5 ms·

I’m confused. By “this whole thing” I mean “the James Damore nonsense” and “political nonsense in general”. It is super hecka easy to just not talk about politi

I’m confused. By “this whole thing” I mean “the James Damore nonsense” and “political nonsense in general”. It is super hecka easy to just not talk about politics at work. For decades, people went to work and didn’t talk about religion, sex, politics, etc. Work is for work, and as a millennial, I am deeply concerned that my cohort does not understand that.

geofft 9y ago
Do you think the Damore memo was about politics or religion or sex? It seems to me like the Damore memo was specifically about the underlying facts behind Google's hiring strategy, which is extremely work-related. (In the course of this memo he happened to veer into things the NLRB ruled were decent reasons to fire someone, but I think writing a memo about the hiring process, by itself, was perfectly legitimate.) I mean, certainly you can interpret hiring strategy as a type of politics, but "companies should exist in the first place" is also a type of politics. What's your definition of political nonsense? I agree that it's easy not to talk about the politics underlying your hiring strategy at work. But it's also equally easy to just not talk about your hiring strategy at all - which is a thing lots of companies do, but not a thing that a company like Google could do and remain Google.
- kunley 9y ago
  What is your point, because it is actually hard to get..?
  - geofft 9y ago
    The Damore memo was not a problem for daring to talk about gender and race and hiring. Google both wants and needs its employees to talk about that. The Damore memo was a problem for the underlying assumptions about gender and race it used in trying to make its (vague) point. An analogy I've made previously on this site is that it's like a memo about which tech stack to use. Saying "Why can't engineers learn not to talk about tech stack and just use what they're told to use" is misguided - it might work at some companies, but it won't work at Google, and moreover, Google specifically wants you to talk about such things. The Damore memo, however, responded by saying "Let's do a long study on whether Classic ASP on NT 4.0 is the right approach, let's try rewriting some core components in Classic ASP and moving some services to NT 4.0 and see if things get better," and making questionable citations to papers (which do exist, and aren't inherently non-credible) about projects developed in Classic ASP. An engineer who seriously advocates that position and wants the rest of the company to spend time evaluating that position is in the wrong, and is wasting the company's time. Saying that their mistake is daring to speak about programming languages - and saying that other employees who say "Actually, no, your technology suggestions are obviously wrong" in response are equally mistaken - is misunderstanding the mistake.

geofft 9y ago

Do you think the Damore memo was about politics or religion or sex? It seems to me like the Damore memo was specifically about the underlying facts behind Google's hiring strategy, which is extremely work-related. (In the course of this memo he happened to veer into things the NLRB ruled were decent reasons to fire someone, but I think writing a memo about the hiring process, by itself, was perfectly legitimate.) I mean, certainly you can interpret hiring strategy as a type of politics, but "companies should exist in the first place" is also a type of politics. What's your definition of political nonsense? I agree that it's easy not to talk about the politics underlying your hiring strategy at work. But it's also equally easy to just not talk about your hiring strategy at all - which is a thing lots of companies do, but not a thing that a company like Google could do and remain Google.

kunley 9y ago
What is your point, because it is actually hard to get..?
- geofft 9y ago
  The Damore memo was not a problem for daring to talk about gender and race and hiring. Google both wants and needs its employees to talk about that. The Damore memo was a problem for the underlying assumptions about gender and race it used in trying to make its (vague) point. An analogy I've made previously on this site is that it's like a memo about which tech stack to use. Saying "Why can't engineers learn not to talk about tech stack and just use what they're told to use" is misguided - it might work at some companies, but it won't work at Google, and moreover, Google specifically wants you to talk about such things. The Damore memo, however, responded by saying "Let's do a long study on whether Classic ASP on NT 4.0 is the right approach, let's try rewriting some core components in Classic ASP and moving some services to NT 4.0 and see if things get better," and making questionable citations to papers (which do exist, and aren't inherently non-credible) about projects developed in Classic ASP. An engineer who seriously advocates that position and wants the rest of the company to spend time evaluating that position is in the wrong, and is wasting the company's time. Saying that their mistake is daring to speak about programming languages - and saying that other employees who say "Actually, no, your technology suggestions are obviously wrong" in response are equally mistaken - is misunderstanding the mistake.