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Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

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Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#91

Post by untog »

toyg wrote: post #85
vertex-four wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, if a person is required to talk to you as their job, they probably don't desire it.[0] They're not in the right headspace and they get it plenty enough as it is. Similarly, if you have no idea who they are and they're not in a location (physically or online) which implies they're interested in receiving random attention, they're probably not going to be interested. Aside from that, testing boundar…

That contrasts with recent findings that some of the happiest workers are hairdressers. Guess what hairdressers do all day, while cutting hair? Chat about random stuff their customers bring up. And yes, a lot of it will be saucy, so to speak, because that's what most people are interested in. Is that customers forcing their sexuality on hairdressers? No, that's just being social "old school". Like you learn to find b…

Those hairdressers have chosen that job. Tech support people have chosen a job that is not like a hairdressing job. So I'm not sure why the rules of one would apply to another.

> The tech world, for all our declarations of being so progressive, is extremely prurient and repressed.

I disagree. I think that it is a lot more difficult to read any kind of social cue in a text-based technical support chat, and that the instinct to assume the other party wants to keep the conversation professional is sensible and prudent, not "repressed".

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#92

Post by yummyfajitas »

peterwwillis wrote: post #53
yummyfajitas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is downplaying one's looks "awful" or "doing violence to yourself"? When we wear non-practical clothes (e.g. anything besides athletic wear or comfy cargo pants), the entire purpose is to cause other humans to respond to us in a way that we find favorable. I recently purchased a slim red pants designed to convey a) that I'm a moderately creative type and b) that I have a nice ass. The net result is that I get des…

I think you and vinceguidry are really missing the point. "I, and she, would rather deal with the consequences of being really attractive than to stop." There should be no consequences to how you look, in general, but especially not the kind of consequences that women have to deal with. Some people (probably most people) don't wear clothes just to get a reaction from others. They wear clothes because they just like t…

It's not possible to know attention is unwanted until after it's given. Sometimes such attention is wanted.

I know at least two women who sometimes complain about unwanted attention from men at tech conferences and similar circumstances. On the other hand, they both slept with me within a few hours of meeting me under the exact same circumstances as a result of exactly the same type of attention. They just happened to find me attractive but other folks unattractive. This doesn't make the unattractive folks hitting on them sexist villains. It just makes me a guy blessed with virtues like being tall and having a symmetric face.

The fact that women receive more attention is solely proportional to the convention that men must approach women. Feel free to try to change that - I'm sure nerds with approach anxiety everywhere will thank you if you succeed.

Attention, wanted or unwanted, is of course always proportional to how desirable a person is. That's the cost of being beautiful. Similarly, being a hot commodity in the job market has some costs like unwanted recruiter attention, in addition to benefits like six figure salaries.

Is it really a worthwhile use of our time and attention to make life marginally better for people who are already at the top of the heap? (Not that you've actually provided any mechanism for separating wanted and unwanted attention.) Why not focus your time and attention on the folks who are really suffering - e.g., low skill workers who are barred from working in the US, or unattractive men who get laid once a year at best? Why is increasing social inequality such a priority of yours?

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#93

Post by vinceguidry »

toyg wrote: post #62
dudifordMann wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually had a rather lengthy debate about clothing with my fiance. It comes down to perspectives and social norms which may need to change to have equality. Disclaimer: I do understand that this is sociologically complex topic A woman may choose to wear what someone might consider a revealing piece of clothing for no other reason than she wants to and finds it "cute" (omitting why she has gotten to that conclusion…

I never understood that line of thought. It's like saying one should be free to shout "FIRE!" in a cinema just so that he can feel happy with himself ("hey, my shouting is terrific! I carry no responsibility for what you'll make of the words I say!"). Wearing clothes is a social act, not a personal one. That's why there are laws about it. We geeks should know, considering how we softly strong-armed entire swaths of d…

> It's like saying one should be free to shout "FIRE!" in a cinema just so that he can feel happy with himself

But the difference in media and consequences matter. When the consequences involve a stampede of people, you best believe it's a different situation than if the consequences amounted to revving up insecure guys.

> Wearing clothes is a social act, not a personal one.

It's both. Until society tells you how you have to dress all the time, then there's a social component and a personal one.

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#94

Post by vinceguidry »

yock wrote: post #33
vinceguidry wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to call it sexism. I have a female friend who gets hit on virtually constantly. She works for AT&T, and has described lines of hopefuls outside her door when she goes into the office. (she now works mostly from home) She never pays for lunch, never pays for dinner. Men offer her free trips to different countries. She really is that attractive. But women who aren't quite that attractive get hit on all the…

> She never pays for lunch, never pays for dinner. Then she's playing along at least on some level. Accepting gifts while calling them unwanted is disingenuous at best.

Never said they were unwanted.

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#95

Post by DKnoll »

untog wrote: post #91
toyg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That contrasts with recent findings that some of the happiest workers are hairdressers. Guess what hairdressers do all day, while cutting hair? Chat about random stuff their customers bring up. And yes, a lot of it will be saucy, so to speak, because that's what most people are interested in. Is that customers forcing their sexuality on hairdressers? No, that's just being social "old school". Like you learn to find b…

Those hairdressers have chosen that job. Tech support people have chosen a job that is not like a hairdressing job. So I'm not sure why the rules of one would apply to another. > The tech world, for all our declarations of being so progressive, is extremely prurient and repressed. I disagree. I think that it is a lot more difficult to read any kind of social cue in a text-based technical support chat, and that the in…

I've been working support for total 5+ years now... I think I could draw a lot of parallels with hairdressing actually.

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#96

Post by the_af »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #92
peterwwillis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you and vinceguidry are really missing the point. "I, and she, would rather deal with the consequences of being really attractive than to stop." There should be no consequences to how you look, in general, but especially not the kind of consequences that women have to deal with. Some people (probably most people) don't wear clothes just to get a reaction from others. They wear clothes because they just like t…

It's not possible to know attention is unwanted until after it's given. Sometimes such attention is wanted. I know at least two women who sometimes complain about unwanted attention from men at tech conferences and similar circumstances. On the other hand, they both slept with me within a few hours of meeting me under the exact same circumstances as a result of exactly the same type of attention . They just happened…

You more or less have to assume sexual attention is unwanted in the workplace. This is merely a default, and is sometimes the wrong assumption; the problem is that the error is more serious when you assume the attention is ok but wasn't.

"But I'm polite and I'll back off if Cute Tech Support Gal isn't uninterested" isn't enough. When multiple customers decide to hit on her, this is probably upsetting to her regardless of whether you in particular were willing to back off. Even if everyone backs off it's still upsetting. It negatively impacts her work experience. Especially if her coworker, Tech Support Guy, is not constantly flirted with and customers treat him more professionally instead.

To me it's self-evident that hitting on someone using a tech support form or chat is especially lame. We're not talking about a couple who are coworkers, go to lunch frequently, talk every day, and then something blossoms between them. I've no problem with that. Instead, this is creepy male customer behavior, which decide to abruptly hitting on a staff member just because she was a girl and they liked their tiny profile picture. This really screams "inappropriate".

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#97

Post by [deleted] »

StavrosK wrote: post #60
vertex-four wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing your sexuality on somebody else in a context other than one where they desire it is terrible, whether or not sex is a good thing in general. Sexual activity is awesome, when it's between two people who both actually want it. I think you'll find that most of the people you're vilifying agree.

> Forcing your sexuality on somebody else in a context other than one where they desire it is terrible How will you know if the other party desires it without showing your intentions?

[deleted]

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#98

Post by toyg »

untog wrote: post #91
toyg wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That contrasts with recent findings that some of the happiest workers are hairdressers. Guess what hairdressers do all day, while cutting hair? Chat about random stuff their customers bring up. And yes, a lot of it will be saucy, so to speak, because that's what most people are interested in. Is that customers forcing their sexuality on hairdressers? No, that's just being social "old school". Like you learn to find b…

Those hairdressers have chosen that job. Tech support people have chosen a job that is not like a hairdressing job. So I'm not sure why the rules of one would apply to another. > The tech world, for all our declarations of being so progressive, is extremely prurient and repressed. I disagree. I think that it is a lot more difficult to read any kind of social cue in a text-based technical support chat, and that the in…

As an ex-support guy, lemme tell ya: like most low-paying low-skills jobs, it's very rarely a vocation. It is also eminently a "people skills" job, not unlike hairdressing or waiting tables. Of course supporting developers is different from supporting Joe Sixpack, but any random bugzilla record will show how tech support without people skills is a huge bag of fail.

Btw, when talking about being repressed, i referred more to conferences and other gatherings, including twitter. We go from "SURPRISE- PORN SLIDE!" to "OMG THAT GUY CRACKED A SEXIST JOKE LETS RUIN HIS LIFE" with nothing in between. That's repression in action: since nobody is supposed to talk about it, nobody knows how to talk about it, or how to react in ways the rest of the world would find normal.

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#99

Post by yummyfajitas »

the_af wrote: post #96
yummyfajitas wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not possible to know attention is unwanted until after it's given. Sometimes such attention is wanted. I know at least two women who sometimes complain about unwanted attention from men at tech conferences and similar circumstances. On the other hand, they both slept with me within a few hours of meeting me under the exact same circumstances as a result of exactly the same type of attention . They just happened…

You more or less have to assume sexual attention is unwanted in the workplace. This is merely a default, and is sometimes the wrong assumption; the problem is that the error is more serious when you assume the attention is ok but wasn't. "But I'm polite and I'll back off if Cute Tech Support Gal isn't uninterested" isn't enough. When multiple customers decide to hit on her, this is probably upsetting to her regardles…

I agree that the people doing this are most likely low status males (aka "creepy") who we are socially programmed to dislike. In contrast, the coworker who gets the girl at work is clearly not a low status male (by virtue of getting the girl).

Do you have any principle to distinguish these cases, or are you just aligning yourself against low status people in order to raise your own status?

Re: Valentine's Day Special: Bye Bye Tinder, Flirting in the Support Channel

#100

Post by [deleted] »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #99
the_af wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You more or less have to assume sexual attention is unwanted in the workplace. This is merely a default, and is sometimes the wrong assumption; the problem is that the error is more serious when you assume the attention is ok but wasn't. "But I'm polite and I'll back off if Cute Tech Support Gal isn't uninterested" isn't enough. When multiple customers decide to hit on her, this is probably upsetting to her regardles…

I agree that the people doing this are most likely low status males (aka "creepy") who we are socially programmed to dislike. In contrast, the coworker who gets the girl at work is clearly not a low status male (by virtue of getting the girl). Do you have any principle to distinguish these cases, or are you just aligning yourself against low status people in order to raise your own status?

[deleted]
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