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Inside the Mirrortocracy

carlos.bueno.org

151–160 of 214 posts

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is partially that pregnant women don't drink (and disclosing pregnancy shouldn't be part of the job interview), and partially that bars can be uncomfortable places for women. A woman should not have to worry about the guy one table over eying her up while she's trying to land a job. Bars are casual places, and it's not wrong to check someone out or hit on them. Indeed, that's one of the reasons people go to…

Wouldn't that depend on the choice of bar? There's a big difference between a nightclub at midnight and a gastropub during lunch time, especially since the latter will tend to also serve a selection of non alcoholic drinks. People checking you out would also be a problem you could just as easily encounter at starbucks or indeed in the office.

Obviously you have to consider the social context. A place that's the local watering hole at night could just be a convenient lunch spot during the day. But the article mentioned going to a bar after dinner, which is generally a time and setting where people are out to drink and meet people to date.

And yes, you can encounter unwanted attention anywhere, but at a bar at night, certain sorts of advances are acceptable and expected. Indeed, I'd raise an eyebrow if someone complained about getting unwanted but otherwise harmless attention at a bar. Those advances aren't what is inappropriate--it's holding a job interview in that setting that's inappropriate.

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's nice that you don't care about your coworkers as people (having dinner with them or becoming friends). I am sure there are loads of companies that are perfect for you, because they only require blue collar programming drones. First of all, I care about my coworkers to the extent it is necessary to work together. Also, if they ever run into hardships, I am willing to help out if I can. It's just basic human dec…

I would assume "liking each other" is usually a given job requirement. Also putting too many criteria into a job ad increases the risk for discrimination lawsuits, so it's probably better to just be generic. Also, saying such things beforehand would make them too easy to fake. I am btw not advocating to hire based on musical taste. I only mentioned it because it seems to be something people often talk about when they…

> I would assume "liking each other" is usually a given job requirement.

Not really. I've had plenty of co-workers over the years I did not particularly like, but with whom I've had very productive working relationships. I'm not saying I actively disliked them, but they are not the type of people I would have become friends with in other situations.

There was the guy who was super into his micro-brewery, had to make sure everyone knew about it, and had a critical opinion of every restaurant in the county. Super annoying, great programmer, we worked really well together. One of my favorite co-workers.

There was the lady who went on and on about her pugs. She always smelled like she'd just expressed their anal glands. Very self-absorbed as well. You could depend on her to take care of any issue that came to her desk in a timely fashion, with excruciating attention to detail.

There was also the one office assistant who was the nicest, friendliest person on the floor. She never got anything done. You either had to nag her about something, work around her, or just do it yourself.

Of course, often times when you take the time to get to know someone you find that your initial impression was wrong or shallow, and you end up really liking them. However, your "culture fit" portion of the process never gets beyond that shallow impression. Learning to get along with people you don't "like" is one of the hallmarks of maturity.

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#153
post #3

That linked 42Floors blog post is terribly self-unaware. > Most startups take the building of their culture very seriously, especially when the culture is still new and quite fragile. If your culture is so fucking fragile that a guy wearing a suit (as opposed to a T-shirt and jeans) poses an existential threat to it, you need to re-evaluate whether you are actually building a company 'culture', or just some random ag…

I was very surprised that a guy interviewing for what's basically a sales position - representing 42Floors to its clients, and asking them for money - was being dinged because he turned up to his interview dressed professionally! I'd like to think that the interviewee responded along those lines when the issue of his clothing was pointed out. Were I in his position, I'd be concerned I was being interviewed by a group…

Why were you surprised? Did you look at the 42floors team bios page? One of them actually reads, "Also, accused of having a resting bitchface (RBF). She's working on it." Really.

What's amazing is not that 42floors dinged a candidate with "strong experience leasing SF office space" for wearing a nice suit to an interview (real estate professionals tend to dress well for obvious reasons). It's that such a candidate actually gave 42floors the time of day.

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#154
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what's going on with the 'reply' button, but I don't seem to be able to reply to your latest comments. Firstly, "google it", well actually "google scholar" it. Go to the public research body rather than the general internet and spend some time finding some reviews (I mean proper peer-reviewed reviews), look for ones that are highly cited and ~5-10 years old. Then start following up, with standard procedu…

If you went through the Google Scholar thing, haven't you saved some articles you approved of? Why not point me directly to it? I don't really have time to become an expert in this by dozens of articles.

> I don't really have time to become an expert in this by dozens of articles.

Then why are you spending so many words arguing about it?

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you don't really believe that diversity and social mobility are important with regards to the workplace.

I am asking you why you think it is important. I am not really interested in "beliefs". It seems curious that it is automatically assumed that diversity is beneficial. As I said, maybe there is a reason why your pals are your pals and you work better together with them than with strangers. I guess I believe that a company does not have a moral obligation to foster diversity and social mobility. It is possible that a…

> It seems curious that it is automatically assumed that diversity is beneficial

Have you ever played D&D, Warcraft, or any RPG ? What happens to a party where all the characters are the same type?

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that religion, sexual orientation, etc., aren't supposed to be criteria in your hiring process, one way or the other. It doesn't matter if you prefer atheists or devout Christians. You are welcome to hold personal beliefs about religion -- but the topic itself shouldn't come up in the interview. And unless you're a religious organization, I can think of few reasons why it should ever come up in the workp…

> Surely there's a way to test for "cultural fit" that doesn't involve directly, or indirectly, testing for protected status. I'm not sure that's the case -- a major part of "cultural fit" in many cases seems to be selecting along protected axis of discrimination by other names. (Heck, phrases very similar to that have been used to cover covert discrimination on protected axis since legal protections against discrimi…

Oh, I generally agree. "Cultural fit" was the reason my grandparents couldn't get into certain schools, clubs, organizations, or jobs. "Cultural fit" has a long and notorious history as a coded or indirect form of discrimination.

That said, company culture can very real and very potent, provided it's founded on professional and non-discriminatory criteria. That's why the burden of non-discrimination is on the company and its culture, not on the candidate.

What are valid forms of cultural-fit tests? ESPN, for example, gives candidates for many of its positions a sports-trivia test. This makes sense. If you're going to work for a sports network, you should probably enjoy sports and be generally knowledgeable about the subject. And ESPN, for its part, probably notices an empirical correlation between people who love sports and people who succeed in sports-related television.

Now, this sort of thing would be discriminatory if it involved any aspect that tested for status. Holding evaluative games of pickup basketball or touch football would discriminate against the physically disabled, pregnant women, and heck, just about any woman placed on or against a mostly male team. ESPN is welcome to participate in intramural sports game, or to hold weekend sports outings. But those activities cannot be used to evaluate employment status or candidacy, and an employee who doesn't want to participate should not feel pressured to do so.

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#157
post #102

What I find infuriating is how all these companies think they are so unique with their interviewing process then ask the same inane questions. This is worse when the same questions are asked by different people at the same company. College qualifications or any real qualifications are being dismissed by more and more people but the vacuum that has been left is being filled with crap like 15+ rounds of interviews and/…

Qualifications are hard. I just graduated, and now that I'm a CEO I can tell you there's no way I'd hire someone just because they have my degree. At RPI (my school), there are at least as many completely worthless developers as there are diamonds, and they all have one degree.

I don't trust qualifications alone.

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#158
post #60

> “Well, I grabbed coffee with the founder, and I had dinner with the team last night, and then we went to a bar together.” I'm no teetotaler, but bars can be uncomfortable to downright hostile places for the majority of people (women + people who don't drink for religious or health reasons). It's absolutely inappropriate and unprofessional to incorporate one into an interview. This is typical "old boy's club" shit,…

I do drink. A bit. Not much, though, and I'm not the bar type. For me, that would likely kill the interview. Maybe that's for the best; maybe I wouldn't fit with them, and that's a good filter. They're clearly looking for social as well as technical fits, and I wouldn't be that.

> "They're clearly looking for social as well as technical fits, and I wouldn't be that."

I think the article argues that it's not at all 'clear' (as evidenced by the 'interviewee' who didn't realise what was going on - and probably the company as they never articulated what they were looking for).

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#159
post #157
post #102

What I find infuriating is how all these companies think they are so unique with their interviewing process then ask the same inane questions. This is worse when the same questions are asked by different people at the same company. College qualifications or any real qualifications are being dismissed by more and more people but the vacuum that has been left is being filled with crap like 15+ rounds of interviews and/…

Qualifications are hard. I just graduated, and now that I'm a CEO I can tell you there's no way I'd hire someone just because they have my degree. At RPI (my school), there are at least as many completely worthless developers as there are diamonds, and they all have one degree. I don't trust qualifications alone.

I agree, I wouldn't hire anyone just because they have my degree either BUT we need some qualifications to fill this gap otherwise the interview process will get more and more unwieldy.

Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that depend on the choice of bar? There's a big difference between a nightclub at midnight and a gastropub during lunch time, especially since the latter will tend to also serve a selection of non alcoholic drinks. People checking you out would also be a problem you could just as easily encounter at starbucks or indeed in the office.

Obviously you have to consider the social context. A place that's the local watering hole at night could just be a convenient lunch spot during the day. But the article mentioned going to a bar after dinner, which is generally a time and setting where people are out to drink and meet people to date. And yes, you can encounter unwanted attention anywhere, but at a bar at night, certain sorts of advances are acceptable…

If it's after dinner that would suggest it's a social event rather than part of the interview itself. I can't imagine asking somebody serious questions about programming in a loud bar.

Most socialisation in western culture seems to be based around alcohol, not saying that is good or bad but it's doesn't really apply to one gender over the other. I've probably been to just as many drinking events organised by women as I have men.

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