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IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

theregister.com

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Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#341

Post by s1artibartfast »

wredcoll wrote: post #310
s1artibartfast wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we don't agree what DEI is. I'm against different criteria for people based on race. This is most apparent in school admissions and affirmative action. I think it is a clear violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to have dual standards based on race. Also, I don't appreciate you blatant racism putting all white people into a single stereotype, not do I think it is accurate

> I'm against different criteria for people based on race. People keep saying this. It's such a nice and simple statement. "All men are created equal!". It's the details of real life where you tend to run into issues. Are we allowed to measure what percentage of various races get to go to harvard? If we find an oddity can we correct it? How do you fix both the existing racial biases and the previous history of racial…

I addressed this above, I explicitly said it exists, but getting better. You help people break out of poverty and ensure they have actual merit. You don't establish separate requirements and treatment based on race.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#342

Post by milesrout »

harimau777 wrote: post #97
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #21

I am curious if anyone can find the text for "IBM's Policy Letter #4" written by IBM's chairman in 1953, which is referenced in this article. I did some searching but all the links I found to the full text were broken. I ask because I think it shows what a Rorschach test the arguments over DEI have become. I at least found one quote from the Policy Letter #4 which stated "It is the policy of this organization to hire…

The issue that I have is that I've almost never seen an anti-DEI advocate actually engage with the issues. Even if I ultimately disagreed with them, I could respect someone who was willing to look at the problems the US is having with inequality and present a reasoned argument for alternatives to DEI. However, what I usually see is people either ignoring the issues people are facing, ignoring the arguments put forth…

1. If there is an issue it starts much earlier. Trying to solve a problem that happens at school or earlier by giving discriminatory preference to people in university entrance or job applications makes no sense.

2. Inequality of outcome simply doesn't matter anyway.

3. Nobody actually cares about inequality--they care about specific visual types of inequality. Nobody cares about the diversity statistics of poor white people from an underprivileged background, for example.

4. As for substituting slogans for arguments, the DEI argument is just slogans. That is all it is.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#343

Post by seb1204 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #332
Alupis wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not possible both are/were true? At the time, WFH was new for most organizations - and yes it feels pretty great. Over time, however, fractures in the team, collaborations, efficiency start to show and people change their mind. Certain tasks can be best done in solitude at home. Others... require collaboration. Collaboration that's scheduled in meetings or the dreaded video call are not the same as spontane…

What you call “popping your head in someone’s cube”, I call “distraction from doing deep work”. I’ve seen studies where it takes on average over 20 minutes to recover from an interruption. My job is to be heavily collaborative with clients and coworkers in consulting. I’m more efficient with a screen share and a shared Lucid chart than I ever was on a whiteboard. I want an organized meeting on my calendar to discuss…

Point taken about the distraction. For me it's the this to do on the working from home days. Office days are all about talking through plans, questions, problem solving or investigation etc. sure you can say that this does not require an office but it works well for me.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#345

Post by EasyMark »

Alupis wrote: post #300
nelblu wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I took a new job in 2022, at that time everyone was still working from home. My boss, who was a VP at that time, said isn't this amazing? We save on fuel, time, spend more time at home etc. Productivity has been amazing and all. Two years later in early 2024 when they started pushing RTO, same guy repeats the standard bullshit…

Why is it not possible both are/were true? At the time, WFH was new for most organizations - and yes it feels pretty great. Over time, however, fractures in the team, collaborations, efficiency start to show and people change their mind. Certain tasks can be best done in solitude at home. Others... require collaboration. Collaboration that's scheduled in meetings or the dreaded video call are not the same as spontane…

Obviously there are pluses and minuses for both but the pluses outway the cons otherwise companies wouldn't have survived after years of it. No this is just popular because the elite noticed workers were feeling happier and more empowered and they feel threatened by that. So along come Trump with an escape hatch, and they make up bullshit about DEI and WFH not working even though it worked for years and stock market was way up. Nope this is all about the old boys network trying to keep the peasants in place and save a few bucks this quarter.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#346

Post by milesrout »

derf_ wrote: post #333
s1artibartfast wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like DEI and am willing to engage. The US has a huge disparity of outcomes along racial lines. This is a legacy of slavery as well as social and governmental discrimination following slavery. [Racial biases persist today, but are much better today than the past, and we should focus on elimination of those biases, not adding new ones.] These factors result in real disparity in capabilities and merit today. Thi…

> I think our laws and institutions should strive to be race blind and treat people equally, as individuals... One of the things I was told in my mandatory DEI training was that male job applicants will frequently apply for jobs even when they satisfy less than half of the required qualifications, but female job applicants rarely do. Additionally, language in the job description that hints at a stereotypical 'tech br…

[flagged]

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#347

Post by [deleted] »

jensensbutton wrote: post #295
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-DEI argument is that modern racial disparities are predominantly caused by economic circumstances, e.g. black people are more likely to be poor and then less likely to have to startup capital to start their own business or be able to afford to attend a high status university. The same applies to white people who don't have affluent parents. "White people who grew up poor" are under-represented at the top of…

This is a simplistic view. E.g. how does this argument account for the data we have that someone with black sounding name will get less opportunity than someone with a white sounding name and an identical resume? In this case the lower chances to get ahead have nothing to do with economic circumstance.

[deleted]

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#348

Post by EasyMark »

zanfr wrote: post #38
foobiekr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a company that made a big deal about how well it worked. The CEO and chief people officer both made a lot of public statements about it, during and just after covid. They did this claiming they had the numbers to back it up and said numbers but they basically made them up. It was PR and they were using it to aid recruiting into what was and is a company that young people avoided. What numbers they did have…

after covid is an illusion, there is no such thing as "after" for an ongoing pandemic.... and the company you work for seems rather incompetent

Unless you are willing to say there is an ongoing flu pandemic then I can't really agree with you.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#349

Post by sys_64738 »

nelblu wrote: post #156
givemeethekeys wrote: post #4

The general reasoning given by a lot of these companies is that WFH did not work. Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I think they are looking for scapegoats for some cost cutting. Officially force people back and hopefully some will quit. In practice, many will continue to operate as before.

> Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I took a new job in 2022, at that time everyone was still working from home. My boss, who was a VP at that time, said isn't this amazing? We save on fuel, time, spend more time at home etc. Productivity has been amazing and all. Two years later in early 2024 when they started pushing RTO, same guy repeats the standard bullshit…

Company people will say anything to align with corporatespeak.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#350

Post by EasyMark »

Alupis wrote: post #307
fazeirony wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but over time it became clear it didn't. are profits spiralling downward? are these businesses, overall, making less profit? because of remote workers? or is it closer to the truth to say that no amount of profit - or asserting authority over workers - is ever enough and since companies are in a position of power to squeeze blood from a stone, they will?

Profits don't have to spiral for something to become clear it's not working. Maybe it's as simple as "this used to take us 3 weeks but now it's taking 5"... or "we're shipping features but they have a lot more holes than before". Collaboration is pretty hard remotely when you have to schedule discussions and everything else is asynchronous. Certain tasks lend themselves greatly to WFH, but not all of them.

the bottom line profit is your primary guideline if you are succeeding. Profits have been great for most companies for quite a while now. WFH works in most cases. The current push to end it, is simply a fad amongst CEOs because it's popular, not because it is proven or has merit. If you are in a construction crew, obviously you can't work from home. If you work in an office and mostly on your own "stuff" you can work from home and work more productively without all the office distractions and negative energy.
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