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Throwaway account because I don’t want this tied to me.

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 Dave thought my approaches were unnecessarily complex, and I thought his ideas were outdated and inflexible.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: 2

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Points: 1

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Points: 1

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Points: 3

# Comments: 0

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Points: 1

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163877

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163876

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163875

Points: 1

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163872

Points: 2

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163869

Points: 2

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Points: 1

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Points: 1

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163714

Points: 1

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163681

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163675

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163666

Points: 2

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163660

Points: 1

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163650

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

Article URL: https://fs.blog/changing-how-we-think/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163624

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Hello HN :)

For the last seven months, I've been working on building a highly performant Minecraft event server to break the PvP world record set by EVE Online (8825 players).

We will have a proof-of-concept event in December and likely break the world record in January. Many of the largest streamers & YouTubers are interested, so we do not believe getting players will be challenging.

I would love to talk if you think you could help us with the goal of getting this record :)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42163618

Points: 2

# Comments: 0