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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?

#191

Post by [deleted] »

fao_ wrote: post #184
tzs wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] 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) Get one of these kitchen timers [1]. Set it to about 25 minutes. When it goes off get up from your desk and spend a few minutes walking around the office. Return to your desk, reset the timer, and go to prior step. When you wish to visit the bathr…

> When you wish to visit the bathroom do so on one of your strolls around the office. But then they will notice that your break did not coincide with the timer, and (depending on the floor plan of the open office), that you did not head for a walk, but straight for the toilets.

[deleted]

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

#192

Post by scott_s »

rayiner wrote: post #136
JimboOmega wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter gender-identity or race. I can't agree with you. If you work for a company that makes negative assumptions about you because of your gender/race, you'll have a worse experience than when they make positive assumptions. It's about things like when you bring up an idea in a meeting, and it's totally ignored, and the guy across the table brings…

> I can't agree with you. If you work for a company that makes negative assumptions about you because of your gender/race, you'll have a worse experience that when they make positive assumptions. The parent's assertion is trivially rebuttable. Here's an article written by the first woman partner at a major New York law firm: https://www.ou.org/jewish_action/11/2012/striking-a-balance-... . The firm in question has cu…

I read your comment, and your linked source, a few times before coming to the conclusion that "the assertion" was the original one by thisone:

> Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter gender-identity or race.

And not your direct parent JimboOmega. (I made the comment in case anyone else is also confused.)

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

#194

Post by camtarn »

VLM wrote: post #141

In the military we work with all sorts of people, at least with respect to gender, race, religion, and to a lesser extent sexuality. At the same time, admittedly most were Republican and none of us did drugs. If you're willing work with Republicans and/or non-drug users (most tech people are super far left and absolutely will not) then working for an ex-mil manager or with ex-mil coworkers will likely be an extremely…

...dude, what?!

You have an incredibly weird, and adversarial, opinion of 'most tech people'.

I'd work with Republican ex-military folks as long as they didn't force their political opinions on me, and I'd know that I should keep my (British moderate, so from American POV very far left) views to myself. I've worked on events with a couple of ex British army guys, and they are extremely competent and very interesting people.

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

#195

Post by ThrowAway123543 »

nostrademons wrote: post #80

Disclaimer: not a woman, but this exact question just recently came up among several of my female friends in another forum I follow. I'm not sure I like or agree with their conclusions, but I'll pass them on in the hopes they'll be useful. They came up with two big questions that have surprising predictive power: 1.) Do you have daughters? 2.) Does your wife work outside the home? (Probably couched in more neutral la…

This seems like terrible advice to me. "Men with daughters are less sexist" and "Men whose wives work are more sympathetic to working mothers" are extremely vague, only loosely correlated to what you want to know, and pure anecdata. Someone could make up an equally plausible counter-argument (say, "men with young daughters are more likely to infantilize female coworkers"), but it would still just be story-telling.

If you want to know how your possible-future boss treats the women he works with, how about, "Have you had any women report to you? How'd that work out? Were there conflicts, and if so, how did you resolve them? Do you think they'd be happy to work for you again?" I'd be happy to answer those questions. Asking what my wife does for a living will get you a very awkward, "Er, let's get back to the interview."

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

#196

Post by viraptor »

VLM wrote: post #141

In the military we work with all sorts of people, at least with respect to gender, race, religion, and to a lesser extent sexuality. At the same time, admittedly most were Republican and none of us did drugs. If you're willing work with Republicans and/or non-drug users (most tech people are super far left and absolutely will not) then working for an ex-mil manager or with ex-mil coworkers will likely be an extremely…

To be honest, if anything, your preconception of other environments does not advertise your own environment well. I can't even tell if there's actually a tech company somewhere stupid enough to say they require someone to agree with antifa, or it's just made up. But mentioning that as something more than a crazy outlier is silly.

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

#197

Post by fao_ »

ThrowAway123543 wrote: post #113

I'm presuming you want a candid, honest response as opposed to a look-how-inclusive-I-am one, hence the throwaway, so here's what I think you should be asking: 1. How frequently and for what reasons do people there work unpaid overtime? Does management plan it formally (e.g. "crunch time") or is it limited to emergencies like hacking attempts or vendor outages? Does this company think that asking people to put in 'ex…

> Diversity is no indicator that you will not be underpaid, mistreated, lied to, etc

Actually it really is. Minorities tend to have higher bars against that kind of crap compared to the Tech Brogrammer Majority(tm).

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

#198

Post by roguecoder »

bbcbasic wrote: post #149

A reasoned response is a red flag?

"Colorblind" beliefs cover up racism and hurt the people who experience it by refusing to acknowledge what is actually happening to them: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41675099?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co... If people can't entertain the well-supported fact that individual's experiences differ on the basis of how they are perceived, they end up supporting the discriminatory status quo.

This is similar to how telling people an organization is a meritocracy leads to more discrimination against women: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2189/asqu.2010.55.4.5...

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

#199

Post by rayiner »

scott_s wrote: post #192
rayiner wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't agree with you. If you work for a company that makes negative assumptions about you because of your gender/race, you'll have a worse experience that when they make positive assumptions. The parent's assertion is trivially rebuttable. Here's an article written by the first woman partner at a major New York law firm: https://www.ou.org/jewish_action/11/2012/striking-a-balance-... . The firm in question has cu…

I read your comment, and your linked source, a few times before coming to the conclusion that "the assertion" was the original one by thisone: > Any place with crap culture is crap culture for almost everyone, no matter gender-identity or race. And not your direct parent JimboOmega. (I made the comment in case anyone else is also confused.)

Thanks, I definitely meant to agree with JimboOmega.
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