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Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

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Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#81

Post by jay_kyburz »

Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going.

Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all.

Perhaps we'll see workplaces where all communication is in writing and on topic.

Do we want our workplaces where people gather together as friends as they work, or do we want our workplace relationships to be strictly professional?

I think I would prefer to work in a culture where, if you don't like the people you work with, you go find a new job. You don't complain, you get over it or you leave.

(Because even telling me my jokes are offensive is a form of harassment itself.)

I don't want to work in an office where I can't make friends, tell jokes, or laugh and enjoy life. Life is too short to sit in a room full of people you dont' know, don't like, or don't care about.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#82

Post by [deleted] »

eor wrote: post #65
mthoms wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

Would you ever say that to a male colleague? Would anyone?

[deleted]

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#83

Post by dalerus »

shepardrtc wrote: post #73
mthoms wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them. Except most of the time its not from coworkers, so when it does happen in the workplace, its blatantly obvious what the underlying meaning is.

Wow, I had no idea people would interpret this as sexual harassment. I say this to both men and women on my teams that look like they are having a rough day. I'll remove that from things I say.

Edit: I don't just say "Smile", usually there is more context to the conversation and usually ends with me trying to see if I can help fix the problem(if it's work related).

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#84

Post by mc32 »

nxtrafalgar wrote: post #66
mthoms wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

Because it's generally a double standard, in that the same thing is not expected of men. It goes along with the 'women need to look attractive in the workplace' thing.

While it's true, if it were a single standard, men tend to be even more coarse toward each other, so in this case, the double standard is a bit more mellow --now, perhaps some people would just have one standard and that is their standard.

Men will get the "man up", "grow a pair", "relax", "you'll get over it", "are you gonna pussy out on me?" etc.

It's a hard problem --and unless you go for rigidity in the workplace, we're always going to have regular human issues (not company issues) permeate the workplace --be it office romance, cajoling, hijinks, etc.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#85

Post by flukus »

shepardrtc wrote: post #73
mthoms wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them. Except most of the time its not from coworkers, so when it does happen in the workplace, its blatantly obvious what the underlying meaning is.

> This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them.

I suspect these women are being hit on a lot less frequently than they think.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#86

Post by solidsnack9000 »

smnscu wrote: post #29
Blackthorn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated with American companies? Are women from other countries afraid to speak about this? Or are American women just overreacting? There's some other possibilities too, like it's worse in America than in other countries.

As someone who's spent a fair bit of time in Germany and Switzerland, lol no.

> As someone who's spent a fair bit of time in Germany and Switzerland, lol no.

I would be interested to know more about your experiences there.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#87

Post by flukus »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #81

Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going. Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. Perhaps we'll see workplaces where all communication is in writing and on topic. Do we want our workplace…

> Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all.

But not talking to someone is also sexist/racist/abelist/whatever, so you better hope you live somewhere with some interesting weather.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#88

Post by shepardrtc »

dalerus wrote: post #83
shepardrtc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them. Except most of the time its not from coworkers, so when it does happen in the workplace, its blatantly obvious what the underlying meaning is.

Wow, I had no idea people would interpret this as sexual harassment. I say this to both men and women on my teams that look like they are having a rough day. I'll remove that from things I say. Edit: I don't just say "Smile", usually there is more context to the conversation and usually ends with me trying to see if I can help fix the problem(if it's work related).

You should absolutely try to help cheer people up and fix their problems. Nothing wrong with that. But there's a difference between helping someone feel something and telling them to feel something.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#89

Post by nharada »

flukus wrote: post #67
strict9 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often are you told to smile? How do [would] you react to someone telling you what emotion to feel, much less to outwardly convey, regardless of what's actually going on inside you? It's offensive and inexcusable, regardless of gender or intent.

> It's offensive and inexcusable, regardless of gender or intent. How? It's a common everyday saying.

It's no longer a common everyday saying because it's become synonymous with the sinister sexist undertones that it implies.

It's like asking someone to "Netflix and Chill" today vs 3 years ago. At some point it may not have only meant one thing but those days have passed.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#90

Post by mc32 »

zaroth wrote: post #48

The time that I worked at Apple was brutally hard work. If we're talking about work environment, I think many people reading that article have no concept of how difficult a job it is, how high are the expectations, and how many hours the average engineer is putting in there. This is a very difficult job which can be extremely stressful for a long duration of time. As a society we tend to laud grueling hard work rathe…

Maybe it's time we rethought the work environment and did away with co-ed [co-work] working environments and had all-male and all-female campuses and put a lid on human behavior infiltrating into office environments. If people can't behave themselves as well as find commonality and compromise on acceptable behavior perhaps some colleges and universities have it right and we're better off apart.
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