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Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

economist.com

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Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#361

Post by Cullinet »

Time and place : the place for political debate.

Your Place : the place where you have such freedoms as you wish.

Work Place : the place we work together with other dedicated professionals in order to fulfil given tasks so that we can enjoy :

A Place : the rightful place in society earned by individuals who abide by the rules and contribute positively to their social environment without causing damage, harm, upset or unfair expenses for others.

No Place : the place for woke campaigning folk in a healthy society.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#362

Post by SomaticPirate »

eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

“Outside of office”

Part of this is that office has come home (literally when it comes to the current pandemic work situation). With tools like Slack and Teams “work” has come home more than ever. Of course, there are healthy ways to limit this but you can’t say work hasn’t fundamentally invaded our home space. Also factor in how much people work, where you spent 40+ hours a week (again, leaning towards more due to pandemic work situation) there isn’t much time for activism outside the office.

Pushing for their company to support social justice causes is the white, white-collar workers way of supporting these causes without inducing the level of discomfort of actually protesting.

And if you get fired for it, all the better. Sans NDA (which companies are making increasingly common) you have an excellent case for the social zeitgeist to support you on.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#363

Post by smegger001 »

justbored123 wrote: post #310
smegger001 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the one that gets me is adding race to emoji. they all used to be 'Simpsons yellow', a skin tone not found in any ethnic or racial group, and as such not representing or excluding any group but now we have black white and other various skin tones for our happy-faces. WHY? Does black happy face mean something different than white happy face isn't happiness universal? why bring race into something that was simply meant…

Step back, take a deep breath and read what you wrote. You are saying that we should not care, but you clearly care if the face is black ... So, somebody decided that he would like to have a black emoji because he like it that and you decided to make an issue out of it ... and accuse the other person of what you yourself are doing ... If you don't see it is because you don't want to see it. "Why do you see the speck…

I am not upset that there is black, i am bothered that something that was implicitly neutral is not neutral anymore. that it can now be used as yet another point in which to divide than unify.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#364

Post by greesil »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #357
hypertexthero wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The proximity of his workplace and his home is convenient, but there is a serious political motivation underlying it, too. When Steidl was a teen-ager, he spent several weeks volunteering at Auschwitz, clearing paths for visitors and sleeping in a former barracks. His father had served in the German Army, and Steidl participated in a program that had been established, he said, to show young Germans “what the paren…

We're not actually trying to equate working on email products at Basecamp to working at Auschwitz are we? It's an interesting anecdote but it hardly serves a useful function here.

Try and look deeper. Sometimes an extreme example at the 99.9999th percentile can bound the problem. In this case, it demonstrates how well people can separate work from home.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#365

Post by nverno »

> "according to a new Harris poll commissioned by Paradigm, a diversity consultancy, more than two-thirds of adults in America want to be able to discuss racial-justice issues at work"

Of course it does, they are a diversity consultancy (whatever the heck that is)

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#366

Post by fighterpilot »

duped wrote: post #21
eric4smith wrote: post #7

People are human. But work is work. The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. The personal aims of the workers are fulfilled best outside of work. Just stop to think about it logically for a minute... is the workplace the best place to circulate a petition condemning something that has nothing to do with work? The workplace necessarily is going to bring together…

The office exists within society. Some things exist everywhere you go in society. You don't give up ethics and morals because you cross the threshold of your place of business. Ignoring social problems in the workplace because it is a workplace is how we avoid solving those problems as a society. The office is exactly where we should be advocating for things, because it is where we spend the most time and can affect…

  "The office is exactly where we should be advocating for things"
Not if those things are mostly orthogonal to the mission and capabilities of the company.

We exist in a division of labor economy for a reason. Company A does X and company B does Y because those two companies have skills and missions that are unique to the people and institutional memory inside those companies. A is highly optimized for X, and B for Y.

The people in A might even disdain Y (e.g. a charity volunteer's opinion about hedge funds) and the people in B might disdain X (e.g an oil and gas worker's opinion about environmental activism).

That's all fine because those two companies are narrowly focused on their verticals of interest.

This woke at work stuff demolishes that. People on company A and B didn't sign up for things orthogonal to X and Y, and many of them do not want to be socially pressured to go along with some activist agenda hoisted onto the company by a noisy minority of employees.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#367

Post by smegger001 »

open0 wrote: post #333
smegger001 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not angry, exhausted. Tired of everything becoming new theater in the culture war. Tired of things that were intrinsically neutral and apolitical before are being changed for no reason other than to make it another battleground.

Maybe things were neutral for you, but not for others? Man I wish I could see a face attached to every comment in this thread.

perhaps its better that no one can see the skin tone of any of commenters because then comments have to be judge on the merits of their arguments rather than melanin concentration in the skin of the people saying them.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#368

Post by kaitai »

edoceo wrote: post #244
suetoniusp wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gay people should have rights". What "rights" currently are being denied to gays? Honest question

--Protected-- These groups in USA have some subtle, hard to prove discrimination. If you're not in the group it's hard to even perceive and/or understand (it's why the issue is so hot-button). Like all those prospect-hires who never got a call back - as they weren't "a cultural fit for our company" on record. But maybe (and heres the nearly impossible part to prove) the hiring manager didn't like them cause they /sou…

It's worth noting that all people are "protected". One should be careful there, because "protected characteristics" include race, color, gender, pregnancy, disability, and age if over 40. All people have race, color, and gender category; any person can experience disability; and if we live long enough we'll all be over 40. Not particularly disagreeing with your comment, just pointing out for those reading that you -- you -- have protected characteristics, legally, no matter who you are.

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#369

Post by rantwasp »

archsurface wrote: post #2

I have no tolerance for politics at work. As far as woke at work goes, not too long ago someone in my office commented on slack "I don't approve of unnecessarily gendered emoji" - I can't even begin to imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts. First world problems? No idea.

you do have tolerance. you just don’t know it. a lot of things are “political”. You cannot share virtually anything about you or your life without some political subtext.

Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps.

Unless you’re a machine, there is politics at work. does everything have to be a woke political discussion? prolly not

Re: Woke at Work: Why tech firms are trying to run away from politics and failing

#370

Post by andrew_ »

andrew_ wrote: post #5

tip: Disable javascript to get around the paywall I'm a huge fan of what Coinbase and Basecamp have done. Coinbase is thriving and Basecamp appears to be no worse for wear. I hope we see a continuance of this trend; whereby we continue to encourage DE&I whilst keeping the worst and most toxic topics out of day to day business.

If you're going to downvote, at least provide objective reasoning for it. Otherwise it's just petty disagreement, which violates the spirit of HN.
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