7 ms·

>>the media was giving the phone company a lot of heat because almost all of the managers and executives were white males. So, he explained, promoting me would

by credo 16y ago

>>the media was giving the phone company a lot of heat because almost all of the managers and executives were white males. So, he explained, promoting me would only make things worse. Adams mentions that this experience was repeated in both the large corporations that he worked in. Clearly, this excuse wasn't used to stop the overwhelming majority of executives who shared his skin color and gender. So perhaps, it might have been instructive for him to think about why he was being singled out for this excuse.

prodigal_erik 16y ago
Banks and telcos weren't adding many executives between 1979 and 1995 [1] (he never said he was considered for a new position), so it's plausible they were all hired before race and gender quotas would have required shunning them. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Office_worker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Office_worker
- jbooth 16y ago
  Yeah, but the point is it was still just an excuse. They could have fired any of dozens of white male incompetents and promoted Adams, but they didn't, because they were protecting the existing power structure. I wonder how many other people got told the same line? I haven't done a census of phone company executives ever but I'd be willing to bet there aren't more than a token handful of minorities in leadership positions (half of them with titles like diversity officer). So it was just a line.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    Regardless of who he's replacing, promoting Adams would make things worse for them, because they'd be seen to still be promoting white men. They created the problem by discriminating, so they are required to discriminate differently until the problem is resolved. This is going to take a long time, because they are also not expanding their management ranks, so it only proceeds at the pace of turnover. I'm sure Adams' contention would be they can't fire incompetents because it takes someone competent and powerful to identify them.
    - jbooth 16y ago
      All agreed. Just providing a little pushback against the notion that it's all "political correctness"'s fault when the primary obstacle to achievement is the fact that nobody's getting out of the way.
      - patio11 16y ago
        If you stopped hiring blacks, specifically, because the Chilean subsidiary missed its numbers on account of an earthquake and now you have to make budget cutbacks, your black non-employees are not being inconvenienced by an earthquake. They are being inconvenienced by the fact that you took circumstances you had no control over and decided to address them with a policy you could control, and your policy was racial discrimination. CC: American universities with a pallette swap.
        jbooth 16y ago
        What, Chile? If they stop hiring everyone, they stop hiring everyone. That's not a discrimination issue either, just like the general lack of room for advancement in mature industries that are run by lifers.
j_baker 16y ago
"So perhaps, it might have been instructive for him to think about why he was being singled out for this excuse." Why? If he'd done that, he'd probably still be a middle manager of a bank or telco instead of drawing cartoons and writing in the WSJ.

by credo 16y ago

prodigal_erik 16y ago

Banks and telcos weren't adding many executives between 1979 and 1995 [1] (he never said he was considered for a new position), so it's plausible they were all hired before race and gender quotas would have required shunning them. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Office_worker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams#Office_worker

jbooth 16y ago
Yeah, but the point is it was still just an excuse. They could have fired any of dozens of white male incompetents and promoted Adams, but they didn't, because they were protecting the existing power structure. I wonder how many other people got told the same line? I haven't done a census of phone company executives ever but I'd be willing to bet there aren't more than a token handful of minorities in leadership positions (half of them with titles like diversity officer). So it was just a line.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  Regardless of who he's replacing, promoting Adams would make things worse for them, because they'd be seen to still be promoting white men. They created the problem by discriminating, so they are required to discriminate differently until the problem is resolved. This is going to take a long time, because they are also not expanding their management ranks, so it only proceeds at the pace of turnover. I'm sure Adams' contention would be they can't fire incompetents because it takes someone competent and powerful to identify them.
  - jbooth 16y ago
    All agreed. Just providing a little pushback against the notion that it's all "political correctness"'s fault when the primary obstacle to achievement is the fact that nobody's getting out of the way.
    - patio11 16y ago
      If you stopped hiring blacks, specifically, because the Chilean subsidiary missed its numbers on account of an earthquake and now you have to make budget cutbacks, your black non-employees are not being inconvenienced by an earthquake. They are being inconvenienced by the fact that you took circumstances you had no control over and decided to address them with a policy you could control, and your policy was racial discrimination. CC: American universities with a pallette swap.
      - jbooth 16y ago
        What, Chile? If they stop hiring everyone, they stop hiring everyone. That's not a discrimination issue either, just like the general lack of room for advancement in mature industries that are run by lifers.

j_baker 16y ago

"So perhaps, it might have been instructive for him to think about why he was being singled out for this excuse." Why? If he'd done that, he'd probably still be a middle manager of a bank or telco instead of drawing cartoons and writing in the WSJ.