What Companies Mean by Culture Fit • Hacker News Board

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#231

Post by mapt » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #176

wrs wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I’m an “older coder”, though my knees are doing OK, but never in my life would I have wanted to work at a place where there’s mandatory attendance at ski trips and zip-lining. That sounds utterly awful. Maybe you’re attributing something to age that is just a matter of taste? And maybe that’s not a good way to limit your hiring?

Nothing was mandatory and, in fact, the team leads purposefully organized events to be inclusive to everyone on the team. That was the whole point...by including an older, less-physically-capable team member, it was no longer an option to do fun, youth-oriented team events. And that person was excluded from work-related conversations that happened at after-work bar trips, which caused some awkwardness when the rest o…

The sort of organization you're aspiring to certainly has its merits, but it's not legal in the US in practice because it has the potential to cause discrimination in things like promotion on the basis of nonparticipation, and attempts to achieve it by filtering your hires for culture fit are explicitly, over-the-top illegal - well beyond 'awkward'.

Woe unto your career if you ever try to start a family, or get injured ziplining, or develop liver disease, or anything else that would keep you out of the good graces of mandatory-after-hours group events.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#232

Post by tsukikage » Thu, Sep 13, 2018, 10:56 AM UTC

watwut wrote: post #208

thereisnospork wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating unethical behavior with unpleasant - two very different things. If it was unclear, I am explicitly referring to the latter, which again is highly relative. A company full of dog lovers with a pet friendly office would have a high 'asshole score' to someone who is allergic to dogs while at the same time being highly appealing to some. Accommodating 'poor culture fits' in this hypothetical company wo…

Legally speaking, wouldn't the guy with allergy be federally protected class here? He has medical reason not directly related to work for why the office is not suitable for him. It seems to fall into legal definition. Also, dog lovers I know in real life are not assholes to people with allergies or fears. My experience is that most accept allergies as real medical issues and would seek solution. I also think that you…

The most common point of conflict of this sort IME is "I prefer a quiet environment, people talking / listening to music around me disturbs my concentration" vs "I prefer to be around conversation / banter / music, a quiet environment makes me feel lonely, miserable and lethargic"

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#233

Post by golemiprague » Sat, Sep 15, 2018, 2:01 AM UTC

donbright wrote: post #181

golemiprague wrote: post #95

Culture fit is what people really feel inside but don't want to talk about because the current religion dictates that diversity is the best thing for a company. The thing is, for most tasks, homogenous and cohesive team is much more efficient and performant. It is easier for most people to work with people who are similiar to them, both culturally, racially, temperamentally, IQ level and anything else you can think a…

Every single sentence you wrote above is factually wrong, demonstrated not only by the study of the history of economics and society, but also empirically in something as simple as a genetic algorithm evolution inside a computer.

Show me any research about those subjects, especially the ones about diversity and I will show you 100 different parameters that the research didn't and can't control for. Also I will challenge you to reproduce those results and and I am willing to put my left arm on a bet that you won't be able to.

On the other hand I can show you very homogenous and successful environments, first and foremost the silicon valley itself. Isn't the common complain is that there are too many cis white males there? So how come it is maybe the most successful part of the economy in the last 40 years or so? What about Japan and Korea? What about almost every sub genre in are and music which was developed usually by homogenous group? You bring me some theoretic algorithm in a computer, I show you huge entities of innovation and success in real life.