><comment><USER112> Oof; while not a manager, I have made the joke to various people who were peers in terms of job description, but I had been at the company for years while they had only been there for months. They took it as intended though, I've always been the clown type.

</comment><comment><USER113> My last job featured a chatbot with a !fire <blah> command that will summarily inform the channel that blah has been fired, for the nth time, and manager that commonly used it on people as much as software or servers.

</comment><comment><USER114> My rule when I was managing people was a bit wider: no joke about hierarchy at all. We don't ignore that I'm the boss, we can talk about it, but I would never joke about it. And it was sometimes hard.

</comment><comment><USER115> Also worth nothing: managers often can't actually fire their direct reports. Managers may have to go up reporting chains and possibly HR for that.

It's a terrible joke, nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER116> Never joke about firing people.

It's much better to joke about running out of funding. Knowing that everyone will lose their jobs together builds a sense of community and shared mission.

</comment><comment><USER117> Sadly some companies joke with firing people. For example, announcing layoffs soon but delay actual execution by weeks. So people actually resigned by pure stress.

</comment><comment><USER118> Something along similar lines I've heard is "nobody's quit because our tooling is bad, so I don't think we should improve our tooling".

</comment><comment><USER119> Almost every org I have worked for in the last 20 years - (across the globe) - I have heard this from atleast one senior management. In some way or form.

</comment><comment> mark-r How about "You're lucky I'm a nice guy, someone else might consider that a firing offense." Does that cross the line?

<comment><USER120> That statement still implies something like "a not-so-improbable interpretation of that event might mean you will be fired".

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> The broader issue is about having respect for others.

If we all followed the golden rule, all the time, we could find this planet is a paradise.

</comment><comment><USER122> Listen to your team and be their advocate.

</comment><comment><USER123> My old manager used to joke about firing someone seemingly every other day. Was really frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER124> that really needs to be advised though? I remember trying to introduce "the office" to my parents and dying of embarrassment cause one of the first jokes is Michael jokingly firing Pam. I was a lot simpler when I watched that show.

</comment><comment><USER125> Does... Does this really need to be said, it seems like a pretty obvious rule to me.

</comment><comment><USER126> Conversely, do make jokes that lift people up and make them look and feel good.

</comment><comment><USER127> If Michael Scott was known for it you probably shouldn't do it.

</comment><comment><USER128> This is sound advice...almost to the point of staggeringly obvious.

</comment><comment><USER129> Two things for everyone to never joke about: firing & divorce.

</comment><comment><USER130> JFC... Yeah, don't joke about structural things as a manager.

</comment><comment><USER131> Flip side is also true.

Joking about quitting is a terrible thing to do.

<comment><USER132> Not when you can get a better job in another place

</comment></comment><comment><USER133> "With power comes great responsibility"

</comment><comment><USER134> Uhh, isn't this dead obvious?

</comment><comment><USER3> It is good advice, but it is not very common for newly promoted managers to have full hiring/firing power.

<comment><USER96> This could be extended to "not make jokes about someones work / work status when you're their manager" .

</comment></comment><comment><USER135> This is why I left my last employer, and they acted absolutely shocked when I referenced it in my exit interview.

My manager was absolutely obsessed with KPIs and would every month review our team's numbers. My numbers were always exceptional, and in terms of overall team rankings I was almost always number 1. Regardless, she would find the one metric in which I fell below average (usually only one KPI was below average while the remaining 15 or so KPIs were above average) and tell me that I had to get my act together "if I wanted to keep my job".

I once decided respond to and challenge this threat, and she just lectured me about working in an at-will state, and even had the nerve to wink at me before asking me to leave her office. The quote I took away from her reply that day was "you have nothing to worry about as long as you do your job well".

It was after this meeting that I began aggressively putting out my resume and applying for jobs. I found a better job with higher pay and better benefits in less than a month.

A week after putting in my 2-week notice I had an exit interview in which they asked me why I started looking for new jobs, and why I had never talked to them about my lack of satisfaction working there. They told me it was "very odd" for someone to leave without warning, and said that they regretted that there was never a conversation in which they could have "retained my talent".

I told them that being threatened by my manager with termination every month and never once being praised for my high performance had motivated me to find a job that offered better job satisfaction and security. You would have thought I kicked a puppy from the reaction I got from the leaders. My manager immediately started with a "I NEVER threatened to fire you!". The CEO just shook his head. He didn't say much, but I do remember being told "this is a risk you take in the working world" like I was upset about the possibility of being fired rather than the regular verbal threats of it.

I countered by explaining that "if you want to keep your job" includes an implicit threat of termination, and that hearing this threat when your numbers are above average is demoralizing and makes it feel impossible to do a satisfactory job in the eyes of management. My manager responded with "I say those things hoping that it will motivate you and the rest of your team into doing a better job! I've always been on your side!".

My response was simple: "You did motivate me... To GET a better job. I was already doing a great job, this place just didn't recognize it". That was the end of the exit interview.

Two days later, they were begging me to stay for another MONTH because "nobody knows how to do your job". I suppose they should have thought about that before they made my employment a bargaining chip...

</comment><comment><USER31> Just new managers?

</comment><comment><USER132> This is another example of the trend in the 21st Century, people being so easily offended.

<comment><USER136> That's really what you took from this? Is it possible in your mind there may be _some_ usefulness from the admonition to new managers in the blog post in treating people with bare minimum decency in not joking about firing them, even if one were to frame it differently, or is this what you've decided is the only possible takeaway here? That people are easily offended?

I'm not offended by the comment, just kind of amused someone went this far out of their way to miss the point.

<comment><USER132> What you need to understand is that cultures are different, if I have a manager that doesn't get close to employees being friendly and joking even with black humour my co-workers are going to talk behind saying he is dull and unfriendly.

But probably you are american and you don't even get irony nor sarcasm, you see, a joke ;)

And my point still stands, in 21st century people is getting so easily offended like if we are all now mentally weaker.

<comment><USER136> I understand quite well the nuances that exist from one culture to the next, but I still feel the need to stand by my point and agree with the author: if you're a manager, maybe don't joke around about terminating people from their jobs-even in jest we don't know what mental faculties that kind of "joke" will activate in the recipients mind and it's best to just eschew these comments altogether because it's just prudent and decent behavior for someone looked to as a _leader_ , and leaders don't actively or deliberately make commentary that stigmatize those under their ward.

So on the one hand, sure, cultures are different between workplaces and industries, on the other hand, I really don't need anyone making smarmy assessment about my nationality or making insinuations about people of my nationality and our ability to comprehend irony and sarcasm to empathetically intuit the point made in the article.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The greatest Google Mail feature you may not be using - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2012/11/the-greatest-google-mail-feature-you.html <comment><USER2> I do use this feature -- I often select random blocks of text while reading. This feature means I often (5-10% of the time) have to click discard and then reply again to get my desired behavior.

In related news nytimes.com used to have a similar feature where the definition of words would pop up when you selected them. It basically caused me to stop reading their site.

<comment><USER3> Oh my that NYT feature drove me nuts. Not only does it mess with us habitual selectors but it is basically hidden from the users who need it most, those not savy enough to select-right-click-search-on-google a word they don't understand.

<comment><USER4> > habitual selectors

Ah, my condition has a name. All it needs now is a support group. My case become terminal when I discovered three finger drag on OSX.

HN is a particularly good site to do it on because of the little lines and gaps that appear between selected blocks of comments. You can get a very satisfying 'pop' of a multi-comment selection springing from a single one if you move your mouse just a bit while dragging over the gap between one comment and the next.

<comment><USER5> Curious... Why are you selecting? Is it to assist in reading, or some other reason?

<comment><USER6> I often select text so that I have an easy visual reference when I'm scrolling down. I don't want to scroll too far!

<comment><USER7> I do exactly the same. For me it's not really _selection reading_ , but _selection marking, when scrolling_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The greatest gmail feature you're not using is probably "Undo Send", if you're not already using it. I have it set to the longest possible timeout of 30 secs, and would like an even higher value.

<comment><USER9> That feature has saved me a couple times. As has the "I see you mentioned an attachment, but there is nothing attached" feature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The greatest feature for me is Send and Archive: [http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-in-labs-send- archi...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-in-labs-send-archive.html)

<comment><USER11> That is in fact a brilliant feature, but the one I like the most is the sending undoing, saved me lots of times.

BTW, are you the Google Matt Cutts?

<comment><USER12> Yes he is.

<comment><USER11> Thanks! It's actually pretty amazing that in this day and age you interact quite closely to a lot of pretty influential people that some years ago, the equivalent would have been completely un-reachable.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. HN is surprisingly full of important hackers. The "Internet famous."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a horrible misfeature.

Often, I select bits of an email, to copy and paste elsewhere to check things. Then I hit reply, and wonder why only the currently selected text is there.

There should be a way to turn this "feature" off.

<comment><USER14> Thunderbird does the same thing and I agree with you. I've learned to just hit reply, then edit.

<comment><USER15> mail.app on OS X also does this ( can be turned off i think ) and its always a similar annoyance to me ( select something to copy paste and the reply only has that)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This feature is also present in Apple Mail, which is fortunate because ever since Apple Mail caught up to Gmail's last remaining interface enhancement (having an "archive" button), the greatest Gmail feature _I_ use is IMAP access.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow, great, a condescending title! Fact is, I _am_ using this. It used to be in the settings, I think, which is how I found out about it. And as others have stated, it's in a lot of mail clients. Apple Mail supports this, as does the iOS mail app, too.

"I haven't heard of this feature" != "no one knows about this feature".

<comment><USER18> Wow, I gave jgc credit for the non-obnoxious title, and then I realized that the title is obnoxious, but the HN gods improved it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, that is a better title. I've changed the post title to match the HN title.

<comment><USER19> So, for posterity's sake, the original title was...?

<comment><AUTHOR> The greatest Google Mail feature you are not using

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In a related note, I hate how Google promotes top posting even when I select a specific quote.

<comment><USER21> What's wrong with top-posting? (I've using email since the 90s, and at some point I realized I only disliked top-posting because of its cultural significance--I now prefer it for its functional advantages.)

<comment><USER22> There's no big difference if the quoted part is small enough and you're replying in one go (although I'd argue that even there it breaks the historic flow of the conversation).

It is a big of a hassle if you want to reply to parts of the original post, Usenet-style (y'know, before "Usenet" meant "less traceable file sharing"). There having the answer atop of each single paragraph you're responding to is seriously weird, it's like playing Jeopardy with email.

Never mind that breaking up quoted text into parts is pretty buggy with gmail, due to the absence of quote chars (replaced by those colored bars).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's interesting. Thunderbird has been doing this for a while, and I love it.

<comment><USER24> Same for Apple Mail.

I definitely don't love it:

1\. I'm one of those serial overliners which will randomly select text and paragraphs while reading, so half the time I end up with a completely useless piece of quoted text.

2\. I craft mail responses by quoting all the original mail, interspersing responses and cutting the stuff I don't care for afterwards, very rarely do I only need to quote a single contiguous block of text without _anything_ else, unless the single contiguous block of text is "all of the original mail" anyway.

<comment><USER25> In apple mail you can actually turn this off! (Settings, bottom of the composing tab.)

\- another selection reader

<comment><USER26> As someone who always has to close the original reply, deselect the text and hit reply again, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That's neat. I used to cut down emails by means of ctrl-K in my browser, which, being mapped to emacs keys, means "delete this line". However, in their brand new email compose thing, Google has seen fit to override this, making that key combination point to "make a hyperlink" or some such BS, causing me much, much frustration. Yes, I know, you can still utilize the old way of doing things... but for how long until they decide that it's simply got to go and it's time for you to upgrade.

I guess RMS has a point.

<comment><USER28> Why aren't we able to rebind these keys at will? Why is it hardcoded?

We've been able to rebind keys in videogames for a long time. Why can't we rebind ctrl+o to be cut, ctrl+t to be undo, and ctrl+k to be "delete this line"?

Why can't we have ctrl+v be one clipboard and ctrl+f be a different one?

<comment><USER29> Web developers are in the process of re-inventing everything that the desktop solved in the 90s. Meanwhile, the desktop is in the process of destroying everything it solved in the 90s. Ah, progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm confused why this is on the top of the front page.

<comment><USER31> I'm guessing that a lot of HNers spend a lot of time in their Gmail account, and that this functionality (which was news to me) was perceived as a significant time saver and judged to be worth sharing with the rest of the community.

<comment><USER30> I guess i just knew about it already and didnt find it ground breaking enough to be on the front page.. but hey, your reason makes sense and i dont have to agree with everything. =P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> That's a feature in Mail.app, too. Does that mean I should write a blog post about it? Will it get to the front page of Hacker News? Will it get to the top? What if I say it's the best feature you're not using on Mail.app? I'd be wrong, but people would still go to my site, right?

I honestly think HN should be doing more about linkbait like this.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's the one feature I hate.

I usually read through emails highlighting (selecting) the important parts with the mouse. So when I hit "R", Gmail quotes only my last selection. Discard, unselect, hit R again.

</comment><comment><USER34> A great Gmail feature that a lot of people don't use is "Send & Archive". It's very useful for keeping a clean inbox.

</comment><comment><USER35> I just realized that this feature also exists in Outlook, which explains why many of my replies have strange quotes. I often highlight a user id or URL to copy for further investigation, then hit reply only to be confused by the condensed quote in the reply window. Now it makes sense :)

</comment><comment><USER36> The greatest Google Mail feature you're not using is definitely Forward All. Forward an entire thread of emails, in chronological order, somewhere.

<comment><USER37> Is this a lab? The only option I have available is "Forward".

<comment><USER36> It's in the More dropdown.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Most mail clients seem to do this (maybe not so many web-based ones). Gmail has the problem of creating Tofu:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-posting#Top-posting>

<comment><USER39> Does anyone care about top posting any more? I feel like I haven't heard the term since my newsgroup days.

<comment><USER40> I bottom-post all the time when emailing certain (tech-savvy) individuals. Makes it much easier to reply point-by-point.

However, bottom-posting's value is lost on the vast majority of people, so I don't bother unless it's someone I know will appreciate it.

<comment><USER41> I can't be sure, but I suspect that what you are calling top-posting is the opposite. Top-posting refers to the sloppy practice of just pasting your reply ("posting") on "top" of the entire quoted email, rather than quoting selectively and replying point-by-point, as you're supposed to do.

<comment><USER40> Woops, my bad. I meant to write "bottom-posting".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Wow, it's a slow news day on HN today.

Here is the email feature I want. If I paste a URL that looks like a post/article into a new message, I want the slug automagically split, title cased and copied into the subject line.

For example:

        http://blog.jgc.org/2012/11/the-greatest-google-mail-feature-you.html

Would generate this subject:

        The Greatest Google Mail Feature You

Yes, this was a bad example because the title has been truncated, but I can fill in the rest manually. Most slugs contain the full title.

<comment><USER43> Or they could just do what Facebook does and load the page server-side and get the real title.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, that would be the ideal strategy for pages with an og:title tag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I love this feature, and have been using it for a while.

Off topic, but a similar feature exists in Pinboard (<https://pinboard.in>). You can select some text on the page before clicking bookmark, and that gets set as the description of the page in the bookmark. It's a pretty handy feature if the page title is not enough to describe what the page is about.

</comment><comment><USER45> To turn this off in Mail.app: Preferences | Composing | Responding | "When quoting text in replies"... "Include all the original message text"

</comment><comment><USER46> So does Apple Mail. So, when I used that feature in Gmail, I wasn't really surprised and actually expected it to be there.

Similarly, BufferApp post with the selected text instead of the title.

This is indeed a good UX feature and people should use this where it make sense - select text and put it in context with the next action.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'd like Gmail to do better as an email client confirming to standards. If someone sends me an email with the Resent-{From,To,...} headers then I want them shown to me. How can I forward an email as a message/rfc822 MIME content- type rather than a poor rough text approximation in the main body?

</comment><comment><USER48> I've been using this feature for ages, but it got _much_ worse about six months ago when the last message in a thread became automatically "focused". Now when I scroll up in a thread and select some text, the message I'm selecting text from doesn't automatically get focus. I have to click one extra time to get focus on the message I'm selecting. Even after half a year, I still forget the extra click in about 20 emails per day, making the reply go to the last message in the thread, with the entire thing quoted. To recover, I have to discard my new message, scroll back to the thing I wanted to reply to, and repeat the process. I filed a bug report in the first week, but no response and the bug remains.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've accidentally used this feature a number of times, and it drives me nuts.

The greatest feature about Gmail that not enough use is 2-factor auth (even though it is not limited to Gmail- other web-based mail services provide it); it is a pain in the arse, but after you get hacked once or twice, you'll be happy you did it. Popular Saas apps are prime targets for being hacked. It may mean they are safer, but they are also riskier to use. If you're not using 2-factor auth, you should probably not use Gmail, unless a hacker taking control of your account wouldn't bother you or your contacts.

</comment><comment><USER50> I thought most of the email clients did that already and I just checked a few which in fact don't! I'm pretty sure thunderbird does this if you want the same feature on an external application.

</comment><comment><USER51> Mail.app does this too, except that I keep using it accidentally.

</comment><comment><USER52> That's all nice and dandy, but check this out. For a few months now I've been noticing that emails from my inbox were being moved after a few days into spam, without any kind of warning. This happens once every two weeks, more or less.

We're not talking about false positives, these are emails that stay in my inbox for days before being moved to the spam folder. Which basically means I need to check my spam folder every day. Trust forever lost.

<comment><USER53> Do you have keyboard shortcuts enabled?

<comment><USER52> No. What does that have to do with anything?

<comment><USER53> If you typed a stray ! in a GMail window, it would mark a conversation as spam.

<comment><USER52> It's not the case. This is much more serious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Like many, it's probably one of the first "feature" I bumped into with Gmail and that still annoys the hell out of me years later.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm pretty sure this feature is not on by default. You must turn it on in labs and then it is enabled. It's odd if that's the case because everyone posting here knows of it as if it were just part of the experience.

But I'm looking at the on/off radio button in labs in another tab right now.

</comment><comment><USER56> Great! Except lately I've come to despise ui elements that can only be discovered by accident. An easily usable and effective feature that I only find via a blog post is a feature that could use some visual feedback.

<comment><USER57> This is an unfair comment. Think about all the features gmail has that aren't buttons in the UI. Would you really like 1) Buttons for all of these 2) some pop-up or otherwise annoying message coming up for each of these features when your trying to write/read an email?

<comment><USER56> I think that's the challenge of good UI - being visually informative without overloading the user.

Subtlety is a difficult thing to achieve in any field. Silence, however, is anything but subtle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This makes a good combo with my other favorite Gmail trick: followup.cc

</comment><comment><USER59> I personally don't like that feature, for I often select a portion of the email (eg a name or an address to google it) and then when I hit reply I notice only the highlighted text remains!

</comment><comment><USER60> And I was about to say "Of course I'm not using this since I don't use gmail" but I use claws, which does this. Personally I would chuck any mouse-using client that doesn't do this.

</comment><comment><USER61> That is a cool feature and was new to me. I liked it.

But you cann't reply to two different selections together. Probably because none of the browsers allow controlled selection using CTRL key.

</comment><comment><USER62> I often "hit" this feature by mistake because I "mark" the text I am reading. Personally I find it annoying and if I could I would disable it... any help apreciated.

</comment><comment><USER63> I tried using this feature in Apple Mail for a few weeks before turning it off because it was super annoying (I found it annoying for the same reasons mibbitier did).

<comment><USER64> Thank you for pointing out that you were able to turn this off!

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Same in Thunderbird

</comment><comment><USER66> jgrahamc - Offtopic, but usethesource.com is down.[1][2] Since it's still being linked from your blog, I assume this is unintentional and possibly went unnoticed.

[1] <http://www.usethesource.com>

[2] <http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.usethesource.com>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reminder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I hate this feature - I always select something when reading, hit reply and then find out it quoted something I randomly selected..

</comment><comment><USER68> Is this "feature" new?

All of the sudden recently I noticed a lot of single word quoted replies happening to me, and I figured it was a bug.

</comment><comment><USER69> Does anyone know of a way to select multiple passages to be quoted automatically? A control+click/drag if you will?

</comment><comment><USER70> Normally titles like this are just insipid articles of link bait, but I agree this is a handy feature. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER71> I just noticed this feature today, I kept wondering why I was replying to sections of emails!

</comment><comment><USER72> I fail to see what's so difficult about simply deleting the irrelevant text in a long email.

</comment><comment><USER73> Is there a way in GMail (and Reader) to set a unread item as read ? It drives me crazy ...

<comment><USER74> Yes, just select the emails you want and then click More...Mark as read

<comment><USER73> Yep I forgot to say "in one click" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> the issue i have with this is that it deletes all previous messages from the email thread. So if someone wants to read back through previous messages or forward the email onto someone who does - no es posible.

<comment><USER76> conversely, this is one of the main reasons i use this feature.

<comment><USER75> why would you want to delete a thread history?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Not all that useful if I want to respond to more than one quote, is it?

</comment><comment><USER78> This feature is also available in the Sparrow desktop client.

</comment><comment><USER79> i don't think i'll be using it in the future

most of my email flows like a conversation, i don't need to bring back older parts if my recipient already has them in front of him.

</comment><comment><USER80> What if I want to highlight and quote separate paragraphs?

</comment><comment><USER81> Use this all the time. Apple mail has the same feature.

</comment><comment><USER82> The Mail app on OS X has this for some time now.

</comment><comment><USER83> Don't lots of other email clients do this too?

</comment><comment><USER84> any mail client does that imo.. Mail.app too

</comment><comment><USER85> AOL had this feature in the mid-90s

</comment><comment><USER86> _If you select an area of a message and then hit Reply only the selected text will be quoted in the response._

</comment><comment><USER87> I have been using it since...

</comment><comment><USER88> My favorite feature is Mute.

</comment><comment><USER89> Another useful feature you may not be using is the Priority Inbox.

No, wait. I'm lying. It's crap.

</comment><comment><USER90> yes, the greatest feature, that ever email clients.

</comment><comment><USER91> While we are talking about greatest features and GMail... it would be awfully nice if they would finally implement some sort of sub-string search, given it's almost 2013 and they are synonymous with searching and finding things on the internet.

It is incredibly frustrating that in order to be able to find an email I received years ago I have to figure out exactly how someone might have written a certain term in that mail. And I cannot see any excuse for not offering that feature; limit me to a few substring searches a day if resources are an issue and I don't expect fully-indexed lightning-fast results, a simple "grep", so to speak, would be just fine...but please let me search my mails properly!

<comment><USER92> Yes please :) . If a third party implements this, I might use it as well :) (I don't care how - POP3 offloading to my PC?).

Well, I'll add it to my "startup ideas" list :) .

<comment><USER93> See this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4844064>

<comment><USER92> Nice, didn't know about that feature of Opera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Best Gmail feature is "Undo Send" - period. It has saved me embarrassment countless number of times.

<comment><USER95> No contest for "Undo send"; but lets be honest; in almost all applications undoing is the most used feature.

<comment><USER94> Yeah but undoing sending something to someone as opposed to editing a text file feels like pure magic, not to mention the fact that the undo link is right up there in front of you after you have clicked Send.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> So many people in this thread are saying they highlight sections of text as they read. I don't do that, and no-one I know does that.

What is the benefit? Is it intentional, or is it a habit with no real use?

<comment><USER97> I do it in more or less the same way that I idly thumb the corner of a book I'm reading, or repeatedly open and close a pen while I'm reading code.

It's just something tactile to do while my attention is otherwise occupied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Wow!! This is fantastic.</comment>