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Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

economist.com

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Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#41

Post by ModernMech »

eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

> The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work.

I agree with this idea at face value. But most people spend the majority of their waking hours at work, traveling to work, or recovering from work -- not for the benefit of entrepreneurs, but to afford the cost of living. I think as a society we'd be less likely to inject our politics into our workplaces if we didn't have to spend such a large portion of our lives at work.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#42

Post by eh9 »

archsurface wrote: post #2

I have no tolerance for politics at work. As far as woke at work goes, not too long ago someone in my office commented on slack "I don't approve of unnecessarily gendered emoji" - I can't even begin to imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts. First world problems? No idea.

As a PoC, I’ve also fielded those comments from white co-workers and it honestly feels like a contemporary version of being blind to race.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#43

Post by SeanBoocock »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #33

The reason why politics is traditionally frowned upon in the workplace is to avoid toxic peer pressure and the resulting uniformity. It is illegal to discriminate against employees for their political opinions, religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnic background, etc. Allowing or even encouraging open political debates in the workplace jeopardizes it.

Political opinions are not protected in the same way, nor should they be, as the protected classes you cite (gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc).

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#44

Post by j2kun »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #33

The reason why politics is traditionally frowned upon in the workplace is to avoid toxic peer pressure and the resulting uniformity. It is illegal to discriminate against employees for their political opinions, religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnic background, etc. Allowing or even encouraging open political debates in the workplace jeopardizes it.

Seems more likely it's so that employers can prevent their employees from discussing their working conditions with each other and enforce _more_ uniformity by stifling demands for better treatment.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#45

Post by jdgoesmarching »

tshaddox wrote: post #8
eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

> The point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. What? I can’t be the only one who works directly in order to fulfill my needs (like literally my most basic needs, think food and shelter).

I was about to say, this is the most chilling HN sentence I’ve ever read. The totality of our existence from 8-5 is not owed to someone who profits from our labor and skills because they got lucky with some seed money or an inheritance a decade ago.

That’s just the divine right of kings with extra steps.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#46

Post by foota »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #33

The reason why politics is traditionally frowned upon in the workplace is to avoid toxic peer pressure and the resulting uniformity. It is illegal to discriminate against employees for their political opinions, religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnic background, etc. Allowing or even encouraging open political debates in the workplace jeopardizes it.

This isn't true, political opinions aren't a protected class in the US.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#47

Post by throwaway292893 »

kokanator wrote: post #32
throwaway292893 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* others response to you * Hey get that libertarian common sense out of here! Downvote!

Am I to understand by your comment that libertarians are not tolerated on HN?

Well his comment was greyed out from downvotes and nothing he said was wrong, just there's a different atmosphere for everyone. His views aligned with a libertarian which I think were once accepted here. It's gotten more leftist here for sure. Part of woke socialism/marxism is shouting dissenters down, downvoting in this case.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#48

Post by nailer »

moomin wrote: post #14
eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

It’s well worth reading up on the details of the Basecamp disaster. At every point in the process, it was about work. How people behaved at work, how clients were treated, how people reacted to feedback, how information was communicated. It may have been “politics” but it was in no way separable from Basecamp‘s core business.

From having read about the details: someone took a list making fun of mainly European (‘white’ in American) names and posted an image saying mocking people leads to genocide.

Yes this is easily separable from making productivity tools.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#49

Post by j2kun »

seibelj wrote: post #16

Why can’t we just let the market sort it out? Let the people who want to talk politics all day start, lead, and work at firms that encourage it. And those that don’t will do the same. It’s my same issue with socialists who want democratic control of companies. If it’s so obviously better, why not start one yourself? Or use government money to do so (socialists, after all). I just wish everyone would voluntarily assoc…

I would say what is happening now _is_ the market sorting it out.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#50

Post by ixacto »

duped wrote: post #21
eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

The office exists within society. Some things exist everywhere you go in society. You don't give up ethics and morals because you cross the threshold of your place of business. Ignoring social problems in the workplace because it is a workplace is how we avoid solving those problems as a society. The office is exactly where we should be advocating for things, because it is where we spend the most time and can affect…

Advocating for what things exactly?

It might be a strawman, but I’m going to guess and it would be something like an end to perceived workplace raceism/sexism/*isms.

If you let in political advocacy movements from the left do you really want political movements from the right? Or is it just ok if the left is advocating for it? I kinda think the left is trying to have their equity cake and eat it too…

To some people (I am not one of them at all, but I understand the argument) any abortion is literally murder, and it as a sincerely held belief as the recent movements like BLM and #metoo were.

So do you really want to hear about abortion/guns/illegals/debt/satanism/furries in the workplace? This is just setting up workplaces for problems or maybe we can just realize work is for work?

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