6 ms·

I've worked at a company that heavily encouraged discussion of politics at work, and it was a nightmare. The things management sponsored (at the request of empl

by ggreer 7y ago

I've worked at a company that heavily encouraged discussion of politics at work, and it was a nightmare. The things management sponsored (at the request of employees) included: - A women-only Slack channel. - Women-only events, such as a free screening of Wonder Woman. The men at the company were expected to work during that time. - An "ally skills workshop"[1], which attempted to indoctrinate us with an explicitly racist and sexist ideology. - A Diversity Council that had the explicit goal of increasing the number of non-white non-men in engineering. One time when I was invited to a meeting of the council, I said that their goal should be to eliminate bias in the hiring process (such as by blinding resumes, replacing phone screens with text-only mediums, etc). I was taken aside and chastised for my statements. If I had actually said my opinions, I have no doubt I would have been fired for my beliefs. If that's what happens when people are encouraged to bring their politics to work (especially in SF), I will gladly take the "no politics" option. 1. Slides from the workshop: https://files.frameshiftconsulting.com/Ally%20Skills%20Workshop%20slides.pdf https://files.frameshiftconsulting.com/Ally%20Skills%20Works... Edit: the slides have been updated since I last saw them. The slides presented to me were closer to this version from 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170911021528/https://files.frameshiftconsulting.com/Ally%20Skills%20Workshop%20slides.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20170911021528/https://files.fra... Though even that version is more toned down than what I saw.

fwip 7y ago
Sounds like a nice place to work. Believing that the teaching you how to be a good ally is racist and sexist (against white men, I assume) is probably why you didn't fit in great there. I read that whole slideset and there's nothing racist in there - unless you're counting the scenarios of "what not to do."
- ggreer 7y ago
  The slides didn't have the explicitly racist and sexist bits. Basically if you were a white guy, you weren't allowed to interrupt anyone and anyone was allowed to interrupt you. There were also implications that one should discriminate against white men when choosing who to hire, who to promote, and who to have speak at conferences.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Then why'd you link the slides?
- friendlybus 7y ago
  So if the white male has some important information for the bottom line of the company, should he wait 2hrs for wonder woman to stop playing or go and 'interrupt' 10 women not working and be a bad ally? What a joke.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Yeah, people have meetings. People go to lunch sometimes, or have appointments outside the workplace. If it's "stop the world" important and absolutely needs to be dealt with right now, interrupt it, same as you would any other break. Otherwise, deal with it like you would any other situation.
- DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
  The slide set is a big can of crazy.
  - fwip 7y ago
    What's the crazy part?
    - DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
      Uh, all of it?
      - fwip 7y ago
        That's not an especially helpful answer.
        DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
        The ideology is not especially deserving of anything but ridicule, but I went through the slides and excerpted some particularly goofy stuff. "Marginalized person: Any woman who wants to work for pay for an employer" "Oppression: The self-reinforcing system of stories, TV, news coverage, police, and legal system stereotyping Black people as criminals, that benefits non-Black people and harms Black people" What TV shows has the author been watching? For my entire life, at least 95% of the depictions of black people that I've seen on television have been positive, sometimes to the point of being pandering. (For example, if a show has a black character and a white character, and one has to do something wrong to advance the plot, it will be the white character, because that won't cause outrage, while the reverse will.) "You are eating lunch in the employee kitchen when a group sits down near you. One person comments loudly “If I ate that, I’d be as big as a house!” A higher-weight coworker is sitting nearby and can clearly overhear." It's not clear who's talking to whom here. If it's someone commenting on the lunch of a coworker with whom they're not sitting, well, I've never seen behavior like that in any workplace, nor have I heard of anything like that happening. If it's someone commenting on one of their lunch-mates' lunches, then it's none of the "higher"-weight coworker's business. "Higher weight people face workplace discrimination, particularly women, regardless of ability to do the job Body size is falsely equated with virtue: self-control, hard worker, in good health" Body size is correctly associated with self-control, energy, and good health. The proportion of overweight people who couldn't reach a normal weight if they ate sensibly and exercised is tiny. The "healthy at any weight" meme is absurd. "Black people face a much a higher bar than white people during hiring (and in general), and white people often get a pass or exceptions to the process" Bullshit. "A co-worker shares an article on your work Slack claiming that white men are biologically more suited to STEM careers, saying "I don't agree with all of it, but it has some good points." Another co-worker replies, saying that they disagree with the article but we have to be tolerant of co-workers with different political views because diversity of thought is important too." Men are biologically more suited to STEM careers, on average. You have to be willfully blind not to see that this is true. Why does this make people so angry? ""Office housework" is necessary but unrewarded work (taking notes, organizing parties, tidying, etc.) People of color and women of all races are expected to do more of this work and punished for not doing it" Bullshit. "On a company mailing list, someone writes “How would you explain this [technical thing] to your grandmother?”" Old women (and, to a lesser extent, old men) are much more likely to have trouble with technology than are young men (and, to a lesser extent, young women). Again, why does this make people so angry? Intersectionalism is just borderline personality disorder in ideological form.
radarsat1 7y ago
I didn't find the slides so bad. But.. > Ally is a verb, not an identity That's... that's a noun.
- grzm 7y ago
  It can be either, depending on context. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ally
  - OJFord 7y ago
    GP is referring to the slide (linked in GGP post) that calls it a verb but uses it as a noun: > Ally is a verb, not an identity > [...] > Acting as an ally is about action - it is not an identity, which is why we talk about "ally skills" instead of "allies" (In military slang 'ally skills' could be adjectival use, but I'm pretty sure this is using it like 'friend skills', a noun.)
    - grzm 7y ago
      My reading of the slide is that they're making the distinction that it's an action (verb) not a state of being (identity), similar to the meme that "human being" is an action rather than a thing. I take the following sentences as confirming this reading: > Being a marginalized person takes no action - it is an identity: > Acting as an ally is about action - it is not an identity, which is why we talk about "ally skills" instead of "allies" > Depending on what is most relevant about you to the situation, you may switch between being marginalized and acting as an ally
- DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
  You didn’t find the slides so bad? Really? Those slides present a rather extreme ideology, which is not based on (and is often flatly contradicted by) evidence.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Yeah, the slides are normal and reasonable. You think it's extreme ideology to say that people often treat men different than women?
Gunax 7y ago
That doesn't sound so much like that's discussing politics at work' so much as it's 'indoctrinating' at work.
- cmdshiftf4 7y ago
  When disagreement almost ensures punishment (further indoctrination sessions with some career damage taken, on the "least harsh" side of the spectrum, to the loss of one's job, income and a heavily tarnished reputation on the other), I would be less inclined to call it indoctrination and more inclined to call it forced re-education.
friendlybus 7y ago
Wow. Did that company implode? What's the point of so openly dividing your employees along political lines? How are you supposed to work as a team? It's bad enough with normal workplace troubles like pay differences and whatever else.
- ggreer 7y ago
  It was quite a successful company. The team I worked on was pretty chill. It was the overall company that had the annoyances I mentioned. Heck, despite what happened, I still like and admire the leadership of the company.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    What were the admirable bits?
prepend 7y ago
I love their reasoning for choosing a three hour workshop. > 2 hour-long workshop: most common complaint was "Too short!" >3 hour-long workshop: only a few complaints that it was too short There’s no other data or reasoning presented. Surely other factors must be important and it seems unwise to select a time solely on these two points.
- fwip 7y ago
  There's a lot of information in the world that isn't on a powerpoint slide.
  - prepend 7y ago
    Yes, of course. It would be useful to include some of that information on the slide to help justify why the session is three hours. As it, I think the author loses credibility as this is an irrational, non-data driven conclusion. Using evidence to support statements is even more important when introducing a new concept to an audience.
ubertaco 7y ago
This mirrors my experience at Salesforce, to a large extent.
mayniac 7y ago
>"I said that their goal should be to eliminate bias in the hiring process (such as by blinding resumes, replacing phone screens with text-only mediums, etc). I was taken aside and chastised for my statements." While it does sound like a good idea to eliminate bias, appearance is a contributory factor in the hiring process. If someone turns up with matted hair, hasn't showered in months, and is wearing a pizza stained t-shirt then most companies won't want to hire them and most employees won't want to work near them. Good idea in theory, not really in practice. You're going to have to have a face-to-face interview at _some_ point and that's when (mostly subconscious) racism/sexism/\*ism will Also, that first slide from the workshop presentation reminded me how much I hate the push for people to declare pronouns. Contrapoints tweeted about this from a trans perspective[1] and got labeled "problematic" by a lot of leftists. [1] https://arcdigital.media/contrapoints-and-the-scandal-that-shouldnt-be-15ac97f330d4 https://arcdigital.media/contrapoints-and-the-scandal-that-s... (referencing the first set of tweets)
- waterhouse 7y ago
  > If someone turns up with matted hair, hasn't showered in months, and is wearing a pizza stained t-shirt then most companies won't want to hire them and most employees won't want to work near them. Such a person would probably stink, which is a sensible reason for employees not to work with them. Such a person also appears to demonstrate either being unaware of (very unlikely unless their sense of smell is broken and they don't have any friends who have told them it's a problem), or not caring about inflicting their stench on their prospective coworkers, which probably implies something bad about their judgment and considerateness, which is also a sensible reason not to hire them. If you never saw the person until hiring them, that could be an issue; but if it were a line item in company policy (maybe alongside the dress code) that employees shall not inflict a stench on others, then at least you could get on their case about it on day 1, and have a fully justified reason to fire them quickly if they didn't shape up. Of course it'd be more efficient to have not hired them at all, but there will always be some problems you just don't find out about until later. I don't think this particular failure mode is common.
pluma 7y ago
Have you considered that maybe you wouldn't have been fired for having the "wrong political views" but simply being a bigoted piece of shit? Just a suggestion.
- ajscanlan 7y ago
  What part of their comment specifically made you conclude they're a bigoted piece of shit?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

by ggreer 7y ago

fwip 7y ago

Sounds like a nice place to work. Believing that the teaching you how to be a good ally is racist and sexist (against white men, I assume) is probably why you didn't fit in great there. I read that whole slideset and there's nothing racist in there - unless you're counting the scenarios of "what not to do."

ggreer 7y ago
The slides didn't have the explicitly racist and sexist bits. Basically if you were a white guy, you weren't allowed to interrupt anyone and anyone was allowed to interrupt you. There were also implications that one should discriminate against white men when choosing who to hire, who to promote, and who to have speak at conferences.
- fwip 7y ago
  Then why'd you link the slides?
friendlybus 7y ago
So if the white male has some important information for the bottom line of the company, should he wait 2hrs for wonder woman to stop playing or go and 'interrupt' 10 women not working and be a bad ally? What a joke.
- fwip 7y ago
  Yeah, people have meetings. People go to lunch sometimes, or have appointments outside the workplace. If it's "stop the world" important and absolutely needs to be dealt with right now, interrupt it, same as you would any other break. Otherwise, deal with it like you would any other situation.
DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
The slide set is a big can of crazy.
- fwip 7y ago
  What's the crazy part?
  - DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
    Uh, all of it?
    - fwip 7y ago
      That's not an especially helpful answer.
      - DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
        The ideology is not especially deserving of anything but ridicule, but I went through the slides and excerpted some particularly goofy stuff. "Marginalized person: Any woman who wants to work for pay for an employer" "Oppression: The self-reinforcing system of stories, TV, news coverage, police, and legal system stereotyping Black people as criminals, that benefits non-Black people and harms Black people" What TV shows has the author been watching? For my entire life, at least 95% of the depictions of black people that I've seen on television have been positive, sometimes to the point of being pandering. (For example, if a show has a black character and a white character, and one has to do something wrong to advance the plot, it will be the white character, because that won't cause outrage, while the reverse will.) "You are eating lunch in the employee kitchen when a group sits down near you. One person comments loudly “If I ate that, I’d be as big as a house!” A higher-weight coworker is sitting nearby and can clearly overhear." It's not clear who's talking to whom here. If it's someone commenting on the lunch of a coworker with whom they're not sitting, well, I've never seen behavior like that in any workplace, nor have I heard of anything like that happening. If it's someone commenting on one of their lunch-mates' lunches, then it's none of the "higher"-weight coworker's business. "Higher weight people face workplace discrimination, particularly women, regardless of ability to do the job Body size is falsely equated with virtue: self-control, hard worker, in good health" Body size is correctly associated with self-control, energy, and good health. The proportion of overweight people who couldn't reach a normal weight if they ate sensibly and exercised is tiny. The "healthy at any weight" meme is absurd. "Black people face a much a higher bar than white people during hiring (and in general), and white people often get a pass or exceptions to the process" Bullshit. "A co-worker shares an article on your work Slack claiming that white men are biologically more suited to STEM careers, saying "I don't agree with all of it, but it has some good points." Another co-worker replies, saying that they disagree with the article but we have to be tolerant of co-workers with different political views because diversity of thought is important too." Men are biologically more suited to STEM careers, on average. You have to be willfully blind not to see that this is true. Why does this make people so angry? ""Office housework" is necessary but unrewarded work (taking notes, organizing parties, tidying, etc.) People of color and women of all races are expected to do more of this work and punished for not doing it" Bullshit. "On a company mailing list, someone writes “How would you explain this [technical thing] to your grandmother?”" Old women (and, to a lesser extent, old men) are much more likely to have trouble with technology than are young men (and, to a lesser extent, young women). Again, why does this make people so angry? Intersectionalism is just borderline personality disorder in ideological form.

radarsat1 7y ago

I didn't find the slides so bad. But.. > Ally is a verb, not an identity That's... that's a noun.

grzm 7y ago
It can be either, depending on context. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ally https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ally
- OJFord 7y ago
  GP is referring to the slide (linked in GGP post) that calls it a verb but uses it as a noun: > Ally is a verb, not an identity > [...] > Acting as an ally is about action - it is not an identity, which is why we talk about "ally skills" instead of "allies" (In military slang 'ally skills' could be adjectival use, but I'm pretty sure this is using it like 'friend skills', a noun.)
  - grzm 7y ago
    My reading of the slide is that they're making the distinction that it's an action (verb) not a state of being (identity), similar to the meme that "human being" is an action rather than a thing. I take the following sentences as confirming this reading: > Being a marginalized person takes no action - it is an identity: > Acting as an ally is about action - it is not an identity, which is why we talk about "ally skills" instead of "allies" > Depending on what is most relevant about you to the situation, you may switch between being marginalized and acting as an ally
DATACOMMANDER 7y ago
You didn’t find the slides so bad? Really? Those slides present a rather extreme ideology, which is not based on (and is often flatly contradicted by) evidence.
- fwip 7y ago
  Yeah, the slides are normal and reasonable. You think it's extreme ideology to say that people often treat men different than women?

Gunax 7y ago

That doesn't sound so much like that's discussing politics at work' so much as it's 'indoctrinating' at work.

cmdshiftf4 7y ago
When disagreement almost ensures punishment (further indoctrination sessions with some career damage taken, on the "least harsh" side of the spectrum, to the loss of one's job, income and a heavily tarnished reputation on the other), I would be less inclined to call it indoctrination and more inclined to call it forced re-education.

friendlybus 7y ago

Wow. Did that company implode? What's the point of so openly dividing your employees along political lines? How are you supposed to work as a team? It's bad enough with normal workplace troubles like pay differences and whatever else.

ggreer 7y ago
It was quite a successful company. The team I worked on was pretty chill. It was the overall company that had the annoyances I mentioned. Heck, despite what happened, I still like and admire the leadership of the company.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  What were the admirable bits?

prepend 7y ago

I love their reasoning for choosing a three hour workshop. > 2 hour-long workshop: most common complaint was "Too short!" >3 hour-long workshop: only a few complaints that it was too short There’s no other data or reasoning presented. Surely other factors must be important and it seems unwise to select a time solely on these two points.

fwip 7y ago
There's a lot of information in the world that isn't on a powerpoint slide.
- prepend 7y ago
  Yes, of course. It would be useful to include some of that information on the slide to help justify why the session is three hours. As it, I think the author loses credibility as this is an irrational, non-data driven conclusion. Using evidence to support statements is even more important when introducing a new concept to an audience.

ubertaco 7y ago

This mirrors my experience at Salesforce, to a large extent.

mayniac 7y ago

>"I said that their goal should be to eliminate bias in the hiring process (such as by blinding resumes, replacing phone screens with text-only mediums, etc). I was taken aside and chastised for my statements." While it does sound like a good idea to eliminate bias, appearance is a contributory factor in the hiring process. If someone turns up with matted hair, hasn't showered in months, and is wearing a pizza stained t-shirt then most companies won't want to hire them and most employees won't want to work near them. Good idea in theory, not really in practice. You're going to have to have a face-to-face interview at _some_ point and that's when (mostly subconscious) racism/sexism/\*ism will Also, that first slide from the workshop presentation reminded me how much I hate the push for people to declare pronouns. Contrapoints tweeted about this from a trans perspective[1] and got labeled "problematic" by a lot of leftists. [1] https://arcdigital.media/contrapoints-and-the-scandal-that-shouldnt-be-15ac97f330d4 https://arcdigital.media/contrapoints-and-the-scandal-that-s... (referencing the first set of tweets)

waterhouse 7y ago
> If someone turns up with matted hair, hasn't showered in months, and is wearing a pizza stained t-shirt then most companies won't want to hire them and most employees won't want to work near them. Such a person would probably stink, which is a sensible reason for employees not to work with them. Such a person also appears to demonstrate either being unaware of (very unlikely unless their sense of smell is broken and they don't have any friends who have told them it's a problem), or not caring about inflicting their stench on their prospective coworkers, which probably implies something bad about their judgment and considerateness, which is also a sensible reason not to hire them. If you never saw the person until hiring them, that could be an issue; but if it were a line item in company policy (maybe alongside the dress code) that employees shall not inflict a stench on others, then at least you could get on their case about it on day 1, and have a fully justified reason to fire them quickly if they didn't shape up. Of course it'd be more efficient to have not hired them at all, but there will always be some problems you just don't find out about until later. I don't think this particular failure mode is common.

pluma 7y ago

Have you considered that maybe you wouldn't have been fired for having the "wrong political views" but simply being a bigoted piece of shit? Just a suggestion.

ajscanlan 7y ago
What part of their comment specifically made you conclude they're a bigoted piece of shit?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]