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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

#841

Post by triceratops »

unishark wrote: post #726
triceratops wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will we stop fetishizing and lionizing "job creation"? The ideal business would employ zero people, have zero expenses, and make a 100% profit margin. From a purely business perspective, every job created is an inefficiency. No one sets out to create jobs when they start a business. They set out to make money and create products or services of value - in that order. Employing people is an unfortunate side-effect…

Your idea of business and what entrepreneurs want is simplistic. You must know it will be easy to find people who don't fit blanket statements like this. Even if you think this is the natural inclination of the public corporation, not all companies have to go public and not all investors in public companies care about nothing the company does besides make profit. It's a world of humans we operate in, not some kind of…

Do you disagree with my central thesis that businesses employ people almost entirely to increase revenue or cut costs? The presence of a few sinecures in some companies doesn't change this basic fact.

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

#842

Post by [deleted] »

Moodles wrote: post #839
ne0flex wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were posting political stuff online and noticed I wasn't interacting with it. My phone would then blow up with messages along the theme of: "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?".

Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible. So many stories. My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that a…

[deleted]

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

#843

Post by w0de0 »

Moodles wrote: post #839
ne0flex wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were posting political stuff online and noticed I wasn't interacting with it. My phone would then blow up with messages along the theme of: "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?".

Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible. So many stories. My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that a…

[flagged]

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

#844

Post by IntelMiner »

globular-toast wrote: post #757
fighterpilot wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not being able to escape anxiety-inducing situations" This sounds like an emotionally abusive environment unless you happen to agree with the political agenda being pushed. To feel socially pressured to go along or else be ostracized from your work is fairly awful. I'm fortunate that I've worked in a rather politically balanced industry which naturally turns out to be apolitical as a consequence of mere demographics…

That's exactly what it's like. I've not seen it put like this before, but anxiety inducing is just right, and yes, it is abusive. Take the letter people, for example. They will ridicule people for not understanding the difference between G and Q, for example. Phrases like "if you don't know what X means, you must live under a rock" are common. Then you have the pronoun people who tell us anyone can choose any set of…

"The letter people"

You mean LGBT+?

Because dang that's an incredibly insulting way to completely dismiss everyone who isn't straight then

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

#845

Post by w0de0 »

mk81 wrote: post #256
madrox wrote: post #144

I'm not sure where we go from here, but not being able to escape anxiety-inducing situations in a workplace is the definition of a toxic work environment. I don't think the answer is a return to 20th century "no politics at work," but at the FAANG I worked at, politics was impossible to avoid. Even the desire to be apolitical is itself criticized at worst and not respected at best. Work doesn't afford the use of the…

>I don't think the answer is a return to 20th century "no politics at work" Why not?

I doubt it was ever so simple. Maybe for a halcyon moment when incomes were rising and ideology was sparse on the ground - the 50s and early 60s - politics had little part in work, in as much as most people still agreed. But they all agreed on horrible things, like how to treat women in the workplace with disrespect.

People are politics, especially in a free land like ours. No politics at work is unrealistic, I believe.

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

#846

Post by throwkeep »

ne0flex wrote: post #830
Moodles wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This sounds like an emotionally abusive environment unless you happen to agree with the political agenda being pushed. Yeah, 100%. Were you in California last summer? “Silence is violence” was the phrase of the day. I’ve got about a gazillion stories from living in San Francisco for three years.

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were posting political stuff online and noticed I wasn't interacting with it. My phone would then blow up with messages along the theme of: "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?".

> "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?"

Are they in a cult? That sounds like some Scientology shit.

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

#847

Post by [deleted] »

filleduchaos wrote: post #292
iandanforth wrote: post #224

I see a lot of anti-politics-at-work commentary here. This makes me wonder what the posters would do working for companies that have an explicit social agenda. If the politics are baked into the company, does that void the "politics and work should be separate" point?

Politics has become a dirty word in the US, so people simply don't think of their pet political causes as politics. In my opinion, many Americans especially do not know how to talk politics (in large part because of how much of a dirty word it has become, and also for a bunch of historical reasons) and instead of addressing this - which, to be fair, is extremely difficult to do - people would simply rather sweep it a…

[deleted]

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

#848

Post by gryfft »

yanderekko wrote: post #788
gryfft wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who huffily decry "politics" also tend to have political beliefs which they feel are apolitical. Examining and unpacking those beliefs is "political," however, so that the net result is "I just don't want my politics questioned or examined, even when it affects other people."

Yes, I indeed just don't want my politics questioned or examined, even when my critic has a questionable narrative of how it affects other people. I see how this is commonly leveraged as a superficial excuse to evangelize reluctant parties. "Silence is violence." I don't want to be subjected to company-sponsored political struggle sessions, nor do I want to subject others to company-sponsored political struggle sessi…

>company-sponsored political struggle sessions

This is a strawman. I was not advocating company-sponsored political struggle sessions.

Does a company-sponsored presentation discouraging unionization count as a "political struggle session?" I have been subjected to that before, and the company would not describe that as political -- no, they're just protecting their investments. For the employees whose lives the question of unionizing actually impacts, unionization is a furiously political question.

I wasn't saying we need more corporate presentations about LGBTQA+ pride or BLM. But minorities exist, they're people, and their normal lives will often be "political" to those who are able and willing to ignore the problems those minorities face.

"NO POLITICS PLEASE!" will silence those whose ideas are considered "political" while implicitly endorsing ideas that have been promoted to "apolitical."

Here's a quote from an Innuendo Studios video[1] which has some relevance here:

>The adage about bros on the internet is “‘political’ means anything I disagree with,” but it’d be more accurate to say, here, “‘political’ means anything on which the community disagrees.” For instance, “Nazis are bad” is an apolitical statement because everyone in the community agrees. It’s common sense, and therefore neutral. But, paradoxically, “Nazis are good” is also apolitical; because “Nazis are bad” is the consensus, “Nazis are good” must be just an edgy joke, and, even if not, the community already believes the opposite, so the statement is harmless. Tolerable. However, “feminism is good” is a political statement, because the community hasn’t reached consensus. It is debatable, and therefore political, and you should stop talking about it. And making political arguments, no matter how rational, is having an agenda, and having an agenda is ruining the community.

[1] https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g

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

#849

Post by throwkeep »

Moodles wrote: post #839
ne0flex wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if you could share some of your stories. Since last year, I've stopped using social media like FB. When the summer came around, my friends were posting political stuff online and noticed I wasn't interacting with it. My phone would then blow up with messages along the theme of: "are you showing your real self by not supporting x?".

Dude, get new friends. They sound horrible. So many stories. My skip level manager had me in a 1-on-1 once and said something along the lines: “you probably got the green card because Trump likes your demographic”. (I have an EB-1 extraordinary ability green card, and I assume they were talking about me being straight and white). What the fuck am I supposed to say there? Was absolutely speechless. Moments like that a…

This also sounds like Scientology or at the very least a high pressure religion.

"Joe is an evil person who will introduce you to evil things! We do not speak of him here."

"Are you a true believer or not?"

"We can tell you're not a devoted Scientologist."

"Fall in line, or we'll bully and ostracize you."

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

#850

Post by globular-toast »

IntelMiner wrote: post #844
globular-toast wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what it's like. I've not seen it put like this before, but anxiety inducing is just right, and yes, it is abusive. Take the letter people, for example. They will ridicule people for not understanding the difference between G and Q, for example. Phrases like "if you don't know what X means, you must live under a rock" are common. Then you have the pronoun people who tell us anyone can choose any set of…

"The letter people" You mean LGBT+? Because dang that's an incredibly insulting way to completely dismiss everyone who isn't straight then

No, I mean the people who identify as a letter and scald you if you don't know what their letter means. I have no idea what half of those letters mean or whether it means gay or straight (the T could definitely be straight, I know that much). I've also known plenty of gay people over the years who haven't ever mentioned these letters so it's nothing to do with that.
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