I work in tech, not politics
"Tech isn't political" is itself a political stance. (And a hard to support one, IMO.)
Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
21–30 of 150 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#22Wow that is amazing. > How widespread this is across industry? Not very widespread. > Do you think this is a good/bad initiative? Extremely bad initiative. It would seriously make me question whether or not I would want to stay at that employer. Of course I wouldn't set any pronouns and refuse it if they required it. I am eagerly waiting for the ultra left-leaning HN crowd to downvote me to oblivion!
I probably would have upvoted you if you hadn't added the first and last sentences to your post, which detract from sensible discussion. Wouldn't you prefer people understand your point of view, and consider it?
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#23Fairly uncommon in conservative US business. I'm torn on the matter between viewing it as corporate virtue signaling--which it absolutely is--while also considering the benefit of leveling the field for people who wish to avoid being misaddressed or awkwardly correcting others.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#24Wow that is amazing. > How widespread this is across industry? Not very widespread. > Do you think this is a good/bad initiative? Extremely bad initiative. It would seriously make me question whether or not I would want to stay at that employer. Of course I wouldn't set any pronouns and refuse it if they required it. I am eagerly waiting for the ultra left-leaning HN crowd to downvote me to oblivion!
Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
This could be someone in HR trying to refurbish everyone's signature (so there is a common template etc.) and to make this pass in HR hierarchy may have suggested to "hey let's add the Mr/Ms".
One simple complaint in HR can remove this "bulletpoint" from the "signature agenda" without raising hell.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#25Diversity questions aside, some given names are ambiguous. Some names are not, but may have different (assumed) genders depending on the language. In those cases it may be helpful to add a "Mrs"/"Mr" or similar, just to save people the embarrassment of addressing a woman as a man or vice versa. And isn't a "Mr"/"Mrs" a sort of pronoun spec as well? You're saying "use the usual pronouns for females/males".
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#26I’ve seen this forced at larger companies and Universities. I’m neutral on the topic of stating pronouns — could somebody with more knowledge explain the difference between including pronouns and age/sex/race/religion/ethnicity?
From my understanding, usage of pronouns is about not making any assumptions and being inclusive. So I’m just not sure what or where the line is.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#27Wow that is amazing. > How widespread this is across industry? Not very widespread. > Do you think this is a good/bad initiative? Extremely bad initiative. It would seriously make me question whether or not I would want to stay at that employer. Of course I wouldn't set any pronouns and refuse it if they required it. I am eagerly waiting for the ultra left-leaning HN crowd to downvote me to oblivion!
I probably would have upvoted you if you hadn't added the first and last sentences to your post, which detract from sensible discussion. Wouldn't you prefer people understand your point of view, and consider it?
I honestly think it is amazing. I would never have thought in my wildest dreams that this was actually something people thought was important in 2021.
I added the last sentence because I know I would have been down voted anyway, because I am feeling more and more a divide from the stereotypical HN-person just waking up in SF.
As soon as you go against the popular opinion on HN, you immediately get downvoted anyway. So there isn't even a point in trying anymore. Sadly, I feel like it didn't use to be like this a few years ago.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#28It’s not required but our internal profile system supports listing your pronouns and people are encouraged to list them. I think most people have set their pronouns too. This is at a well known financial services firm.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#29Some application forms give a “Decline to state” option, and as far as I know that does not imply any latent bigotry. Now that I think of it, that’s going to be my literal answer if it ever becomes compulsory, as a Decline-To-Stater. Much of the Clojure community on Twitter does pronouns and I proceed with caution.
People can use the limited space to make whatever impression they like, is my thought... I maintain a one page resume after 20 years and know the value of space, and that’s strictly how I’d approach it.
Re: Ask HN: Does your employer want you to state pronouns in email signature?
#30We are not required to do this by business, however there is now state legislature that requires that any job posting must include explicit naming of genders male/female/diverse. That is männlich/weiblich/divers in German (m/w/d abbreviated, you will find it on every job posting or you face serious fines).
Most people call it männlich/weiß/deutsch already, which translates to male/white/German.
I don't think it is a good initiative. Acceptance cannot be enforced and this is something that gets on peoples nerves. The gender activists constantly try to create new spellings and words and I have never seen it adopted naturally aside from places where it is enforced.
Maybe it will come with time, but people only started to not give gender a second thought.
I also think this kind of legislation is created by people that are behind the general population on topics like gender, where everyone has their own opinions, which is completely fine.