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

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

#611

Post by noisy_boy » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:45 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #277

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…

> 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? I don't think that is very persuasive, because it is quite common in most other places petitions are circulated for the petitions to have nothing to do with the activity at that place. For example, of all the petitions I've been asked to sign outside gr…

> I think a good argument can be made that at work there should be a right to not contribute to discussions not related to work

I think you already have that right.

> and to not have such non-contribution held against you

That is the tricky part. How do you know if they will or will not be held against you? Maybe your skills aren't great but not bad enough to fire you but now with your non-contribution on an opinion is taken as you opposing it and your shortfall of skills is used as a platform to masquerade the real reason. Maybe the people judging you this way operate in a way that doesn't provide any clear cut evidence of their ulterior motives. Subjective areas like these have lots of shadows and shades of grey to hide things.

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

#612

Post by imgabe » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:46 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #606

imgabe wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee does something hostile at work, and never OK to fire based on stuff an employee has written before being hired. What do you think a hostile work environment is? How do writings outside of work affect the work environment? The work environment is...things that happen at work. In o…

The fact that you keep giving these watered down examples of what people do on their own time that hardly anyone takes issue with ("going door-to-door proselytizing on the weekends") only further proves my point. I mean, suppose Chaos Monkey (again, I haven't read it, so I don't have an opinion) said "Man, the US was so much better when we had slavery" or "This country has all been downhill ever since women got the r…

The fact that you have to come up with hyper-extreme examples to make this seem reasonable proves my point.

Say Bob thinks women shouldn't have the right to vote. But Bob is also kind, courteous, respectful, and professional to every real woman he interacts with at work. What is it that you think is being gained by firing Bob? If Bob starts harassing women, sure, fire his ass. But as long as he acts civilly, Bob can think whatever he wants in his own head. He can even write it down and if someone wants to publish it, good for Bob. As long as he comes to work and does his job and gets along with everyone, what is the problem? It is absolutely insane that people here are arguing that your workplace should be able to police your thoughts.

We can all disagree with opinions other people have. That's not a valid enough reason to fire someone. Suppose one of your co-workers is a die-hard vegan, should he be able to get you fired you because you think there's nothing wrong with eating meat?

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

#613

Post by SiVal » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:49 AM UTC

ayyy wrote: post #605

imgabe wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee does something hostile at work, and never OK to fire based on stuff an employee has written before being hired. What do you think a hostile work environment is? How do writings outside of work affect the work environment? The work environment is...things that happen at work. In o…

> I don't see how that is hard to understand. For a growing percentage of the workplace, knowing that a coworker has a socially unacceptable opinion is creating a hostile work environment. I completely understand where you're coming from, but you're literally wrong. If you don't want to be shunned from society, don't be identified as someone who does socially unacceptable things. I'm not super keen on how this is all…

"Socially unacceptable" is the litmus test? So, regardless of what the majority of your coworkers think, if you express a contrary opinion that they don't agree is acceptable, you have created a hostile environment.

"If you don't want to be shunned from society, don't be identified as someone who does socially unacceptable things," warned the Holy Inquisition and every Puritan minister.

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

#614

Post by goatlover » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

ayyy wrote: post #605

imgabe wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee does something hostile at work, and never OK to fire based on stuff an employee has written before being hired. What do you think a hostile work environment is? How do writings outside of work affect the work environment? The work environment is...things that happen at work. In o…

> I don't see how that is hard to understand. For a growing percentage of the workplace, knowing that a coworker has a socially unacceptable opinion is creating a hostile work environment. I completely understand where you're coming from, but you're literally wrong. If you don't want to be shunned from society, don't be identified as someone who does socially unacceptable things. I'm not super keen on how this is all…

> For a growing percentage of the workplace, knowing that a coworker has a socially unacceptable opinion is creating a hostile work environment.

Which is basically supporting the wrong political party at this point.

Are we really sure we want to go down this road?

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

#615

Post by riccardomc » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

hypertexthero wrote: post #284

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 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…

I think this story actually proves the point. In this case, people were monsters at work and respectable people at home.

Therefore it works the other way around too: someone can worship Satan in a death metal band in his private life and work at a Catholic school.

The very definition of maturity is assuming the role appropriate to the situation. What I think might influence my decisions, but in my job is my duty to set aside what I think and act in the interest of my employer. Not mine.

Now we live in a time where your work identity an personal are conflated into one. Your work is who you are. There's no longer life beyond it.

Maybe is a good thing... But it's certainly exhausting to me. Everyone putting up their best behavior all the time.

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

#616

Post by imgabe » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

didibus wrote: post #610

imgabe wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee does something hostile at work, and never OK to fire based on stuff an employee has written before being hired. What do you think a hostile work environment is? How do writings outside of work affect the work environment? The work environment is...things that happen at work. In o…

So, I haven't read the linked article, I'm just going off from what you say here. Hypothetically, say someone hates you, think you're a low life, that you're not as smart, and have bad habits, a trash culture, despise the way you dress and talk, and find your life choice repulsive, might even think you're tainted and doomed to eternal condemnation. Now say you work with this person, but at work they pretend like none…

Say you are the person who doesn't like one of your co-workers. Whatever reason, maybe they remind you of someone who treated you poorly. Maybe you just don't have compatible personalities. Whatever it is, something about them irks you. Still, you're a professional, so you treat them with the same respect and courtesy you treat everyone else.

You vent your feelings on your livejournal or whatever. Keeping things anonymous, but your co-worker finds it and demands that you be fired. Should you be fired?

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

#617

Post by belorn » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:51 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #581

imgabe wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd need to convince workers to not believe that someone who says sexist stuff in a book is going to cause a problem for them. No. A million times no. If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is under any obligation to preemptively address things someone imagines might happen based on their misi…

> If and when an employee creates a hostile work environment, then the employer may address it by disciplining or firing that employee. I don't believe this at all, and more importantly, the way you've phrased your second paragraph, I don't think you really believe it all, either. That is, your first paragraph appears to be arguing that it's only OK to fire an employee for "hostile work environment" if that employee…

What if the employee is into domination role playing in the bedroom. Should we fire such employees in the case they brought their interest into the work place and created a toxic environment?

I could imagine how any generic law that tried to address this would break horrible in all the multiple ways people have opinion, views and hobbies that if brought to work would create a toxic environment and be grounds for firing. Many would be in direct conflict with anti-discrimination laws.

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

#618

Post by inglor_cz » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:52 AM UTC

Looking at this thread, references to Nazis, KKK etc. are fairly frequent.

One of the curses of the woke movement is the loss of the ability to distinguish between really bad things and banalities. Nothing is banal anymore.

If a Cuban guy writes something unflattering about SV women in his book, it might not be pretty, but it is a far cry from "let's roll our armored brigades through the continent, enslave unwanted ethnic groups and gas millions of people as subhumans" or "lynch blacks and terrorize entire cities".

Signatories of the "fire him" letter do not seem to distinguish that anymore. That is the fruit of the victim mentality tree, watered with everyday Twitter outrage. Nothing is banal and every crisis must be escalated to verbal equivalent of nuclear war.

I wonder if tech rotted our minds. Social networks are full of vicious, all-out conflicts that nevertheless do not cause any visible physical destruction and fatalities - or at least, most of the time. Thus, we are losing our ability to de-escalate, compromise and move beyond. But precisely this ability is the core of diplomacy, as opposed to constant wars that plagued the world previously. This is a dangerous way to go. It feels like a prelude to the religious wars of the 1600s and 1700s. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odium_theologicum

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

#619

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:53 AM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #243

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…

Fully agree. It seems so stupid. Why do people care about what color the emoji is? Don't they have real problems?

One could equally ask why it bothers you so much - don't you have any real problems? People don't need permission for their aesthetic tastes.

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

#620

Post by stevenicr » Sat, May 22, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #69

duped wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I worked at place like this at Lyft and to be honest it made me pretty uncomfortable. I was aligned with most people about most of the causes circulated freely, but not all. And on the items I wasn't fully onboard with the party line, I felt there was a huge risk to my job if I ever were to voice that. I won't ever work in an environment like that again. Once I cross the threshold with my coworkers to be friends I fe…

Seeing this comment triggered several memories about how out of touch I felt the lyft office folks were - both as a rider and as a driver.

I was quite shocked on several occasions actually - some things were at times 'tone deaf' other times I wondered how they could do things that most would certainly know are going to disgust some 40% of the population and yet push it out there to everyone anyway.

And to see what they think of the drivers, while you are driving some of them - just wow. I hope they never get knocked off that high horse fantasy land they are living in.

Of course my experience is a small data point comparatively and not necessarily indicative of the corporate culture as a whole 100 - and all that.. I can imagine working with the folks I encountered on a few rides - working in close proximity with them every day would be mentally exhausting.