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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

#481

Post by nick-of-time »

ramblerman wrote: post #461
wpietri wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The canonical point of a workplace is to come together to fulfill the aims of the entrepreneurs. I disagree. The notion that humans turn into employer-owned production machinery for 8 hours a day is one very particular way to conceptualize work. But it ignores both the individual as a whole person and the society that contains and enables the workplace to function. To me, even as a former and perhaps future entrepr…

I agree with your sentiment that we are more than replacable robots. But I think for a long time 'a whole person' referred to your character, your hobbies, your family, your quirks. And politics was a small, and usually private part of that. We are in a time now where politics is tribal and has usurped a huge part of people's identities. To the point they see the other tribe as the devil merely by association. And I…

Politics is an expression of your moral values. It's always been an important part of a person.

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

#482

Post by ErikVandeWater »

greesil wrote: post #364
throwaway3699 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say the quote does not demonstrate the delineation between work and non-work. It's about in-group vs out-group bias. If the quote were about Nazi's coming home and hanging out with ethnically diverse friends, that would demonstrate considerable work vs home culture.

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

#483

Post by nostromo »

furyofantares wrote: post #448
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…

I perceive the cartoon yellow emojis to be white, an alternative interpretation never occurred to me at all. The first time a black coworker gave a black thumbs-up reaction on slack, I noticed I didn't want to +1 it. I didn't identify with it, it didn't feel like it was coming from me. This was a strong reaction and totally unexpected, and it was a "holy shit" moment as well, because I suddenly imagined how excluded…

Emojis weren't even created by white people, and were a cartoon yellow in some of the first Japanese sets.

Here's SoftBank's 2006 emoji set (well before any western companies got involved):

https://emojipedia.org/softbank/2006/

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

#484

Post by greesil »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #482
greesil wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say the quote does not demonstrate the delineation between work and non-work. It's about in-group vs out-group bias. If the quote were about Nazi's coming home and hanging out with ethnically diverse friends, that would demonstrate considerable work vs home culture.

I'm sorry, but I disagree

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

#485

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #475
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. We've had this discussion already, but claiming sexist views is going to be a problem for you whether you do it at work or elsewhere because of how laws around hostile work environments and notice work. Particularly, if you go on to actually create a hostile work environment (as one might reasonably suppose you will, having publicly espoused the relevant…

Do you have quotes that are sexist? The only quote I have seen in articles that is supposedly sexist is about Bay Area women.

The Apple employee letter shared a number of quotes. Now, I'm not going to debate whether they are or they aren't sexist. That seems to be something that people look at through their own prism, and it doesn't seem productive to try to convince one way or the other. What matters is that enough Apple employees felt that those statements were sexist, which is an objective fact that would also be very relevant if there were to be a later lawsuit surrounding this person's at work conduct.

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

#486

Post by rantwasp »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #410
rantwasp wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A lot of things are "political", but not that many are political . > Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps. Yeah, see, that's the problem. The problem isn't that everything is in some way political. It's people who are looking to make things political . (In fact, that could be a functional definition of woke-ness.) You don't want that at work. Eventually, the woke people will find…

so you saw what i was trying to point out. the problem is not political things. it’s people that are turning a difference of opinion into “cancelling” someone else.

my opinion is that you literally cannot ban politics at work. people will still talk about things. you need a culture of tolerance and openness.

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

#487

Post by Fordec »

efitz wrote: post #165

> 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 I just plain do not believe this poll.

I'd be willing to be the word "able" is doing the heavy lifting here. Not because everyone has vocal opinions on BLM, but that this is America, land of the free, you can't tell me what I can and can't say.

Not to mention, "racial-justice issues" doesn't necessarily mean they are PRO-racial justice either.

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

#488

Post by qudat »

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.

The more our communication defaults to chat (e.g. slack) the more I feel like it is detrimental to our productivity. I think we will wake up from this fever dream of Slack and realize there are better ways to communicate.

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

#489

Post by mtalantikite »

“When at work, steer clear of politics. This rule, generally accepted around the world, does not apply in techland.”

Sure, let’s just ignore the long and important history of organized labor around the world. They’re imagining a fantasy land of white collar labor, which in the west was historically white and male. For everyone not in that sliver of white collar work, work for sure was a place where politics were both discussed and engaged in.

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

#490

Post by aphextron »

narrator wrote: post #431
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nothing to suggest the man acted improperly at work. We've had this discussion already, but claiming sexist views is going to be a problem for you whether you do it at work or elsewhere because of how laws around hostile work environments and notice work. Particularly, if you go on to actually create a hostile work environment (as one might reasonably suppose you will, having publicly espoused the relevant…

You would never be able to hire a felon for anything since on that theory, the felon had done something outside of work that being a criminal act, might scare someone at work who had to work around them, even though their behavior at work was perfect.

That's pretty much the case, though isn't it? Why else would companies do criminal background checks?
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