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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?

#351

Silicon valley culture used to be that way, and is still that way. The cube farms was the prevailing best practice. Then the pendulum swung to the other side with the new kids entering the workforce and wanted open office, work families, and all that. Which then created the cargo culting from others entering the process. Now we're on the bubble of the pendulum swinging back. So it goes.

Bullshit. nobody wanted open floor plans, or if they did, they had immediate buyers remorse. Open floor plans became a fad that turned into a way for cheap ass companies to slash costs and brag about it on linkedin about how trendy they were being.

It's great for my team. We are highly collaborative, so it helps to just be able to turn around and talk.

White noise generators and carpet kill sound from traveling very far (i.e. between teams).

People who need to focus grab a room or put on headphones. People on the team learn and respect other people's work habits.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open office is more than elbow-to-elbow with headphones on. out of the 8 people who sit in my immediate vicinity, rarely are more than one or two wearing headphones. While it's definitely distracting, there is a type of conversation that occurs which I have never experienced in all my years as a cube farmer. If I want isolation, I can go sit somewhere else or work from home or a cafe. It feels like the default being…

My highest function team had a mostly open office. Big, wide, open, lotsa windows, plants, couch etc. 12 people, self selected. We had a handful of offices for anyone who preferred or needed that. Then my boss stuffed some clowns onto my budget and ruined the magic. Since then, most places I've worked have been either call centers or highschool cafeterias. No amount of bon ami can overcome inhumane working conditions…

lmao yeah I think I know exactly how you feel. Right now I sit mostly around people I really enjoy hanging out and working with, so it's fantastic. A year ago I was sitting in a super crowded area while construction was going on and it was really really unpleasant.

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

#353
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.

He is talking about requirements the job seeker put on their workplace. I.e. "if you want to be able to do drugs on duty or if you want to be part of antifa then you will not fit."

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

#354
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…

"Do you want children ? " This question makes me run away.

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

#355
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…

Absolutely. In my experience, "bro culture" is simply a sign of an immature corporate culture that hasn't figured out how to address true diversity. It means that the workplace is not likely to be supportive of people who don't fit a mold (ping pong and beer are not things I care about). They'll pay some lip service to diversity, and they'll point to some gay guy who is exactly like everyone else (except he dates guy…

I'm not sure if we ever manage to escape the equivalent of high school cliques. Even the the culture of professionalism is still a culture: it places emphasis on professional interactions at work and looks down on playing beer pong on wednesday afternoon. The bros aren't going to have the freedom to "be themselves" there, and would probably be happier at a more lax company. Again, going back to their own clique.

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

#356

I don't really get the reference to ping pong tables and free beer...? Is it a metaphor, or is the commenter literally referring to those things? I've worked in a range of places * Investment bank - German, very formal, very little perks * Options Trading Company - Dutch, laid-back, casual dress, free alcohol, free food, lots of games, lots of perks * Database Company - Tech startup, fairly well funded, casual dress,…

Yes, I mean it as a metaphor. I do enjoy beer and video games personally and absolutely don't mind a group of colleagues going for beer if they like. Because then it is a group of colleagues out of many not company culture. I wont investigate the fridge during interview for stocked bottle. It is when the beer and pong come up as larger point during interview, when hiring manager brags about non-work oriented things whole company does together often. If they went the diversity by cringy art way and bragged about common coloring sessions, I would run away too. It suggests a couple of things:

a.) Less meritocracy - whether you appear as good programmer while you play that ping pong matters more then your code and responsibility. So it is signaling and charming game where I am at disadvantage. Also in worst case, in case you are good looking and succeed, such culture makes it too easy to assume/imply behind your back that you got position because of being sexy.

b.) It suggest that people with different personality types left. E.g. they might have different genders and races, but they are still kinda clones of each other.

c.) I hate having to stay overtime or during weekend because basically there was 4 hours long ping pong match at Wednesday and that is when CEO shares requirements, what (s)he learned from customer last time he visited and when design is discussed. I strongly prefer one hour long meeting about the above and then going to work and after work everybody does his thing (which may include ping pong).

d.) True story, I found it unfair when a dude was seen as hard worker because he spend 12 hours a day at work - except that he spent majority of time attempting to charm lady at reception and otherwise socializing.

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

#357
post #304
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But honestly, my boyfriend works at a company with a diversity group and they do the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy activities that really do not make women look very sensible, unfortunately (arts and crafts, etc). That would make me uncomfortable. Not people who like art and thus do art&craft together, that is cool. But people who tie that to femininity for no good reason.

It seems similar to tying ping pong or beer to masculinity.

Oh, I agree. Besides, I find that puzzling. Women drink too. (Tho girls that wear girly high heels are at disadvantage at ping pong.)

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

#358

Silicon valley culture used to be that way, and is still that way. The cube farms was the prevailing best practice. Then the pendulum swung to the other side with the new kids entering the workforce and wanted open office, work families, and all that. Which then created the cargo culting from others entering the process. Now we're on the bubble of the pendulum swinging back. So it goes.

Bullshit. nobody wanted open floor plans, or if they did, they had immediate buyers remorse. Open floor plans became a fad that turned into a way for cheap ass companies to slash costs and brag about it on linkedin about how trendy they were being.

When we start using voice activation commonly I'm hoping we're going back to offices.

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

#359
post #245
post #209

The Two Travelers and the Farmer North America A traveler came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough to straighten his back and talk for a moment. "What sort of people live in the next town?" asked the stranger. "What were the people like where you've come from?" replied the farmer, answering the question with anothe…

You aren't outright wrong, the problem is that if you are a woman (or black or fill in the blank) and you have been consistently shit all over your entire life because of it, not only do you suffer from burn out on trying to keep your chin up and hope for the best and all that, but you may have zero skills for trying to effectively interact with people in a way that doesn't help recreate the same shitty experiences.…

I actually like the parable because it hints at another side to the issue, which is the perceiver, and though I'm not a woman I do get to sit in one type of disadvantaged social role in life, so I can relate. And I've given this some thought.

First off, while it's true that social factors are real, provable with data, and very annoyingly denied by many out there, the degree to which we tie our personal identity to a disadvantaged social identity is up to us. Evidence is pretty easy: talk to people in your disadvantaged social group and ask what they think. Probably most will acknowledge that it's a problem but that they can overcome it through working harder. A few number will not even acknowledge that it's a problem in the first place. And a few number will claim that it's such a big problem that it's insurmountable. I think the first group is probably closest to reality.

Second idea: it's easier to change ourselves than it is to change the world. That is, we can change our outlook on life by changing the narrative we've woven for ourselves. Whole point of therapy and a big part of psychology.

And thus, in order to avoid getting bogged down into hopelessness, at some point you have to maintain a delusion that either you aren't heavily disadvantaged such that working is pointless, or that you are disadvantaged but you're a crazy hard worker who can get things done anyways.

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

#360
post #181

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…

Such line of questions would pretty much disqualify you in my eyes, regardless if I'm the interviewer or the candidate. Not just because of the improperly personal nature, but also they require a lot of assumptions and random chances in order to be remotely considered useful. Note that I'm not challenging the statistical correlation with certain outcomes, but I'm questioning the mindset of someone who would use them…

Upvoted. I'll tell about my family sometime later.

One possible reason I came up with however in defense of the women who said this (yeah, old habit) is maybe this is more relevant in VP / CEX level hiring processes were I guess a certain amount of socializing takes place before contracts are signed?

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