treedump is particularly helpful.

Even engagement with this post is suspicious tbh, and there are many accounts at the ready to counter any naysayers. It seems like an attempt to win favour with those in the tech community.

So no, I don’t need filtered lists of already-generated AI slop.

About eight years ago, I worked at a mid-sized tech company with a senior colleague—let’s call him “Dave.” He was in his early 60s, had decades of experience, and preferred “boring tech” and object-oriented programming. I was more into modern, cloud-native solutions and functional programming, which led to frequent disagreements.

We clashed a lot. Dave thought my approaches were unnecessarily complex, and I thought his ideas were outdated and inflexible. Most of our arguments happened during code reviews, and while things got heated at times, I assumed it was all part of working in a team.

I left the company after a few years. It wasn’t because of him, and I didn’t think much about those conflicts after I moved on.

A few days ago, I got a message from Dave on LinkedIn. He said he’d retired and had been diagnosed with a fast-progressing terminal illness. What stunned me was that he blamed me for it. He said the stress of working with me and dealing with my code had taken a toll on his health, ending the message with, “You shortened my life.”

Before I could respond, his account was deleted. I don’t know if he deactivated it or blocked me, but now I can’t stop replaying everything in my head.

Could I really have caused this? Can work stress lead to something like this? I always thought our arguments were just professional disagreements, but now I’m second-guessing myself. Has anyone else dealt with something like this? What do I even do with this kind of guilt?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163897

Points: 21

# Comments: 29