Posts like these, for me, highlight the class divide. PG thinks "few people" grasp how much effort dang expends, when in reality, a whole class of people working in customer service roles expend roughly the same amount of effort. Sure, dang might be uniquely efficient, but the expenditure of effort is on the same order.
I once witnessed a Delta employee in ATL process a queue of customers, all with issues regarding their seat number. Without knowing too much about the process, it seemed to me that she took everyone's story and fixed the seating arrangement so that everyone would be seated together by group. I was impressed, but she doesn't get any applause for solving (well, approximating) an NP-complete problem, and I doubt she focused on math during her years in education, and certainly she won't think to write a blog focused on "Solving the N-passengers, K-groups problem 30 minutes before boarding time." Most importantly, she could have easily said "not my problem," but didn't.
That is anecdata but it does not stand alone. I regularly witness about 10% of customer service personnel giving it their all to represent their company and keep customers happy. They are the "dangs" of those organizations, and they keep everything running smoothly. So it would seem "few people" is not accurate. Instead it's an huge lower-middle (under)class cohort keeping capitalist dreams alive.
I think you're on to something with this. dang does a fantastic job, but not an exceedingly rare job. What's rare is a "service worker" that the tech class respects enough to observe closely and be inspired by, because his work looks similar enough to theirs.
There's a specific term (Emotional Labor) coined by service workers to describe staying even-keeled when dealing with users/customers. That term wouldn't exist if "few people" grasped how hard that part of it is.
> PG thinks "few people" grasp how much effort dang expends, when in reality, a whole class of people working in customer service roles expend roughly the same amount of effort.
PG didn’t say that no one expends more effort than dang, he said that few people grasp the effort expended in moderating HN
I'd say the tendency is to absolutely trivialise the work that goes into moderating online forums. It should be easy, right, you just click buttons while sitting at home in your pajamas, no? Well no, not really.
I think most people don't understand how difficult it is to wield power over others when you're aiming for a good community. Many commenters who complain about any form of governance don't realize what a small fraction of power is actually used, and how much more oppressive their ideas would be in practice.
> Posts like these, for me, highlight the class divide.
To start from Paul G. saying "Thank you dang, ..." and end up at "...(under)class cohort keeping capitalist dreams alive" seems like stretching a particular framework of thought past the point where it usefully describes people.
I once witnessed a Delta employee in ATL process a queue of customers, all with issues regarding their seat number. Without knowing too much about the process, it seemed to me that she took everyone's story and fixed the seating arrangement so that everyone would be seated together by group. I was impressed, but she doesn't get any applause for solving (well, approximating) an NP-complete problem, and I doubt she focused on math during her years in education, and certainly she won't think to write a blog focused on "Solving the N-passengers, K-groups problem 30 minutes before boarding time." Most importantly, she could have easily said "not my problem," but didn't.
That is anecdata but it does not stand alone. I regularly witness about 10% of customer service personnel giving it their all to represent their company and keep customers happy. They are the "dangs" of those organizations, and they keep everything running smoothly. So it would seem "few people" is not accurate. Instead it's an huge lower-middle (under)class cohort keeping capitalist dreams alive.