5 ms·
How about a pledge to keep politics out of the work place? I am very tired of people dropping subtle and not so subtle hints about the strong political views th
by lacampbell 9y ago
How about a pledge to keep politics out of the work place? I am very tired of people dropping subtle and not so subtle hints about the strong political views they have in professional environments.
- drewrv 9y agoHow would one keep politics out of the workplace? Silence itself is a political position.
- lacampbell 9y agoIt's a social skill to learn when it's appropriate to talk about politics, and when it isn't. Many people lack this skill. Of course, we all know that it's safe for some political persuasions to speak out, but not others. I suppose the people advocating for this are - literally - Politically Correct.
- linkregister 9y agoWhat's ironic is that the "safe" politics of the Bay Area are deeply offensive in workplaces only 50 miles inland (and vice versa). I agree, politics at the workplace is inappropriate, except concerning issues of importance to that company or industry, e.g. Exxon being critical of drilling restrictions or Google evincing opinions about the continued legality of enumerating people's home wifi access points.
- rhapsodic 9y agoAnd all the self-righteous, virtue-signalling talk about "diversity" does not extend to diversity of opinion. The same people who talk about the intrinsic value of every individual want to read out of polite society anyone who does not occupy the same spot on the political spectrum they do.
- flukus 9y agoSilence is a political position as much as atheism is a religion and not collecting stamps is a hobby.
- drewrv 9y agoI agree with you if you're also not taking any actions. However tech workers are building powerful tools that could be abused if the software or data got into the wrong hands. If you're building a tool that can be used as a Muslim registry (Facebook), and the president's stated goal is a Muslim registry, silence speaks volumes.
- flukus 9y agoBut where do you stop? Any database or even a text file could be used to create a Muslim registry. In a dating site religion is an important feature for users. If people don't want this data collected then they should not provide the data, it's that simple.
- greglindahl 9y agoAtheism is a religion insomuch as it's protected under the concept of freedom of religion, and puts you into a protected class. Collecting stamps or not, not so much.
- linkregister 9y agoHow else can a Silicon Valley programmer convince himself his job is meaningful to society when he's altering CSS tags and writing code to cache requests all day? "The 0.5% increase in engagement after the A/B test result is making the world a better place." <-- that's not enough anymore, a programmer's employer has to be taking a stand for something now. Not anything that would harm revenue. Something that is meaningful to tech types, like net neutrality.
- flukus 9y agoHow many SV companies have made the world a better place? Most seem intent on making it worse by hoarding private data and creating bloated web/electron apps.
- greglindahl 9y agoLet's say that I work at a company that has employees who are married gay people, and also a few transgender employees. What is politics in that case?
- flukus 9y agoThe same as it would be if the gay couple or transgendered people weren't there.
- greglindahl 9y agoI'm mystified as to what this means. Let's say I'm trying to decide what Google's policy is about travel to a state where transgender people are required to use a bathroom where they look like they're perverts. Is that politics, or ethics, or what?
- flukus 9y agoWhy would they need a policy specifically for that and not a generic one that encompasses all situations where employees may be discriminated against?
- greglindahl 9y agoGoogle doesn't have a generic policy that encompasses all situations where an employee might be discriminated against? What? They do. The point of calling out this particular law in North Carolina is that this law claims to not be discriminatory, but it actually is. A generic policy requires interpretations. But to be relevant to this thread, is this "politics" that a company should avoid?
- lacampbell 9y agoI don't find the presence of married gay or transgender people to be an overt political statement. On some level it is political of course, but only on the pedantic reductionist level of "everything is a political statement". If you want to go down that route, fine, but I won't be joining you.