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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?

#371

Post by speedplane »

tomc1985 wrote: post #227
geebee wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part about ping pong and beer vs a more formal workplace is really interesting. I've been reading more about this lately. One story that struck me was about a journalist whose newspaper was purchased by a tech company, and the culture changed. She went from having a private office to working in a huge, open office environment. I'm putting this together from memory, but I remember her talking about how strange it…

Ugh. Why must things always coalesce at one end of an extreme or another? Formality is bad. It is another layer of separation between you and the work. Way back when the original meaning of 'informal' simply meant your employer didn't care about non-work-related stuff like attire -- but its morphed into a culture of its own, destroyed perceptions towards those who really are results-oriented, and sent a lot of people…

Formality is bad because it locks people into a restrictive environment, but it's good because the rules are clear to all who are playing the game. Ideally, we would have clear rules that are not restrictive, but those are very difficult rules to come up with.

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

#372

Post by speedplane »

chillacy wrote: post #355
exelius wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

In a meritocracy, where people are supposed to be judged on their work output and ability to generate results, the professional "clique" is far more preferable to the beer pong clique.

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

#373

Post by afarrell »

thex10 wrote: post #30

I am a woman of color and to be honest I totally lucked into it. From the perspective that I work for a large, old company: * Get a sense of how the company embraces (or doesn't embrace) flexible work arrangements. Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids and make up the hours that night or on a different day without having to jump through hoops and/or get looked at like they have two heads? My theo…

Question: are those two policies not bog-standard things that you'd expect from any tech company, especially a startup?

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

#374

Post by erikpukinskis »

minkzilla wrote: post #318
bethly wrote: post #114

I look for existing diversity, and of underrepresented minorities not just gender diversity (IME this is often a better signal.) Especially in upper levels: the % of Software Engineer 1s matters a lot less than the % of architects and tech leads. Second (and I kind of hate to give this one away), I ask "what do you sacrifice when recruiting to ensure diversity?" The answer should be either "it takes us longer to recr…

"Second (and I kind of hate to give this one away), I ask 'what do you sacrifice when recruiting to ensure diversity?'" I find it disturbing that you think hiring diversity entails a sacrifice.

> I find it disturbing that you think hiring diversity entails a sacrifice.

Of course it's a sacrifice. Under-represented groups are under-represented in standard recruiting channels. That's tautological. If you want a set of recruiting channels that represents all available talent, you can't use the standard set of channels. You need to go catalog all of the available sources of talent, including obscure sources. That takes effort. That's a sacrifice.

In addition, under-represented strengths don't show up in standard assessment techniques. Again, that's tautological. Standard assessment only measures over-repesented strengths. If you want to measure under-represented strengths then you need to use custom assessment techniques which, again, takes additional effort, which is a sacrifice.

These conclusions just fall naturally from the word "under-represented" and a presumption that there is room for improvement in recruiting channels and assessment. If there is no such room, the additional effort will fail to change the hiring demographics. Which will be evidence that your recruiting channels are representative and your assessments accurate, and you can ease up on recruiting pipeline optimization.

What's disturbing to you about any of this?

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

#375

Post by Ntrails »

geebee wrote: post #81
watwut wrote: 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…

The part about ping pong and beer vs a more formal workplace is really interesting. I've been reading more about this lately. One story that struck me was about a journalist whose newspaper was purchased by a tech company, and the culture changed. She went from having a private office to working in a huge, open office environment. I'm putting this together from memory, but I remember her talking about how strange it…

> not knowing where to put her bag if she wasn't at her desk watching it, and having to take it with her to the bathroom

I find this bizarre - what do you think the people you work with are going to rob you or go through your stuff? I seem to recall one place had a couple of iphones nicked off desks once by someone who'd managed to shoulder surf inside but I mean of all the complaints that's an odd one to me

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

#376

Post by emj »

goodcanadian wrote: post #319
jansho wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Women-friendly policies" don't just cover things like maternity leave. Ultimately they do boil down to "human-friendly policies." How: they accommodate women more and thus balance a culture that's traditionally male-dominated. At least that's the idea. (I was going to quote seaknoll's comment until I realised that you already mentioned it!)

It is possible that we are on the same page, but from your choice of language, I feel you are still subtly missing my point. You talk about "accommodating women more" in order to "balance a culture that's traditionally male-dominated." My point is that we also need to accommodate men more to balance that culture. Again, just for example, if I want to be an equal partner in raising my child (and I like to think I am),…

Considering that US federal law seems to be gender agnostic, from skimming Wikipedia, I'm not so sure about this criticism. At least there seems to be a ground work for caring for parents and not only mothers.

While I agree with your sentiment (as a father with ~18 month parental leave behind me) It would be nice to know if there are common policies that are problematic in your view.

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

#378

Post by MandieD »

redfog7 wrote: post #354
watwut wrote: 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.

Now that I'm over 35 (but childless), I've taken it as my duty to privately and gently advise younger colleagues who ask that question that there is absolutely no good answer, especially if the person being asked is a woman over 30.

My flippant answer: "Well, you can't exactly order them from Amazon..."

In my case: yes, I wanted children. The wanting does not always lead to the getting. Any further details from me on this subject might ensure that you never, ever ask that question again, unless you're in a serious romantic relationship with that person.

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

#379

Post by DanBC »

Ntrails wrote: post #375
geebee wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part about ping pong and beer vs a more formal workplace is really interesting. I've been reading more about this lately. One story that struck me was about a journalist whose newspaper was purchased by a tech company, and the culture changed. She went from having a private office to working in a huge, open office environment. I'm putting this together from memory, but I remember her talking about how strange it…

> not knowing where to put her bag if she wasn't at her desk watching it, and having to take it with her to the bathroom I find this bizarre - what do you think the people you work with are going to rob you or go through your stuff? I seem to recall one place had a couple of iphones nicked off desks once by someone who'd managed to shoulder surf inside but I mean of all the complaints that's an odd one to me

Some women keep tampons or pads in their bags, and don't want to rummage through their bags to retrieve the tampon or pad before visiting the bathroom.

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

#380

Post by DanBC »

redfog7 wrote: post #354
watwut wrote: 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.

In the UK that question can't be asked or it opens the employer to liabilities.
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