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Update on an Employee Matter

github.blog

211–220 of 276 posts

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#211
post #150
post #79

Earlier 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…

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 th…

> 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

That's a problem for the definitely anti-fascist, anti-Nazi to sort out with themselves. Why do they identify with fascism in this context? Is it because they have openly labelled the BLM movement as a terrorist organisation? Is it because they cheered when protesters were deliberately run over or shot?

> I think [Trump has] done 10x the damage to conservatism than Nixon ever could have.

IMHO this is because of the number of Conservatives who followed him. It's not Trump's fault, though he's an easy scapegoat. Trump certainly empowered a lot of people to express opinions and perform actions they otherwise wouldn't have, but Trump didn't make those people say those things or behave that way.

If Trump is prosecuted and imprisoned, that will be a great start. There will be many people who will see Trump imprisoned, dust their hands off and say, "well, job's done, that's fascism in the USA dealt with," only to be shocked when it turns out that jailing Trump didn't actually solve anything and the USA continues to suffer problems such as entrenched white supremacy in the police forces around the USA, crony capitalism in all levels of government, and political parties acting in their own selfish interest.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#212

"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"

Where is that quote from? Also, they are talking about the issue to a more than reasonable extent than what other companies have in the past.

Just because it's in quotation marks doesn't mean it's a direct quote.

The comment is clearly a statement by the commenter of an imagined subtext of the GitHub public statement.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a member of the group of people who were imprisoned, tortured and exterminated by the “real” Nazis, I’d much rather be warned that their successors were involved in an ongoing terrorist attack in the immediate vicinity than tiptoe around the issue to avoid making conservatives uncomfortable.

> avoid making conservatives uncomfortable Hacker News has a huge global audience. Conservatism means something very different in all parts of the world. I assume you mean Republicans in America? Just to give you context, here in Europe we would consider the Democrats in the US a right conservative party and Republicans a far right party. Conservatives in Europe would be considered far left in the US, because in Euro…

Fun fact, in China, conservatism tend to be related to old-school, Mao-era communism, which is probably considered far-far-left extremists in the free world.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a Jewish employee points out (factually!) that there are nazis at an armed attack on the capitol, and to be careful, and then gets fired for saying that. You call this "appalling from both sides?" I just have to laugh.

I don’t mean to ask this in an accusatory gotcha way I’m just wondering what your stance is on someone warning their coworkers in Portland, or somewhere else that there are “looting communists around so be careful.” Or something similar referring to a blm protest. Do you feel this is also appropriate in a workplace channel?

"whataboutism" is exactly an accusatory gotcha.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't think a company Slack channel is the right place for this, when tensions are high people can get upset and offended and it just creates a bad work environment. There are time and place for things like this, not over a Slack channel. I don't know about any about that, I haven't been keeping up on the news

god forbid someone create a bad work environment during a nazi coup lmao

… where "create a bad work environment" involves warning people there's a Nazi coup attempt in progress.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#216
post #107

Unrelated meta-question: In the screenshots in the article posted by bmiller2 https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... You can see something I honestly dislike very much in discussions - a "bombing" of emoji reactions during discussions. For instance, the "I think this comment is completely appropriate" has 35 "+"-sign emojis. I find this concept of "reaction bulldozing" to cause any discussion…

So on the one hand you recognise that the reaction emojis require little effort, but on the other hand you feel that the reaction emojis provide emotional friction to you adding your own nuanced explanation?

It's a common situation and the discomfort you feel is probably similar to what a woman feels when she wants to report unwelcome sexual advances or outright sexual harassment in a mostly-male workplace.

Though I suspect the discomfort a woman feels in that instance is significantly more crippling to her than the feeling you're getting about the nuanced argument you wanted to provide about whether closing braces for the "then" clause should go in a separate line to the "else" statement.

The solution is to carefully choose which battles you participate in, and which hill you want to die on.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a member of the group of people who were imprisoned, tortured and exterminated by the “real” Nazis, I’d much rather be warned that their successors were involved in an ongoing terrorist attack in the immediate vicinity than tiptoe around the issue to avoid making conservatives uncomfortable.

> avoid making conservatives uncomfortable Hacker News has a huge global audience. Conservatism means something very different in all parts of the world. I assume you mean Republicans in America? Just to give you context, here in Europe we would consider the Democrats in the US a right conservative party and Republicans a far right party. Conservatives in Europe would be considered far left in the US, because in Euro…

Nice one. Write a whole damn paragraph for a thing that was obvious from context.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about the conversations linked in the Engadget article. Though by that ludicrous logic you can say anything is company business. Saving an employees morality is absolutely important to a company from a Christians prospective. So is preventing them from dying, so surely you're okay with people harassing you at work about skydiving or rock climbing or drug use?

What impact does an employee’s “morality” have on the business, from a Christian perspective? I don’t actually believe there’s a cogent argument that e.g. premarital sex makes someone less effective at their job.

What about theft? Drug use? Fraud?

Clearly these can affect your performance at work, so it's completely fine to proselytize at work.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#220
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, that's taken way out of context in at least The Verge article then. Not actually a joke at Jewish expense at all, at least other than not mentioning it at all.

All these leaked screenshots, quotes, etc are almost certainly missing full context.

It's rather discouraging that in `date +%Y` so few are aware or care about selective cropping. It's everywhere.
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