For all the noise tech startups make about meritocracy, they sure do a poor job of separating the work from personal issues which spells doom for minorities in

For all the noise tech startups make about meritocracy, they sure do a poor job of separating the work from personal issues which spells doom for minorities in a lot of instances. I lost count of how many times, something innocent like not going to lunch with the team regularly (I'm a picky eater), or participating in whatever game the team was nuts about (foosball, or various exotic board games) turned into personnel issues where all of a sudden I was "unavailable to the team", or "distant and aloof" etc, even though my professional contributions were just fine or even stellar. You can imagine how stressful it is to show up to work everyday wondering what bullshit non-work related nonsense is going to come up that day and require another stupid chat with your manager. And in the midst of that you're expected to keep up a cheerful demeanor and work well with the same assholes that keep bringing up this irrelevant crap because the fault in these interactions couldn't possibly be with them. The day it becomes about the work, and not personal discomfort with new and differing points of view about communication and interaction, diversity at tech companies will become an after thought ... in a good way.