So I had a brief phone interview with the hiring manager, Angie, to work in their Austin corporate office, and everything seemed all set. I am a good fit for the role, know the company well, and even know other people who worked in their corporate office in a web development capacity. So it seemed like a shoe-in. Then, the day of the interview, their recruiter called to tell me that they had cancelled. It was revealed to me by a rather naive recruiter, who would have better served their interests by not revealing to me the details: that the reason they cancelled the interview was because of a review I posted of RetailMeNot, which criticized their hiring practices as being discriminatory and biased against well-qualified white males. (I am not the only one who thinks this. Read all of their reviews) And they think this is going to deter me from writing bad reviews? Ha-ha! No, they get one too, now. We live in an oppressive corporatocracy, and I don't mind exposing it, even at my personal expense. The very idea that whistle-blowers could be black-listed like this really grinds my gears. It's funny to me, that some people think I should be blacklisted forever, because I dared to express, in a designated forum, an opinion that was iconoclastic to their precious ideology. That kind of thin-skinned fascism owes comparison to Trump moreso than any liberal figure. They might style themselves as Gandhi, practicing non-violent resistance to whatever politics they find distasteful, but they do so without understanding that there was a time when socialists and communists were black-listed by the conservative financial establishment, and thus, they are no better than these historical tyrants. And that's what happens when revisionists keep people from learning from history: a complete lack of self-awareness. There are two kinds of QAEs that companies typically hire: useful idiots to fill a chair, who end up mere yes-men to delicate geniuses, and critical thinkers who can actually improve the product. But if management doesn't empower QA to be the latter, I don't want to work there. And that's what I've learned in this world: there are people who will accept you for who you are, and people who will reject you for not conforming to their bland corporate standards. But that doesn't mean you should change, it only means you should keep pounding the pavement, and looking for like-minded people. Because lying to fit in will only make you miserable, and cost you the opportunity of finding a better fit. Personally, I'd rather live in a cardboard box than have to work for some California SJW like that.