4 ms·

I am a woman of color and to be honest I totally lucked into it. From the perspective that I work for a large, old company: * Get a sense of how the company e

by thex10 9y ago

I am a woman of color and to be honest I totally lucked into it. From the perspective that I work for a large, old company: * Get a sense of how the company embraces (or doesn't embrace) flexible work arrangements. Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids and make up the hours that night or on a different day without having to jump through hoops and/or get looked at like they have two heads? My theory is that, in having a mindset that can accommodate different working arrangements, this can extend to accommodating different kinds of people. I'm suggesting that an employee might be less likely to be ostracized as 'other' at a place like that. * Do they have the resources to encourage your growth by supporting you taking classes, going to conferences, buying you books, etc? My theory here is that this supports a belief that people are capable of growing and improving, which is at conflict with the belief of anyone not being "technical" enough or somesuch. If you want to be around fewer ego-inflated tech bros I recommend a place where the leadership is not comprised of ego-inflated tech bros. This combined with what I mention above probably eliminates most startups right off the bat... anyway thank you for listening to my theories

watwut 9y ago
Hm, there might be something on this. Best workplace I was at had dudes working 4 days out of five because of personal activities that fifth day - no repercussions. People tended to do their own thing in a lot of ways.
TallGuyShort 9y ago
>> Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids Your theory about accommodating different arrangements -> accommodating different people makes sense too, but I think this flexibility is also the direct opposite of some anti-woman bias. If people don't value them as employees because of the assumption that as (potential) mothers they're less dedicated or less reliable, being willing to accept that parents have other, more important things in their life regardless of gender and being willing to work with that is progress (for everyone).
amyjess 9y ago
> Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids and make up the hours that night or on a different day without having to jump through hoops and/or get looked at like they have two heads? One thing I absolutely love about my current employer is that it is written policy that if you're absent less than four hours in a day, you don't have to report it as PTO. Of course, that same policy also tells you not to abuse it. I think that's pretty fair. It feels really good knowing that if I have a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning, I can come in an hour or two late, and I won't be either forced to burn sick time or stuck in the office at night making up the hours. Compare that with the last employer I worked at, which was a defense contractor. For those of you who don't know how defense contractors work, federal law requires that every employee's hours be accounted for, so I'd have to either make up the hours or take sick time every time I had a doctor's appointment. Don't get me wrong: they were fairly progressive for a defense contractor (nobody bat an eye at the purple stripe I had in my hair at the time), but they were still subject to a whole ton of federally-mandated bullshit that I'm glad to be rid of. I sucked it up when I worked there because I got paid really well, but now that I'm out, I don't miss it.
afarrell 9y ago
Question: are those two policies not bog-standard things that you'd expect from any tech company, especially a startup?
- thex10 9y ago
  Maybe? Smaller companies might not have all the supporting infrastructure ready though. And even if a company claims to have those policies, it won't always be implemented the same way..
  - afarrell 9y ago
    Thats very true and very important to be reminded of. You'd want to inquire about the specific structures to support that.

by thex10 9y ago

watwut 9y ago

Hm, there might be something on this. Best workplace I was at had dudes working 4 days out of five because of personal activities that fifth day - no repercussions. People tended to do their own thing in a lot of ways.

TallGuyShort 9y ago

>> Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids Your theory about accommodating different arrangements -> accommodating different people makes sense too, but I think this flexibility is also the direct opposite of some anti-woman bias. If people don't value them as employees because of the assumption that as (potential) mothers they're less dedicated or less reliable, being willing to accept that parents have other, more important things in their life regardless of gender and being willing to work with that is progress (for everyone).

amyjess 9y ago

> Can an employee leave early to run errands or pick up kids and make up the hours that night or on a different day without having to jump through hoops and/or get looked at like they have two heads? One thing I absolutely love about my current employer is that it is written policy that if you're absent less than four hours in a day, you don't have to report it as PTO. Of course, that same policy also tells you not to abuse it. I think that's pretty fair. It feels really good knowing that if I have a doctor's appointment first thing in the morning, I can come in an hour or two late, and I won't be either forced to burn sick time or stuck in the office at night making up the hours. Compare that with the last employer I worked at, which was a defense contractor. For those of you who don't know how defense contractors work, federal law requires that every employee's hours be accounted for, so I'd have to either make up the hours or take sick time every time I had a doctor's appointment. Don't get me wrong: they were fairly progressive for a defense contractor (nobody bat an eye at the purple stripe I had in my hair at the time), but they were still subject to a whole ton of federally-mandated bullshit that I'm glad to be rid of. I sucked it up when I worked there because I got paid really well, but now that I'm out, I don't miss it.

afarrell 9y ago

Question: are those two policies not bog-standard things that you'd expect from any tech company, especially a startup?

thex10 9y ago
Maybe? Smaller companies might not have all the supporting infrastructure ready though. And even if a company claims to have those policies, it won't always be implemented the same way..
- afarrell 9y ago
  Thats very true and very important to be reminded of. You'd want to inquire about the specific structures to support that.