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Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#111

Post by Yen »

dbcooper wrote: post #84
r00fus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen two successful approaches: 1) make it super interesting but excuse the family-types who instead take time off. 2) remove the party bit and make it an extra-curricular commitment perhaps giving-oriented like community service. Mandatory Happiness belongs in one of the circles of hell.

Nothing like celebrating the year with some community service!

You joke, but there's some definite advantages to that strategy. From my point of view:

* I'm a software engineer. I'm already highly-paid, so the marginal hedonic impact of a nice party is relatively small compared to its monetary cost.

* I'm nerdy, and prefer quiet, small, get-togethers centered around an activity, compared to large, loud, alcohol-fueled parties.

* Holiday parties are often in the evening, requiring me to schedule time for a work activity in typical non-work time. Community Service is often most reasonably performed in the day, making it an alternative activity during the workday.

* As a highly-paid engineer, I'm aware of differences in luck and circumstance that led to my current good fortune - giving back to the community has a relatively notable hedonic impact.

* As a software engineer, most of my work is non-tangible and abstract - I basically talk to a non-person, all day. Many types of community service involve physical labor, repairing or constructing a physical thing/place. This taps in to some core desire of humans, and thus also has notable hedonic impact.

* Community Service is good PR, for both the company and employee. Holiday parties risk negative PR, either for drunken scandals, visions of gilded-age excess, or both.

* The money that _could_ be spent on alcohol, catering, venue, DJs, and apparently modeling talent, I'd rather see spent on more direct benefits for employees - snacks, educational materials/career development, or just plain raises.

So, yeah, I would definitely consider the perks of working for a company that advertised that it did _not_ host large holiday parties, spent the budget elsewhere, and organized community service events.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#112

Post by igorgue »

jasode wrote: post #8

Yes, this practice of models at parties brings back memories. In 2000, a very well-known enterprise software company (Northeast not Silicon Valley) hosted a conference for customers and had a night party for the attendees. The most memorable thing I remember was the group of extremely pretty women on roller skates mingling with the crowd. E.g. they'd skate up and ask random attendees, "Hey where are you from? Are you…

Ugh... I find it disgusting...

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#113

Post by majormajor »

ardit33 wrote: post #57
davidu wrote: post #7

Pathetic. The whole point is to celebrate with the employees and their families and recognize the hard work everyone has put in over the year. A stranger not connected to an employee would take away from that value. If you want more women at the event, hire more women at the company and create a culture that encourages that.

"If you want more women at the event, hire more women at the company and create a culture that encourages that." -- Yes, some magic wand will solve it? If they are tech companies and engineers are the primary value drivers, and only 16% of CS grads are female, what kind of rock will they find balanced workforce? Companies hire because they need people to feel a role, (eg. engineers, marketing, sales, hr... etc). If t…

> If they are tech companies and engineers are the primary value drivers, and only 16% of CS grads are female, what kind of rock will they find balanced workforce?

I'd be happy if I found a company that was that balanced, instead of more like 1-2%...

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#114

Post by notfromhere »

RangerScience wrote: post #31

Huh. Seems like a better way to do it would be to just invite / hire a BUNCH of artists. No need to pretend; support an important part of why the Bay is the Bay, and expose your peeps to people they might not otherwise meet.

The cool underground artists that made the bay what it is can't afford the bay anymore

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#115

Post by alexasmyths »

jasode wrote: post #8

Yes, this practice of models at parties brings back memories. In 2000, a very well-known enterprise software company (Northeast not Silicon Valley) hosted a conference for customers and had a night party for the attendees. The most memorable thing I remember was the group of extremely pretty women on roller skates mingling with the crowd. E.g. they'd skate up and ask random attendees, "Hey where are you from? Are you…

This is fine. (I mean gender issues aside).

Because they are on 'roller skates' they are differentiated, and basically identifiable as 'hosts/hostesses'.

There's nothing wrong with hiring hosts for a party.

It's when they are mixed-in as guests it's cheezball.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#117

Post by Jach »

bdamm wrote: post #107

When I first saw this the headline was shrunk to "Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into..." and I assumed "the workplace" to be the logical conclusion of this. People paid to look pretty and sit at a desk and pretend like they work to adjust the workplace ambiance? Seems like a logical direction for this to go in.

Similar things have already been happening in Asian countries for years... e.g. https://kotaku.com/in-china-women-hired-to-motivate-computer...

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#118

Post by alexasmyths »

davidu wrote: post #7

Pathetic. The whole point is to celebrate with the employees and their families and recognize the hard work everyone has put in over the year. A stranger not connected to an employee would take away from that value. If you want more women at the event, hire more women at the company and create a culture that encourages that.

" The whole point is to celebrate with the employees and their families and recognize the hard work everyone has put in over the year. "

Not really, that's more a 'New Years' thing.

Christmas 'party' is just really a Christmas season gathering.

It really isn't even a party.

Imagine 100 years ago, your grandad owns a printing press in town. December 20th he brings in Egg Nog, a cake, everyone stops working. Maybe a local musician sings a few songs. Maybe some people drink a little too much.

Or maybe he pays for a nice dinner at the local restaurant and people show up and 'give thanks'. Light a candle.

That's it.

We are so 'de-culturalized' in North America we don't even know how to do something normal.

Of course a 'holiday party' could technically be anything people want it to be, but there's no reason to go to this level.

When in doubt: just go out for dinner. :)

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#119

Post by MadSudaca »

graphitezepp wrote: post #77
LandR wrote: post #38

I'd feel incredibly akward turning up to a works party and there's models there who were basically being paid to pretend they want to talk to me. It's just awful and sad.

This would actually freak me out, I would probably need to leave immediately once I understood what was happening.

why?

Re: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models into This Year’s Holiday Parties

#120

Post by buserror »

I actually don't see much of a problem. These models are hired to have a chat with nerds, and the nerds are actually paid (directly and indirectly) to talk to them. Everyone is paid to be at that party and look reasonably good for the appearance of a good time. Most 'nerds' there don't enjoy being there either, they do it because they are professionals... like the models they are mingling with...?

Any issue there? I mean, I rather enjoy talking to a model (female, or male in fact) -- it's not a business I understand, they are professionals with possibly quite interesting lifestyles and stories. Wildly different from the 'colleague' grade. I used to hang out with ballet dancers in a different lifetime, it was fascinating.

Likewise, it's entirely possibly that models will be happy to work on their acting skills and so on to play that game. Perhaps the nerds can take a clue or two...

It's not a strip club, it's no more degrading for the models as it is to the employees, who still have to put up and suck up to their managements -sometime abusive, in more subtle ways- for the sake of appearance (just not physical), so how different is it?

Oh and remember, some models also like parties. In the wild days of the 90's at computer shows, most 'parties' ended up in 'afters' with a whole bunch of the show models, because if you throw a bunch of (then) young people from different backgrounds together with a corporate credit card, stuff is going to happen, after business hours.

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