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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

#231

Post by jay_kyburz »

daughart wrote: post #211
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…

The idea that you can't interact casually without risking personal offense is just a knee-jerk reaction. If restricting work conversations about personal appearance, sex, gender, race, religion, rape, etc. is equivalent to eliminating all personal interactions, your conversations must be quite impoverished. Telling you that your jokes are offensive would indeed be harassment---if you worked at a late night show or an…

Thanks for proving my point. You jumped to the assumption that I'm a racist or sexist, and you even put it in writing. Now I report you to HR, you have a black mark on your record and won't be getting your annual bonus / raise / promotion.

And hey look, perhaps I am, who can tell these days. Telling somebody to smile is sexist now apparently. "island of cannibals" is racist, but I dont know which race - all of them I guess.

Give me any topic of conversation and I'll tell you who it offends.

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

#232

Post by jay_kyburz »

norea-armozel wrote: post #167
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…

Not to be mean but there's more than "PC" at work here. For example, I don't talk much at work since I have anxiety among other things, so it's really hard to socialize even at work. But what makes it even worse is when people don't respect my personal space and try to get me to "open up" beyond doing my work. I know for some this annoying because we're social creatures but honestly I'm not. I prefer to be on topic s…

I think that attitude is perfectly fine, and hey one day you might find that you do want to go to lunch with colleagues and have a chat about the weekend.

All I'm saying is that it would be a shame if we created a work culture were that was simply not possible.

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

#233

Post by forgottenpass »

justin66 wrote: post #199
forgottenpass wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm fortunate never to have worked with the kind of people [...] who would notice I'm upset and tell me to "smile." It's not only some demanding command to modify your mood, it can be a good natured suggestion to try and keep your chin up. The person who said it to me most was my mother.

> The person who said it to me most was my mother. Wow. If you're curious as to why some view it as a condescending thing to say to a colleague you really could start there. edit: I'm surprised by your reply... only because it seems incongruous with the statement I replied to. interesting.

edit: I'm surprised by your reply... only because it seems incongruous with the statement I replied to. interesting.

Just because people were well-intentioned didn't make it any less infuriating. I've gotten it in the "cheer up" sense and the "be more presentable" sense and the "comply with norms" sense. Not a huge difference in how it feels, non family ones are a bit easier though.

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

#234

Post by forgottenpass »

daughart wrote: post #204
forgottenpass wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you feel an impulse to talk or joke about physical appearance, politics, religion, sex, gender, rape, racial issues, nationality/ethnicity, etc., just hold your tongue! Going to such extremes to guarantee never offending anyone is a great way to wind up unhappy and alone at work. It's fine if that's what you want - when I don't like talking to my coworkers in the first place I happily implement that strategy. Ch…

Don't see how it's going to extremes. I sit at a table with 6 others and manage a team of 8, have followed this for years and enjoy constant conversations and have good relationships with all my co-workers. Maybe I just have a richer personal life than others, and have plenty of other things to talk about?

Maybe I just have a richer personal life than others

Sweet humblebrag, I'm glad you've found a "rich" life that also fits into SFW standards.

I took your "etc" to mean anything potentially controversial. If you really can have fulfilling conversations on life, then I guess I'm alone having to balance things like risking microagressing the LDS members on my team because a "how was your weekend?" conversation might include the fact someone did some drinking.

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

#235

Post by nikdaheratik »

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…

The entire dialog is becoming very tiresome, especially since it seems play out almost entirely on the Internet, where you can't even tell sarcasm half the time.

On the one hand, you have decades of women and other minorities having to brush off a bunch of stupid comments or risk losing their jobs, and they're just tired of having to put up with that BS anymore. And they're right to feel that way.

On the other hand, if everything becomes political, then that's completely stifling in a free society. Taken to the extreme, it could be less free than Soviet Russia since, at least there, you know who was enforcing that nonsense and had some kind of hope of navigating it. The enforcers here are self appointed, at times faceless, and have different people taking turns deciding what the outrage of the week is.

The problem is mostly that our society is trying to move away from the old social hierarchy, which was exclusive and hurt alot of good people, but we haven't figured out what we're replacing it with.

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

#236

Post by voidr »

daughart wrote: post #213
MrLeftHand wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual sexual assault destroys humans. A joke less so. Also getting offended by peoples actions, worldviews and literally punishing them for this... destroys humans.

Is your position that people should be able to say whatever they want in the work place?

It's not what people say, it's the intention behind it.

If I say "I'm too white for that" or "my male brain cannot process that many stuff at the same time", am I'm being racist and sexist? No, because I'm just joking about my own stereotype.

If I would want to verbally assault a women, I can do that without ever referring to her gender.

The other hugely important factor is the body language and tone, that completely get lost in the reporting, I can say "I'm going to brutally murder you and hang your corpse up a tree", which sounds like a legit death threat, however, if I say this to you, it depends on how I say it.

So clearly, worrying about what people say without context is backwards.

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

#237

Post by MrLeftHand »

daughart wrote: post #213
MrLeftHand wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual sexual assault destroys humans. A joke less so. Also getting offended by peoples actions, worldviews and literally punishing them for this... destroys humans.

Is your position that people should be able to say whatever they want in the work place?

No, that's not what I was saying at all.

Words do hurt, jokes can be offensive. But there is a line what you will do to retaliate.

You can brush it off and move on with your life and make the mental note, that the guy is an _ss.

Or you can go and punish him through a series of humiliating procedures which will definitely have an impact on his life, his career and possibly destroy him. You do more damage to him, then he did to you.

Is it worth to punish someone for a joke? Because if it is, then you might bring back the death penalty for stealing a can of beans from the grocery store. Or agreeing that people should commit acts of terrorism because someone made a joke about their faith?

The biggest punishment should have been that their line-manager has a private talk with the guy, or sitting down the three of us and find a common ground. Not running to the head of the company and filing for harassment.

And frankly I wouldn't want to work with a person like that. Not because I want to tell rape jokes and not because she is not a man. It's because I don't want to work with someone where I always have to be careful what I say, how I say it and watch my behavior for 24/7 to not become a target for harassment lawsuit.

Being oversensitive can make one into a toxic person as well, not just bad behavior. And because of this issue, people will avoid her, because they will be too afraid to have any kind of connection with her. And who's fault will that be? The men? Why not, it's always the men apparently.

I'm a father of two girls, I want a future with gender equality, but not the one where you force people into behavioral patterns to accommodate the system. Clearly then the system is bad. It's a relationship between the genders, we have to work together. We have to give to be able to take. Sometimes it's ignoring minor things like an inappropriate joke and sometimes is being thoughtful and not say stupid inappropriate jokes.

I hope this clarifies my stand on this matter. In a nutshell: Rape jokes are bad. Harsh punishment for a joke is also bad.

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

#238

Post by cpks »

If someone, of either gender, whom I was hiring as a designer, went into "advanced learning theory and the use of metaphor and semiotics along with the theoretical foundations of design patterns," my response would be to consider them non-technical and not hire them.

And "technical," for a designer, means CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and similar.

Most of the examples in the article seemed baked.

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

#239

Post by JazCE »

flukus wrote: post #220
daughart wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of things are sold legally and commonly known, but are still not acceptable to discuss in a workplace.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't be. What is sold legally bu unacceptable to discuss in the workplace?

errr sex toys?

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

#240

Post by Pyxl101 »

e40 wrote: post #44

Reading stuff like this always feels weird to me. I'm the founder of a 30+ year company and, to my knowledge, this has never happened at my company. It's possible it happened and no one told me, but given my position, I would think it would eventually come around to me (I'm the COO now). I have to wonder if behavior like this follows from bad leadership. I'm not saying Tim Cook, given the case of Apple, but middle ma…

The actual transcript of the discussion that "Danielle" objected to has been posted in this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503157

I'd be interested to understand your take on this situation. Does it really warrant more than the apology that was already provided? It sure seems to me from the transcript that "Danielle" was going out of her way to find offense. ("Danielle" since not her real name)

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