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Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

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Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#81

Post by geebee »

watwut wrote: post #56

Disclaimer: I am women, but never stepped the foot in CA. Geography matters. I see ping pong tables and free beer as a red flag of sorts and seek workplace that is more formal. The idea is that the less it attempts to be personal/cool/cultural the less personal things (e.g. gender or peoples attitudes/biases or who-likes-who) matters and the more actual work matters. I have no stats to support this, just my guess and…

The part about ping pong and beer vs a more formal workplace is really interesting.

I've been reading more about this lately. One story that struck me was about a journalist whose newspaper was purchased by a tech company, and the culture changed. She went from having a private office to working in a huge, open office environment. I'm putting this together from memory, but I remember her talking about how strange it felt to have so many people able to see her screen, not knowing where to put her bag if she wasn't at her desk watching it, and having to take it with her to the bathroom (feeling somewhat self conscious about how her more frequent trips appeared to her younger, generally male coworkers).

I'm starting to think that there's something more insidious going on with an almost aggressively enforced "open office" culture in high tech. I also think tech is starting - but just barely - to wake up to the the value of the formality that we discarded and disdained.

I'm really mainly interested in hearing more from you on this, if you're interested in writing more about it.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#83

Post by eof »

tptacek wrote: post #70
eof wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being concerned is not the same thing as acting from the assumption that everywhere is fucked and finding non-toxic culture is like a needle in a haystack.

My point, which I made a little snarkily, is that these aggressive responses to the concern, which judge the concerned person simply for asking the question, are part of what creates the perception that SFBA is hostile.

Hrm, I don't see it quite the same. OP is not from SF. I am also not from SF and find the OP's slant on the issue to be characteristic of a victim trope which doesn't reflect reality (through my subjective experience). I don't know the OP from anyone, so would not expend energy attacking the OP (as others have done in this thread), but that doesn't mean the slant itself isn't worth calling out.

In my experience working with both men and women, those that find the most problems and find the most toxic environments are themselves the truly toxic ones; conflating personality conflicts with outright bigotry or special treatment as equality.

Again, I am not claiming this is what hte OP is doing here, and I don't see a point in accusing her of it; but the language and air of the post definitely suggests to me there is a real possibility that is what is going on.

It's a real trigger issue for many men who are sick of being told they are the problem; which doesn't excuse the overly-aggressive responses, but to me, does explain them.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#84

Post by [deleted] »

mariani wrote: post #65
cbanek wrote: post #33

Woman in high pressure tech here. First, the most important person is your direct manager. Ask recruiters specifically "did I meet with the person I'd be reporting to? If not I would like to meet them." This is the most key person, and if they are not your ally, no matter what the rest of the company thinks, you are sunk. Ask about other women at the company, or if the team has had women but they've left. If they thi…

+1 direct manager importance

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#85

Post by maerF0x0 »

emmab wrote: post #5
maerF0x0 wrote: post #2

If you feel you're underpaid, I encourage you to negotiate aggressively for what you feel you're worth. Amazon is full of resources to help you with that. As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will more or less tell you if you will fit in or not.

> As for culture, I'd say just ask. Ask what the team does for fun. That will more or less tell you if you will fit in or not. How will that tell you if they are accepting of e.g. non-binary people?

Look for diversity in activities (ex: If all the examples include alcohol, i doubt they're very family friendly).

Some environments will say something like "Not much" IMO its a good sign too, because that means people are free to do whatever they want and probably clock in and clock out and leave their personal lives at home. IMO thats a good environment for diversity because the focus is on just performing, not on "Are you like me?" .

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#86

Post by watwut »

fwefwwfe wrote: post #32
Symbiote wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Plenty of people like to keep a separation between work and a social or family life. My employer has an outing once per year, but little else -- most staff either have a young family to go home to, or a social life outside work. [NB: European in Europe here.]

You never have team lunches? "a social life outside work" wouldn't stop you from having beer with the team or part of the team once every week or two. And I just said a red flag. If it looks like it's more "adults" on the team or more like a government job, maybe it's just fine. YMMV

One evening a two weeks is a no go for me - I have small hobbies I don't want to give up (sport to be healthy and little craft), I have long term friends I want to meet with occasionally occasionally and most importantly I have a family.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#87

Post by dang »

metaphorm wrote: post #76

what am I trying to do, exactly? Why don't you tell me again what I do think and believe, since you seem to be an expert on my mind and beliefs.

This breaks HN's civility rule. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't.

There's a second problem. You've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments. That's an abuse of the site. It's one thing to use HN as intended—i.e. to gratify intellectual curiosity—and occasionally post relevant comments on political topics when those come up. That's what most people do and it's fine. But it's different to treat HN as a platform for political battle. That's destructive of what this place is for, and we ban accounts that do it, irrespective of the politics they favor. So please stop using HN that way.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14491608 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#88

Post by metaphorm »

tptacek wrote: post #72
metaphorm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would ask you to reconsider your attitude here. There is a strong element of unfair and unfounded accusation in this thread that has basically created bad-faith dialogue here. While there may be insensitive or even overtly sexist people that comment here, your own minimization of unfair attitudes w.r.t the presence of good men with your snide hashtag reference is a serious part of the problem too.

Your sibling comment is a strong rebuttal to the parent. This comment though basically confirms the suspicion of the parent. The argument on this subthread is that you can't judge the response of the community based on the most immediate, knee-jerk comments written on a thread. What you're doing is attempting to co-opt that sentiment into rebutting the question the thread is based on.

let me now reply in more temperate and deliberate language, since this deserves discussion. I would appreciate it if when you disagree with me you attempt to discuss the disagreement with me instead of making assumptions about what I think or believe.

The OP of this thread asks women specifically how to find an employer that she might feel comfortable working at. That is a fair question, though personally I believe that toxic workplaces for women are also toxic workplaces for almost all men as well. But fine, that's not the issue. Some men have responded even though they were asked not to and some of those responses have been thoughtful and potentially useful.

In this subthread a HN moderator told a poster that they had made an unfair comment. That was refuted by another HN poster who asked the moderator to reverse his judgment because it his his responsibility as a moderator to support a particular political agenda that the other poster wants him to support.

I asked that person to reconsider their attitude because, like the moderator, I believe that there was a significant element of unfairness in this subthread and the moderator was correct to call it out because it leads to uncivil and unproductive discussions, as well as encouraging a kind of prejudicial attitude about men.

I agree with the moderator. That is the extent of my statement in this thread. In what way am I co-opting something? What am I co-opting? How does my language accomplish that, if that is what I am doing?

Maybe you will speak to your own positions here as well, since that might advance the conversation. You seem to enjoy sniping me so I don't hold out much hopes, but maybe you'll be nice. What do you think is going on here?

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#89

Post by DanBC »

munificent wrote: post #61
kazinator wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free beer is an attractor only to completely stupid people. Stupid, on multiple fronts. Firstly, even if you like beer, it's bad for your health to have daily, unfettered access to it. Secondly, it's cheap. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together puts an objective dollar value on these sorts of free perks. A beer is worth so many dollars; how many a week of them could you reasonably enjoy? You'd be stupid to be p…

> Firstly, even if you like beer, it's bad for your health to have daily, unfettered access to it. Only if you lack the maturity and self control to handle that. In my home, I have daily, unfettered access to bourbon, gin, beer, wine, tequila, and more. And, yet I am as healthy as I have ever been. Because I'm an adult and don't choose to get wasted every day simply because I can.

> Because I'm an adult and don't choose to get wasted every day simply because I can.

Negative health impacts of drinking kick in way before "wasted every day". People drinking what appear to them to be moderate amounts are sometimes drinking lots more than they should be.

Albeit, I'm talking about UK where a glass of wine after work is normal.

Re: Ask HN: Women in tech, how do you find non-toxic work environments?

#90

Post by tptacek »

eof wrote: post #83
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point, which I made a little snarkily, is that these aggressive responses to the concern, which judge the concerned person simply for asking the question, are part of what creates the perception that SFBA is hostile.

Hrm, I don't see it quite the same. OP is not from SF. I am also not from SF and find the OP's slant on the issue to be characteristic of a victim trope which doesn't reflect reality (through my subjective experience). I don't know the OP from anyone, so would not expend energy attacking the OP (as others have done in this thread), but that doesn't mean the slant itself isn't worth calling out. In my experience worki…

I don't know what to tell you. My response to someone being concerned about tech culture being inhospitable to women and people of color is sympathy. I have no trouble with this despite being a "white man in tech". If your response is to be triggered by it, all I can tell you is, that's part of what creates the perception that this is such an endemic problem.
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