Don't discuss politics at work. It's unprofessional.
Update on an Employee Matter
141–150 of 276 posts
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#142Well they left all the juicy parts out Context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... I can’t believe people talk like this on a work public channel.
> I can't believe people talk like this on a work public channel. Not sure if you're referring to the instance of the egregious anti-Semitic joke (CW for that link, btw), or to the bulk of the communications, but for any who feel the latter, that any conversation involving Nazism is improper, I'd consider a counterpoint: We're in an industry where it's very easy for our work to be used for horrible things, where inde…
Except that the comments weren't in the context of any product initiative or related to company business at all.
I'm sure Christians or other religious sects feel that it's essential that they proselytize their gospel to you, but I don't think you'd be very happy if you were getting bombarded with messages about it at work.
There's really no reason the kinds of conversations linked above should be happening with frequency in a company chat room. If you want to be an activist, great. Do it after hours.
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Further: the employee was seen to be mischaracterising the protestors/rioters (take your pic) as nazis. The claims 'there were literal nazi flags' (see https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8a1wytwIU2Ic52sok2ly14RUQNM=... ) seem to based on the very broad assumption that Confederate, Kekistan, upside down US flags, 'release the kraken' etc flags are Nazis. See https://qz.com/1953366/decoding-the-pro-trump-insurrectionis...…
There is lots of evidence that there were nazis among the insurrectionists. Shirts with references to Aushwitch, "six million wasn't enough" etc. How much research have you done before reaching your very definitive and incorrect conclusion?
We don't have to resort to technicalities. This attack was a reactionary populist movement, led by white supremacist groups (eg the poor boys). It is a stretch to label the whole thing "Nazi", but only slightly.
Republicans are currently faced with a choice - conservatism xor this new reactionary populism. If you're an actual conservative and don't appreciate your own voice being pigeonholed with the neo-Naziism, then work to cut the cancer out of your party.
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#144"We did something wrong which we don't want to talk about, and as part of an agreement to save ourselves from a lawsuit we are now apologising publicly for that bad thing we did and we promise not to do that bad thing again"
And we won't even give the name of the person who's taking personal responsibility, we'll just quietly scrub her name from the "leadership" page. Some anonymous person is taking personal responsibility and keeping her name out of the news so she can get a CHRO job somewhere else.
https://github.com/about/leadership
http://web.archive.org/web/20210101021219/https://github.com...
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
The third reich had free health care. Maybe he’s referring to that? The post is from 2016 and out of context so it might be from some discussion over health care costs. Reading all this drama I’m glad that I don’t have to work for a living anymore. Looks like you wouldn’t get any work done over the constant drama. Very depressing.
According to wikipedia it wasn't free healthcare, it was health insurance, which people were mandated to have as of 1941. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People's_We...
Contemporary states (like current Germany) that provide healthcare typically do it through mandatory health insurance and we call it free healthcare. So I think it is ok to call it that in nazi case too to large extend.
I am 100% sure it was not joke about that, it was joke about holocaust.
The germans of jewish descent were not considered citizes in Germany, so anyway I doubt the above benefits fully applied to them anyway.
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can't believe people talk like this on a work public channel. Not sure if you're referring to the instance of the egregious anti-Semitic joke (CW for that link, btw), or to the bulk of the communications, but for any who feel the latter, that any conversation involving Nazism is improper, I'd consider a counterpoint: We're in an industry where it's very easy for our work to be used for horrible things, where inde…
Except that the comments weren't in the context of any product initiative or related to company business at all. I'm sure Christians or other religious sects feel that it's essential that they proselytize their gospel to you, but I don't think you'd be very happy if you were getting bombarded with messages about it at work. There's really no reason the kinds of conversations linked above should be happening with freq…
The comment in question was "stay safe homies nazis are about". Telling employees to stay safe is absolutely related to company business. Not having employees be killed by Nazis is absolutely an important part of product initiatives.
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#147I am afraid to ask this but can someone explain the "nazi joke" to me?
I'm not sure from the screenshot that it was supposed to be a joke. The full comment was three one line paragraphs: "basically the same as nazis", "nazis gave the jews free healthcare", and "so", and it was in 2014.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA or "Obamacare") had started in 2010, and every election after that it became an issue. Some wanted to replace it with single payer systems, or expanded government run systems (e.g. Medicare for all). Others wanted to get rid of it completely, and not replace it with anything.
Those who want a more expansive or comprehensive system than ACA often cite the systems of other countries as potential models for the US. Those opposed to that point out what they perceive as flaws in those systems.
Wikipedia tells me that the Nazis did actually have a healthcare system [1].
I could see someone saying some particular system is a good approach for the US to take, and someone who disagrees seeing that it has some similarities to the aforementioned Nazi system, and so dismissing it as "basically the same as nazis".
The rest of the comment would then be meant in a "look how bad that turned out" sense with the (ridiculous) implication that if the US gets free healthcare we too will end up committing large scale atrocities.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_People%27s_...
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#148The employee who was first fired was an Antifa sympathizer had a history of harassing anybody who didn't align 100% with him politically, calling anybody to the right of Josef Stalin a Nazi, and generally trying to turn the workplace into a political battlefield at every chance. He also tried to intimidate the company by threating legal action and public defamation of the company when he didn't get his way. The other…
Are you a GitHub employee? Otherwise what is the purpose of this really weird and ad-hominem rant
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#149Well they left all the juicy parts out Context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... I can’t believe people talk like this on a work public channel.
Independent from the events: The way Github employees communicate with each other makes me kind of uncomfortable. In the companies I've worked here in Europe, such discussions just would not happen in a cooperate chat room.
I don't think that has anything to do with being in Europe or not.
The emotions and opinions exist in all workplaces. Some are just open to it and others not. The important part is being respectful and having empathy.
The second employee was arguing in obvious bad faith, that apparently being accepted (to the point of the first being fired) is what should make people uncomfortable.
Re: Update on an Employee Matter
#150Well they left all the juicy parts out Context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... I can’t believe people talk like this on a work public channel.
> I can't believe people talk like this on a work public channel. Not sure if you're referring to the instance of the egregious anti-Semitic joke (CW for that link, btw), or to the bulk of the communications, but for any who feel the latter, that any conversation involving Nazism is improper, I'd consider a counterpoint: We're in an industry where it's very easy for our work to be used for horrible things, where inde…
I think we agree on the larger point but I disagree with a couple of your points here.
> it's not only appropriate but essential that the employees of companies be allowed to call out fascism, and express their fear and dismay of Nazis, to colleagues whenever they see it
Fascism is the reprehensible government structure du jour but I think it's wrong to be single-sided here. Employees should be allowed to call out things they disagree with. It doesn't necessarily mean anything will happen, and they end up leaving the company because of it. But I do think there are quite a few conservative, non-fascist, anti-Nazi people who will read a "employees can call out fascism!" comment and feel at least a bit like it's meant toward them as more conservative that most people in tech. I was a #nevertrump Republican throughout the primary and changed my party registration the day after his nomination. I think he's done 10x the damage to conservatism than Nixon ever could have. But I'm sure there are people here who, because I was a registered Republican during the Obama administration, view me as a fascist. I'm positive there are people who are registered Republicans today who hate what Trump is doing (both to the party and to the country), working in tech, and reading HN right now.
> regardless of whether it is immediately linked to a product initiative
This I'm not so sure about. I mean GitHub exists to ship software, and for the most part if you're communicating over a GitHub channel it should probably be about that. The fact that they have DEI channels and race-based channels and such on the official Slack in the first place is probably a larger discussion in itself.
> The comment that states "you dont see 'commie' being dropped in the workplace nor should 'nazi,' it's just slandering" is the false equivalency of the century, and if we can't distinguish between words that over-simplify a political ideology, vs. words that concisely warn colleagues that something is going beyond political ideology and towards a pattern of racially-motivated behavior that places people in grave danger, we haven't learned our lessons from history.
With regard to the 6th specifically, absolutely agree.
With regard to the language more generally, though, you're assuming that "commie" is always an over-simplification and "nazi" never is. Something actually are communism, which is responsible for a couple hundred million deaths historically, so while not directly racially related, it's not exactly a great thing. Commie also doesn't have quite the negative connotation of Nazi, and rightfully so. So even arguing the point feels a little like arguing about "cracker" vs. the n word. One is obviously worse, regardless of context.