581–590 of 853 posts
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They didn't say that at all. Why are you putting words in their mouth?
Are you saying they don't consider this issue political, or that they don't want it addressed? What words do you think I put in their mouth?
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> Obviously we can find examples of members of the GOP that are against gay marriage The party platform is the official stance of the Republican party and it is against same sex marriage. It won't change until 2024. Republicans who support it are extreme outliers, not the other way around. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rnc-moves-2016-platform-inta... > I’m pretty sure mainstream republicans are pretty onboard with…
>If I was in a same sex marriage I would feel very, very uncomfortable working at a company that "bans politics" when a large number of my peers thinks my spouse is "unnatural". What's especially important to remember though, is if a company were to limit political discussions, by your same statements/logic, that would also include opinions shared _against_ same sex marriage though, no? Wouldn't that create a safer e…
I think a lot of people want to treat this as an experiment - “couldn’t it work?” - but a lot of people with lived experience are saying “this policy doesn’t work, because this used to be how workplace policies were, and they had really bad side-effects.”
I just think most of us are unwilling to run the experiment again just because it should work. In practice, it does not.
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> But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? I really detest such things, and the "problem"…
"How well you fit in our team", especially when applied to things like interviewing and hiring, often has a strong correlation with "are you not a member of an underrepresented group", often unintentionally.
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It's hard not to escape the conclusion that the goal of Basecamp's new policy is to quietly suppress or ultimately evict people who think like you. There is no connection whatsoever between diversity and building product. Note: you haven't tried to explain your claim there is, just implied it's obvious, probably because you can't. I've seen people try to honestly intellectually defend a connection between employee di…
There is an absolute wealth of connection between more diversity and better products: it’s not that a monoculture can’t make products for everyone, it’s that it’s easier for a team that has wider representation to do so: it’s a competitive advantage for them. Want examples beyond hand driers? Apple missed menstrual cycle tracking in the Health app. NASA offered to send 1,000 tampons with the first woman in space - an…
The examples you give are mostly product examples (i.e. the product lacking features or not correctly addressing its target audience). Therefore I think it would be appropriate to discuss those in the workplace, but NOT as a function of e.g. the gender make-up or racial make-up of the team, but rather as a function of competence in addressing those issues.
In particular, imagine a hypothetical scenario where we are building a product, and we receive the feedback that many women find it difficult to use, and we want to fix that by hiring an expert.
The goal is to hire someone who understands marketing this type of product to women. Although it's maybe likely the most suitable candidate for this would be a woman, it could also possibly be someone else - and we would be looking for experience/evidence toward competence in that area, regardless of the candidate's gender or other characteristics.
To make the conversation apolitical, it would be about specific competencies and lacks of the team or product, NOT about the team itself having "not enough short blue-eyed Turkish women over 50" or some other group.
Also, to keep the conversation apolitical, the conversation would not extend to broader social questions outside of the specific product or problem. It would not stray into generalizations about groups. It would not appeal to emotional arguments like "safety."
> No more paternalistic benefits. For years we've offered a fitness benefit, a wellness allowance, a farmer's market share, and continuing education allowances I have had a gripe with this sort of 'benefits' in previous companies. For example, paying for membership at the local gym. Reply to criticism tended to be " Oh well, use it or lose it ". Glad Basecamp saw the light on this. Just pay employees well or set up a…
What's wrong with a benefit that some employees cannot or choose not to use? I'm genuinely curious as to what your thinking is. If my company provides free coffee and I don't drink coffee, is that also a problem, for instance?
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> conservative politics in the UD make some people’s entire existence political, full stop Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop. It’s made quite clear tha…
> Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, What is a "straight white" liberal company? Are you saying you've asked all your coworkers their sexual orientation, or are you making assumptions based on heteronormativity. Dating people of the opposite gender doesn't necessarily make one straight. As a not-entirely-straight man in tech, I have never discussed my degree of "straightness" at wo…
Straight white could simply meant mostly white or mostly straight and white
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How many women are engineers as a percent of total engineers? Given the current ratio in my generation (mid thirties) we are at least decades away of having a significant ratio of senior engineers candidates, so I'm not sure your question is relevant to assess anything.
strong female engineers exist, so i would ask why you're not seeing them as candidates.
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There is an absolute wealth of connection between more diversity and better products: it’s not that a monoculture can’t make products for everyone, it’s that it’s easier for a team that has wider representation to do so: it’s a competitive advantage for them. Want examples beyond hand driers? Apple missed menstrual cycle tracking in the Health app. NASA offered to send 1,000 tampons with the first woman in space - an…
It's a pretty subtle distinction but I'll try to make it. The examples you give are mostly product examples (i.e. the product lacking features or not correctly addressing its target audience). Therefore I think it would be appropriate to discuss those in the workplace, but NOT as a function of e.g. the gender make-up or racial make-up of the team, but rather as a function of competence in addressing those issues. In…
People bring politics and emotion. If your customers or staff are people, it is more effective to be able to discuss their issues directly without contorting yourself into a "just focus on the work" correctness.
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>But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work? These are questions for people at work whose job…
There will now be signs in the break room: NO GOSSIP NO POLITICS YOU WERE NOT HIRED TO HAVE OPINIONS OF YOU OWN JUST CODE
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For the record, it's 49% support according to Gallup. https://news.gallup.com/poll/311672/support-sex-marriage-mat... And based on the trend, it will cross 50% imminently (if it hasn't already).
Progress is also good, but it remains true that we aren’t exactly at “majority support” yet. And it’s not guaranteed to keep climbing either. I hope it does, obviously, because that’s a very good thing for me. We’re just not there yet.
I’m from a Muslim country, and among Muslim Americans same sex relationships are taboo. While Muslim support for same sex marriage crossed the 50% mark a couple of years ago, it’s completely rejected within the community itself. (Almost no Muslim Americans identity as LGBT, and virtually no mosques will perform same sex marriages: https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/28/us/lgbt-muslims-pride-progres....) But the many Muslim Americans who oppose same sex marriage don’t oppose the “existence” of gay people. They believe, consistent with their religion, that marriage is for procreation and government sanction should only be extended to heterosexual relationships. They are also probably ignorant on the issue of sexual orientation being an innate trait. My aunts don’t want to grant government sanction to same-sex relationships, but it’s unfair to say they’re a danger to the “existence” of gay people.