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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: March 17th, 2025

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  • Yeah, I’ve heard “boss” used in prison movies and such, but I’ve also heard it in places of employment (even when the person isn’t the supervisor or boss), between customer and service worker (both directions), with strangers (“Watch your step there, boss, there’s a sudden drop”). Never saw anyone offended by it in my own experience, so it’s news to me (and good to know) that there could be groups out there that are offended by it.




  • I would recommend asking the person what they prefer, for people you know ahead of time are non-binary. For people you don’t know ahead of time, choose whichever you think is most likely, apologize if you get it wrong, and ask them afterwards what they prefer.

    Unless it is adopted widely by society, any third option will likely be met with confusion, and will still likely offend some people.

    For a suggestion of a third option, however, might I offer “boss”? Slightly more formal than chief (in my experience), gender neutral, and allows you to make it as playful or respectful as the situation needs.



  • Damnit, you’re right!

    But for real, I think you misunderstand the point of documentation. Even if something were truly, literally flawless, having documentation would still be a net gain. It isn’t only to fix something when it goes wrong, but explains how things are working. If the only way for something to be literally flawless in your world view is for it to be so self explanatory that an idiot seeing it for the first time still understands it perfectly, nothing in computing can be flawless in that way.

    The pedantry on this point is so unhelpful as to be actively harmful to the rest of the discussion.