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Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

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Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#101
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no longer a common everyday saying because it's become synonymous with the sinister sexist undertones that it implies. It's like asking someone to "Netflix and Chill" today vs 3 years ago. At some point it may not have only meant one thing but those days have passed.

Says who? You and a few others? Lots of people disagree so maybe you are in a tough shit scenario here. Unless you actually have got someone fired for an innocuous comment. Then it's tough shit for them, I suppose.

> Says who? You and a few others?

Google "telling women to smile" (no quotes) should prove enlightening. If you want something more specific, I've provided two references in the post below.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#102
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them. Except most of the time its not from coworkers, so when it does happen in the workplace, its blatantly obvious what the underlying meaning is.

That's stupid. I smile at literally every person I walk past in my day. It's how I acknowledge them.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#103

Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going. Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in the workplace at all. Perhaps we'll see workplaces where all communication is in writing and on topic. Do we want our workplace…

I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of disciplinary action. On occasion people were asked to stop bringing their choice of newspaper into the office, too, as this could be construed as a subtle political signal.

After a few months one adapted to restricting the domain of conversation without much effort, and the main problem was when we had visits from overseas staff who would stray into the verboten topics. One became adept at moving the conversation to safer ground.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#104
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of what I read in TFA I really understand to be a hostile work environment, as the term is defined. Your colleagues joke that someone is coming to rape you, and you're supposed to laugh? I'm not a woman, but I can imagine a woman being really hurt by such a joke. Given the fact that 1 out of 6 women in this country are victims of sexual assault[1], I think it's a joke in poor taste, and does not belong in a wo…

> I'm not a woman, but I can imagine a woman being really hurt by such a joke. So we have to treat women differently than men? Sounds a bit sexist.

No, not differently, you just need a base level of respect that allows for diversity. Various groups of people don't face the same issues as other groups of people. It's easy to be in one group, and say something that is a lot more offensive to another group due to real fear and/or discrimination, and vice versa. So no matter what group/s you belong to you need to be respectful of other groups and their challenges.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says who? You and a few others? Lots of people disagree so maybe you are in a tough shit scenario here. Unless you actually have got someone fired for an innocuous comment. Then it's tough shit for them, I suppose.

> Says who? You and a few others? Google "telling women to smile" (no quotes) should prove enlightening. If you want something more specific, I've provided two references in the post below.

Thanks for the links. I read the first one. I guess we just disagree.

I am of the opinion minor discomforts are things we have to deal with/adapt to. Especially when there is work to do. You seem to be of the opinion that personal discomforts are something that we should avoid causing as a matter of the upmost importance.

I think we have to agree to disagree.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#106
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

someone coming to rape everybody.... she wasn't singled out. Still, rape jokes are not acceptable.

>Still, rape jokes are not acceptable. Perhaps, but it's not something that is obviously unacceptable. I would put it on the same level as making a joke about an intruder coming to bomb/shoot everyone. Certainly it's in poor taste, but that's the level of humour you find everywhere.

if that was a real and possible threat to someone, then that would be totally unacceptable as well. Pretty sure people who went through 9/11 would not appreciate that.

Thing is, it's not found everywhere, there are very respectful workplace environments. If people do cross the line it is called out and dealt with and quite quickly things converge on what is acceptable and what's not.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#107
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's no longer a common everyday saying because it's become synonymous with the sinister sexist undertones that it implies. This is quite literally the first I've ever heard this. Is there an official list of what we can and can't say anywhere?

> This is quite literally the first I've ever heard this. Then it's good that you heard about it now, so you don't do it to anyone in the future! Here's some references to better understand why this is a bad thing: * http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erika-hardison/its-important-f... * http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/09/47343350...

My take away from this is that if something so innocuous can be considered so offensive it's much easier to avoid casual conversations with women at work entirely.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#108
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not a woman, but I can imagine a woman being really hurt by such a joke. So we have to treat women differently than men? Sounds a bit sexist.

No, not differently, you just need a base level of respect that allows for diversity. Various groups of people don't face the same issues as other groups of people. It's easy to be in one group, and say something that is a lot more offensive to another group due to real fear and/or discrimination, and vice versa. So no matter what group/s you belong to you need to be respectful of other groups and their challenges.

Why is the onus on me to be aware of what every sub group considers offensive? Why isn't the onus on the sub group to recognize that they are a minority and that not everyone around them has to meet their standards of what is and isn't offensive?

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#109

Absolute BS. She sent an email to the entire company about this "incident", which I'll include here (names redacted). > 8:53:41 AM Person1: so am I the only one who thinks of the Bed Intruder auto-tune song everytime Person2 warns us of undisclosed persons in the building? > 8:54:47 AM Person3: hide yo wife? > 8:54:57 AM Person1: and yo kids > 8:56:02 AM Person3: well, you're not any more > 8:56:13 AM Person1: #winni…

How does this pass as a rape joke? This entirely trivializes the experiences of women who have to deal with actual workplace discrimination. On top of that, Person1 apologized and agreed to not do it again.

I have to wonder how many collective minutes of engineering time she wasted at Apple by sending this to the entire company. Workplace sexism, and discrimination in general is a problem. This is a mockery of what women face daily.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them. Except most of the time its not from coworkers, so when it does happen in the workplace, its blatantly obvious what the underlying meaning is.

That's stupid. I smile at literally every person I walk past in my day. It's how I acknowledge them.

Not smiling at people: Telling them to smile.
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