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The term 'toxic culture' is mostly used to describe widespread harassment and bullying. 'Ossified' or 'stagnant' are more apt terms for a company that can't see

by tlb 8y ago

The term 'toxic culture' is mostly used to describe widespread harassment and bullying. 'Ossified' or 'stagnant' are more apt terms for a company that can't seem to seize new opportunities. The thing about margins is that it's a lot more fun to work in a division with high margins. Low margin businesses are grim, because every cost matters. When you can charge $5000 for the latest Xeon, you can pay high salaries and have fat travel budgets. So it's hard to get people used to working on high-margin divisions to move into a new low-margin division, even if it might eventually be bigger.

danmg 8y ago
You can't prescribe how language is used. Toxic culture now means this. Changes in usage happen over time.
- tlb 8y ago
  If you google 'toxic culture', all the top results (other than this article) refer to harassment and bullying rather than slowness to adapt to change. Same with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_workplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_workplace. So a descriptive linguist would agree with me.
  - danmg 8y ago
    Maybe the phrase 'toxic culture' was imprecise and lazy to begin with. Now people are adapting it in a more precise way. That wiki page was started in 2011 and it's based on a pop-management book. It's hardly an established term.
    - EpicEng 8y ago
      >It's hardly an established term Yet you said... >You can't prescribe how language is used. Toxic culture now means this. So apparently you can.
      - danmg 8y ago
        For this author it does mean this. Feel free to use this phrase however you want though.
        ihsw2 8y ago
        That's not how language works. Words and terms have meaning, you can't just make stuff up and say "languages evolve/everything is subjective/use whatever phrase you want whenever you want."
        danmg 8y ago
        When it's a phrase with no inherent concrete meaning, yes you can.
        JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > a phrase with no inherent concrete meaning All words and phrases are made up. None of them have an “inherent concrete meaning”. Commonly-accepted deifnitions today may have been entirely foreign a few decades ago.
        kazinator 8y ago
        Words and phrases can have a de facto inherent meaning when they are in a language shared by the speaker and listener (including a shared knowledge domain). When in spite of this shared language/domain situation, a phrase is gobbledygook, it is fair to say it has "no inherent concrete meaning".
        danmg 8y ago
        Exactly. It's not like the author is saying, "The cat is on the red table."
        danmg 8y ago
        Yes, so the author is free to talk about 'toxic culture' as inflexible management and that makes sense to me.
- trav4225 8y ago
  I'd add to this that, among the changes that happen to language, there are those that are true, organic, and grass-roots, but also there are those that are forced, manipulative, and agenda-driven. :-)
- cirgue 8y ago
  > You can't prescribe how language is used. Toxic culture now means this. Seriously? You can't prescribe how language is used either. Meaning in language is constructed around conversations about how words should or should not be used. No single person can prescribe language, but discussions about what words mean in their context is how language evolves.
Symmetry 8y ago
There are certainly some people[1] alleging that Intel has what most would agree is a toxic culture, but yeah this article really didn't illustrate that. [1]https://semiaccurate.com/2018/06/29/intels-firing-of-ceo-brian-krzanich-is-a-cover-for-deeper-problems/ https://semiaccurate.com/2018/06/29/intels-firing-of-ceo-bri...
Spooky23 8y ago
I worked with a guy who contracted with them in the 90s — he laughed that they flew him cross country every two weeks as a contractor to attend a staff meeting
blablabla123 8y ago
> The term 'toxic culture' is mostly used to describe widespread harassment and bullying. I guess it's a continuous spectrum. What you describe is the worst possible end. Maybe next to it you have people which just don't care about people and take advantage of them by all means. Well and then there are places were people get burned out, managers loose their shit and yell at employees etc. Seen it all, in fact it's like a domino effect. People involve in this, then they also involve in similar stupid activities.
elihu 8y ago
I work for Intel. I agree that "toxic culture" is a term I would reserve for work environments where harassment is tolerated, which doesn't describe my experience. There does seem to be a lot of dissatisfaction with leadership, though, and it's related to those high margins. In theory one would expect that those high margins would trickle down to compensation, but it seems to all be going to dividends, stock buybacks, and acquisitions. When it comes to employees, "we haven't budgeted for that".

by tlb 8y ago

danmg 8y ago

You can't prescribe how language is used. Toxic culture now means this. Changes in usage happen over time.

tlb 8y ago
If you google 'toxic culture', all the top results (other than this article) refer to harassment and bullying rather than slowness to adapt to change. Same with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_workplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_workplace. So a descriptive linguist would agree with me.
- danmg 8y ago
  Maybe the phrase 'toxic culture' was imprecise and lazy to begin with. Now people are adapting it in a more precise way. That wiki page was started in 2011 and it's based on a pop-management book. It's hardly an established term.
  - EpicEng 8y ago
    >It's hardly an established term Yet you said... >You can't prescribe how language is used. Toxic culture now means this. So apparently you can.
    - danmg 8y ago
      For this author it does mean this. Feel free to use this phrase however you want though.
      - ihsw2 8y ago
        That's not how language works. Words and terms have meaning, you can't just make stuff up and say "languages evolve/everything is subjective/use whatever phrase you want whenever you want."
        danmg 8y ago
        When it's a phrase with no inherent concrete meaning, yes you can.
        JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > a phrase with no inherent concrete meaning All words and phrases are made up. None of them have an “inherent concrete meaning”. Commonly-accepted deifnitions today may have been entirely foreign a few decades ago.
        kazinator 8y ago
        Words and phrases can have a de facto inherent meaning when they are in a language shared by the speaker and listener (including a shared knowledge domain). When in spite of this shared language/domain situation, a phrase is gobbledygook, it is fair to say it has "no inherent concrete meaning".
        danmg 8y ago
        Exactly. It's not like the author is saying, "The cat is on the red table."
        danmg 8y ago
        Yes, so the author is free to talk about 'toxic culture' as inflexible management and that makes sense to me.
trav4225 8y ago
I'd add to this that, among the changes that happen to language, there are those that are true, organic, and grass-roots, but also there are those that are forced, manipulative, and agenda-driven. :-)
cirgue 8y ago
> You can't prescribe how language is used. Toxic culture now means this. Seriously? You can't prescribe how language is used either. Meaning in language is constructed around conversations about how words should or should not be used. No single person can prescribe language, but discussions about what words mean in their context is how language evolves.

Symmetry 8y ago

There are certainly some people[1] alleging that Intel has what most would agree is a toxic culture, but yeah this article really didn't illustrate that. [1]https://semiaccurate.com/2018/06/29/intels-firing-of-ceo-brian-krzanich-is-a-cover-for-deeper-problems/ https://semiaccurate.com/2018/06/29/intels-firing-of-ceo-bri...

Spooky23 8y ago

I worked with a guy who contracted with them in the 90s — he laughed that they flew him cross country every two weeks as a contractor to attend a staff meeting

blablabla123 8y ago

> The term 'toxic culture' is mostly used to describe widespread harassment and bullying. I guess it's a continuous spectrum. What you describe is the worst possible end. Maybe next to it you have people which just don't care about people and take advantage of them by all means. Well and then there are places were people get burned out, managers loose their shit and yell at employees etc. Seen it all, in fact it's like a domino effect. People involve in this, then they also involve in similar stupid activities.

elihu 8y ago

I work for Intel. I agree that "toxic culture" is a term I would reserve for work environments where harassment is tolerated, which doesn't describe my experience. There does seem to be a lot of dissatisfaction with leadership, though, and it's related to those high margins. In theory one would expect that those high margins would trickle down to compensation, but it seems to all be going to dividends, stock buybacks, and acquisitions. When it comes to employees, "we haven't budgeted for that".