Excellent policy, but they could stand to realize how political their offices have already become. Maybe the culture of the company blinds them to this, but GitLab's overtly involved in politics.
Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
171–180 of 1001 posts
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#172>This [merge request] demonstrates that you don't have any values except 'we want to make money, and it doesn't matter who gets hurt.'
Well, considering gitlab is a publicly traded company and as they state clearly on their website
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/#stock-optio...
>We are in business to create value for our shareholders
I personally appreciate their blunt honesty. Watching corporations pretend they have morals and obligations other than providing profit to their shareholders, while continually doing the opposite of said stated morals gets tiring.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#173FYI: If you say you don't care about politics and you ban political speech in your workspace - that on its own is a political statement that you're fine with the status quo.
There are many places and times that people do not want to discuss the politics of the outside world. Examples could include while giving birth, while shopping alone at the grocery store, while sitting alone on a city bus, while performing surgery, while discussing your raise with your boss.
Just because someone does not want to discuss something here and now, doesn't invalidate that they have original opinions. Not everything is a dichotomy all the time. Plenty of people who are not fine with the status quo don't want to discuss it at work.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#174I am glad Dang changed the title as the original one was unnecessarily inflammatory. I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? > Such a declaration could run afoul of legal boundaries in some circumstances. Whi…
> Being held to a political moral standard is tricky if you are not in the mainline political stance. That would make me quite uncomfortable. I go to work to support myself and my family. Don’t make that hard for me to do due to politics.
This cuts both ways: If your employer is known to take millions from ICE to support what ICE does, and your opinion is that ICE is an evil organization, that can also make you "quite uncomfortable". It might also make you want to leave that employer, which would make it harder to "support yourself and your family".
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean? I am honestly asking, not flaming or anything. What is the point you are making?
That they are being hypocritical. Frankly, I think more women in tech and LGBT representation are probably good things, but GitLab is being profoundly disingenuous.
I'm not sure if more women, minorities, LGBT, group x, group y, group z in tech .. matters as much. Sure it's good to have diversity of people and ideas, it can help people in workplaces come up with more varied ideas, and there's nothing wrong with it ... but I think we're missing something.
What about more men as secondary school teachers, or in art, or as nurses/medical techs? There's an equal and opposite side to the women in tech debate: why not create a world where men feel like they can and should take jobs that pay less, but that can be potentially more fulfilling.
Why is there also not a push to get women into other high-income lines of male work, that are more hazardous like construction, oil rigs, truck driving?
I think that's really ignored today. Just as there are family pressures for women to take the paths they do, men similar (but different) pressures to take carers they may not want at all, in order to "provide for a family" or whatever.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#176I agree with casiotone; why pretend you have an important, guiding set of enshrined morals and ethics at all when there’s a clause that nullifies everything by saying ”some people might be fundamentally against our values but if they’re loaded, and they want to do evil stuff more efficiently, we’re the company for them!”?
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#177I am glad Dang changed the title as the original one was unnecessarily inflammatory. I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? > Such a declaration could run afoul of legal boundaries in some circumstances. Whi…
> I don’t understand why it’s encouraged (in some companies) to discuss politics at work in a way that leads to internal issues. Purely from a commercial stance, team cohesion has a positive impact on people and product. Why do anything to disturb that? The health of the democracy is far more important than your company's profit margin. And besides, enforcing silence is still a political move that strongly favours th…
I don't want to hear your political opinions at work. I want to work and make money for myself. Just because I have to be at work to make money for myself shouldn't mean I now have to listen to your views on politics. That is my view on it.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#178Human rights aren't politics, they're non-negotiable.
I was born under a dictatorship (that fortunately became again a democracy while I was still a child) and I can tell you human rights don't exist unless you have enough people willing and able to stand up for them.
More broadly, laws aren't worth the paper they're written on if you don't have a police and armed forces willing and able to uphold them.
I understand what your point is; I've talked to several people who voice the same opinion when discussing my country's dark past, but trust me, when the bullies get to power, you can't shout "it's a human right!" back at them. You either have to fight back, hide, or run away.
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#179Excellent policy, but they could stand to realize how political their offices have already become. Maybe the culture of the company blinds them to this, but GitLab's overtly involved in politics.
gitlab has offices?
Re: Gitlab: don't discuss politics at work
#180What I find most amazing is less the politics aspect and more the moral/ethical issue. For a company to have an explicit stated policy of _actively_ never taking into account the moral/ethical impact of their work is just... astounding. It is difficult to imagine a more inhuman and bloodless statement.
The company isn't run by robots. Someone is still making judgement calls.
This policy just says if you're the wrong somebody, you can be fired for taking about it.