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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

#161

Post by Frondo »

flukus wrote: post #108
keithnz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you want to be respectful of everyone around you, that's what it takes--awareness of what they consider offensive.

If you don't care about being respectful, don't bother finding out.

There may be consequences if you don't, there may not be. Me, I want to be respectful, so I start with a safe neutral ground and go on from there.

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

#162

Post by hatsunearu »

dingaling wrote: post #103
jay_kyburz wrote: post #81

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…

SPORTS?

Wow, is that really that big of an issue rivaling _politics_ and _religion_?

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

#163

Post by xauronx »

eor wrote: post #65
mthoms wrote: 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…

Would you ever say that to a male colleague? Would anyone?

Yes. It's called empathy, and the lowest effort way of showing something that you acknowledge their bad mood is by saying "hey, cheer up" or "hey, smile buddy!"

Not saying it's tactful but I'm not a psychologist

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

#164

Post by Blackthorn »

tanqueray wrote: post #105
Blackthorn wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> You seem to be of the opinion that personal discomforts are something that we should avoid causing as a matter of the upmost importance.

It costs you nothing to not say something sexist to women. So it's pretty much a no-brainer to not say something sexist to them.

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

#165

Post by Blackthorn »

flukus wrote: post #107
Blackthorn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you think it's hard to avoid being sexist to women, just imagine how hard it is to be one and have to deal with this every day for their entire life!

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

#166

Post by xauronx »

chillacy wrote: post #118
zaroth wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little upset that you took the first paragraph of TFA and mangled it into "Your colleagues joke that someone is coming to rape you." On a Tuesday morning in July, when men on her team began to joke that an office intruder was coming to rape everybody, Danielle decided to speak out about what she described as the "very toxic atmosphere" created by jokes about violent sexual assault. So 'Danielle' overheard a ten…

If the throwaway accounts posting lately are real, then it wasn't even directly about rape, it was about the line "hide your kids, hide your wife" from.. the Bed Intruder Song. Then the person apologized more and more while Danielle kept going at him for making that joke.

And then she had to take off time from work to "recover" from the incident. Sounds like someone who might be more fit for their new position than in a stressful environment around other humans.

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

#167

Post by norea-armozel »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #81

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…

Not to be mean but there's more than "PC" at work here. For example, I don't talk much at work since I have anxiety among other things, so it's really hard to socialize even at work. But what makes it even worse is when people don't respect my personal space and try to get me to "open up" beyond doing my work. I know for some this annoying because we're social creatures but honestly I'm not. I prefer to be on topic so that when I go home at the end of the day I can just forget about whatever happened only to pick it up later. So, if that offends anyone that's not my supervisor I don't really care. Nor should others take offense when I don't care for their "you should open up more or smile more" comments. I won't file a complaint with HR since I know the nightmare of HR from previous jobs but don't expect me to give you my personal email address or my Facebook account name (since I don't use my legal name on it) just because we work together.

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

#168

Post by Johnny555 »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #31
Blackthorn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated with American companies? Are women from other countries afraid to speak about this? Or are American women just overreacting? There's some other possibilities too, like it's worse in America than in other countries.

I don't know. I haven't been everywhere, of course, but I have traveled extensively for my job, and I think American women have it pretty sweet in the workplace. If they were in Japan, for example, they'd probably be fetching tea all day and getting groped; if not at the office, on the train ride home. I've seen women objectified and discriminated against a lot more abroad than I have in the U.S.

"It's worse in other countries" doesn't mean it can't be better here.

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

#169

Post by scott_s »

cpncrunch wrote: post #74
keithnz wrote: 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.

Rape jokes are obviously unacceptable.

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

#170

Post by Eric_WVGG »

I know three ex-Apple employees, they all describe it as akin to the film Office Space.

My theory is that the whole point of the new UFO campus is to jolt the working environment out of the 1980's. Sort of like replacing, rather than updating, the Mac Classic OS, in a way.

[am I getting downvoted for knowing people who worked at Apple, or for having a theory?]

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