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How about everyone goes to work and does their job and goes home. You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to

How about everyone goes to work and does their job and goes home. You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. Super cool that everyone likes their own things though, I support liking things unrelated to job, just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like.

bleuedejapan 7y ago
How is that related to Google's efforts to curb unionization?
- lobotryas 7y ago
  Maybe because OP believes that google employees don’t have the right or reason to unionize. Or because they believe employees should not have the power to dictate what projects a company undertakes on ethical grounds. If someone believes they should have such powers then maybe Google is the wrong place for them.
Pfhreak 7y ago
How do you square that with stuff like whether your company should, for example, support same sex partner benefits, trans inclusive healthcare, prayer rooms, etc?
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  > same sex partner benefits, trans inclusive healthcare Aren't things like this governed by local laws? In Canada we have private insurance for things above and beyond basic health care, but only the government gets to decide who is a partner, dependant, etc... > prayer rooms Are they going to build chapels for every religion? Who decides which religions get chapels or prayer rooms? Or does only 1 religion get a prayer room because 2019 politics?
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    The reference may be to the fact that Amazon (for example) provided only space for Muslims to have prayer rooms, but no one else.
    - thrower123 7y ago
      I wonder if there is any of the kind of phenomenon I used to observe in my blue-collar days - smokers could take 10-15 minutes off every hour to go to the smoking area and light up, so non-smokers got irritated and started going along too for their "second-hand smoke" breaks...
    - javagram 7y ago
      I’d be shocked if amazon in fact had a policy that only Muslims could use the prayer rooms. Christians and Jews should be able to use them if they choose. I googled around and could only find statements that Muslim employees of a security contractor for amazon were not allowed to use the rooms for a while, but after protests and NLRB intervention now are.
      - RobertRoberts 7y ago
        Maybe because in the US we have religious freedom so we don't feel the need to protest to demand others accommodate us? It's like a millionaire eating at a restaurant, and instead of tipping the waitress he expects to be tipped by the waitress. The extra demands only leave a bad taste in everyone else's mouths.
        javagram 7y ago
        I don’t really understand the relation of your comment to mine. I’ve worked at a (US) company with a prayer room that was used by some Muslim employees. As a Christian myself, I don’t think it would have been considered a problem if I used it when it was vacant to say a prayer, although my religious tradition doesn’t have the 5x/day prayer requirement like Islam does so I never did.
- lobotryas 7y ago
  The company must provide benefits required by law. Everything else is discretionary. What’s definitely optional is for a company to take a stance on a political issue just because a vocal minority of their employees demands that.
- seibelj 7y ago
  I'm a live and let live kind of guy, if a company wants to compete for employees by offering all of that, that's great! On the flip side, where do you draw the line? It's one thing not to work someplace, it's another to protest your own employer because they are not accommodating you with prayer rooms onsite.
OkGoDoIt 7y ago
I generally agree. Just like a cashier at Chick-fil-a doesn’t necessarily condone the company’s religious and political beliefs. From personal experience, I work for a big tech company which very publicly says it stands for certain things and the CEO recently has been going around saying a lot of political things. It’s unrelated to the job although it feels like an explicit part of the “company culture”. It doesn’t really affect my day to day work but the whole situation just feels weird. I didn’t sign up for a political party or to espose certain beliefs, I signed up to write code build a tech platform.
- nashashmi 7y ago
  People have become militarized with activist results like the departure of Brendan Eich. Lines have been blurred. People are making demands sometimes that are unreasonable. Metoo movement in tech caused expulsions of many heads. Even if unrelated to the job. Connections to Jeff Epstein is causing people to lose positions. Political positions of support for Trump is causing customers to take stand against heads. Where do we draw the line between association and belief and job?
  - jancsika 7y ago
    > Where do we draw the line between association and belief and job? Line: one's university has constraints in place to prevent donations from Epstein, and one does an end run around them in order to take donations from Epstein.
- mason55 7y ago
  FWIW this is why job mobility is super important. Both sides of the employee/employer relationship should be relatively unconstrained so that employees can "vote" against bad employer policies. If your employer is out there making political statements or doing political things that you disagree with you should feel empowered to leave and find a new job. If you don't want employers making political statements or taking controversial political stances then vote for policies that encourage labor mobility so that the labor market can be free. Unfortunately there are lots of policies and laws in place that prevent this kind of labor mobility and give the employer a huge amount of power.
ajross 7y ago
> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like. Seems like that has more to do with the things you find weird than some kind of politics. If you're a"normal" person and like"normal" things you can do just fine with an attitude like that. Some people are different.
mason55 7y ago
> You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. It's easy to say this if your coworker likes football and you think sports are dumb. But what if your coworker likes attending KKK rallies and you're African-American? Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death to Gays" and you just happen to be gay?
- driverdan 7y ago
  Or management wants to help a foreign government trample its citizens' human rights?
- big_chungus 7y ago
  Every company for which I have worked has a clause where it can dismiss any worker which poorly-represents the company. That would certainly qualify.
  - mason55 7y ago
    I agree, the point is that it's not black and white. You can't just say "people should not bring their interests to work." At the extreme end your "interests" might be "preservation of my basic human rights." But once we agree that that's a valid political stance to bring to the office then the discussion shifts from "don't bring politics to work" to "where is the line?" and it forces the conversation to become more nuanced.
- cmdshiftf4 7y ago
  >But what if your coworker likes attending KKK rallies and you're African-American? Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death to Gays" and you just happen to be gay? Yes yes, we can all dream up the very worst case scenario and other outliers. As someone else pointed out, companies generally have contract clauses that even govern social media whereby if you represent the company poorly you'll be fired. I'm sure that easily extends to your proposed sign waving homophobe. The point the GP made was that most people have a lot more in common than they differ on, but in this hyper-politicized era those differences have been magnified to become an issue of pure division and likely shouldn't be brought into work with you.
glitcher 7y ago
> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like What about "weird" things like not being comfortable with taking on a new project with the military that ultimately helps kill people, or amassing as much personal data on the entire population as the NSA? I mostly agree with your sentiment on the surface. Dont talk politics or religion at work, do your job, and things usually go just fine. But life is way too complex to label individuals' moral objections to employers crossing into controversial territory as weird.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  If you're not comfortable doing that project, ask to be re-assigned; most good managers will make that accommodation for an excellent employee. If you're not comfortable working at a company that does that, don't work there. On the other hand, I have no issue working on a military project; your actions could cost me a job if the project gets cancelled. Don't force your views on others; let me keep showing up and doing my job. I shouldn't end up un-employed because of your personal ethical issues.
  - mason55 7y ago
    > Don't force your views on others Don't you think that civilians who die due to the military project think the same thing about the people who worked on it? There's more to the world than you losing your job because people protested a military project. You participating in the project also has ramifications on other people's lives.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Well, I find this completely unconvincing despite not being the sort of person who cares about the politics of my fellow committer (I'll accept a patch from Hitler). Why is this any more worthy of a view than "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". In fact, to demonstrate with an extreme, if you go all the way to building gas Chambers (just as an illustration), I'm totally okay having you be unemployed because I have a personal ethical issue with this.
  - 7y ago
hindsightbias 7y ago
I can’t imagine having the energy to think about all these things outside of my day job. These people must have an incredible amount of time on their hands. And yet, Google is still evil.
- discordance 7y ago
  Friends who work at Google have told me they often spend hours a day reading and responding to internal threads about politics, investments, philosophy etc.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  Or maybe you have some kind of debilitating disorder that needs medical/psychological attention, like dysthymia.
thephyber 7y ago
> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like. This was literally a selling point at Google: > Larry Page and Sergey Brin ... had designed their company's famously open culture to facilitate free thinking. Employees were “obligated to dissent” if they saw something they disagreed with, and they were encouraged to “bring their whole selves” to work rather than check their politics and personal lives at the door.[1] Lots of companies have figured out that "having a worthwhile mission", in addition to just a paycheck, is one way to distinguish themselves from other potential employers. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery-happiest-company-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery...
- beerandt 7y ago
  It's been years now since "don't be evil" got deleted.
  - dmix 7y ago
    The cultures of companies change as they grow and as outside cultures change. Especially one closely connected to internet culture, which is way more uncivil and uncompromising against dissenting opinions.
    - beerandt 7y ago
      I don't have a problem with that. And I didn't even really mean that to be any sort of judgement. It's just a little difficult to convey that, given the phrase involved.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- nearbuy 7y ago
  > Larry Page and Sergey Brin ... had designed their company's famously open culture to facilitate free thinking. Employees were “obligated to dissent” if they saw something they disagreed with, and they were encouraged to “bring their whole selves” to work rather than check their politics and personal lives at the door. Seems like James Damore took their advice.
RickJWagner 7y ago
Yes, this. Politics in America runs about 50-50. Religion is similarly every person's preference. Taking either of those to work is a formula for disaster. I'm just amazed that companies haven't done a better job of enforcing "Leave that at home" 'till now. It really wasn't a thing until a decade or so ago.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Politics is already at work. The larger the corporation, the more likely it is to be involved in politics in a very direct way. As a minion, you're discouraged from holding an opinion on company time, and even more strongly discouraged from doing anything that might affect the natural corporate power balance. Active political engagement is a privilege reserved for upper management, who certainly won't be leaving their opinions at home.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - chii 7y ago
    > Politics is already at work. The larger the corporation, the more likely it is to be involved in politics in a very direct way. politics "at work" is not the same as a company being involved in politics (or pushing for a particular political party). Work time is time the employer paid you to do a job. Unless said job involves activism, engaging in such activism is not a productive use of your time.
blondin 7y ago
really haven't been following but just curious if these people weren't happy why didn't they leave and go after the company instead of their peers?
hos234 7y ago
There is nothing weird or abnormal about people pushing their own agenda. Its normal and happens all the time. You won't find a manager who hasn't experienced it. The new dimension these days is how many people you can rally to your cause and how fast you can do it. Social media and news media amplification gives anyone that power. It can be used and misused and managers are learning how to deal. It's all new so expect good and bad outcomes. But don't expect people to stop pushing their agendas.
JohnBooty 7y ago
Generally, yes, I agree. However there are a lot of beliefs that make this kind of approach unworkable. If XYZ wants to believe that the earth is flat, sure, that can just be a personal belief and won't interfere with his work duties... well, unless he is launching satellites for NASA. If XYZ is a furry and thinks anime girls in cat outfits are hot, sure, that's cool too. Also a personal belief that probably won't interfere with work. If XYZ is an anti-vaxxer... well, probably won't interfere with their job unless they work in medicine. A dumb personal belief but this can probably stay personal. But suppose employee XYZ runs a newsletter (in his own time) and publishes views about how Jews or women or black people or whatever are inferior. Can you really trust this employee to do his job at your company, where he might have to interact with people from those groups? So, I don't think a naive approach of "just keep work and personal beliefs separate" covers 100% of situations.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bzbarsky 7y ago
  The interesting thing is that the hypothetical "publishes views about how X are inferior" is considered OK if "X" is "male" or "white", say. I understand the arguments from a structural racism/sexism standpoint for treating those situations differently from the ones you describe, but the specific test you propose seems to fail just as much: can you trust someone who thinks men are inferior in a job where they might have to interact with men? (I will note that your use of the male pronoun in describing the untrustworthy employee is itself interesting; not sure whether that's meant to be a gender-neutral "he" or whether you actually believe that only males can hold "undesirable" views.)
  - JohnBooty 7y ago
    It was meant to be gender-neutral. I ought to have used "they," for clarity's sake.
    - bzbarsky 7y ago
nabla9 7y ago
How about exact opposite of what you propose? People go to work in big important companies like Google so that they can have more political influence. If you are techie interested in influencing future and politics, working inside tech companies might be a new avenue to influence the world. You believe X and you go to Google to push that X. I don't know if this is effective way to influence. I'm just responding to the tone of your suggestion "people should know their place and use proper channels". As corporations are increasingly using political power and influencing governments and the society why should workers keep politics outside workplace?
dev_north_east 7y ago
To be honest, I'm glad Google and others like them are there for the crazies. My experiences working with ex-Googlers was not positive. Bordering on hysterical, cringe beyond belief (sending site-wide emails starting with "If you're reading this you're probably a white, straight, man... blah blah" etc.), more interested in their own activism than work or actually getting along with other people.
- ur-whale 7y ago
  > My experiences working with ex-Googlers was not positive I believe you, but the fact that they weren't working there creates a statistical bias in the sample, don't you think?
  - dev_north_east 7y ago
    Sure but I couple my experiences with what I've read on what it's like there, and well what more can one do? I probably could apply for a job there but that seems a bit of an extreme move :D
baq 7y ago
you find it weird for people to like what their job is for or what their employer says?

bleuedejapan 7y ago

How is that related to Google's efforts to curb unionization?

lobotryas 7y ago
Maybe because OP believes that google employees don’t have the right or reason to unionize. Or because they believe employees should not have the power to dictate what projects a company undertakes on ethical grounds. If someone believes they should have such powers then maybe Google is the wrong place for them.

Pfhreak 7y ago

How do you square that with stuff like whether your company should, for example, support same sex partner benefits, trans inclusive healthcare, prayer rooms, etc?

Mikeb85 7y ago
> same sex partner benefits, trans inclusive healthcare Aren't things like this governed by local laws? In Canada we have private insurance for things above and beyond basic health care, but only the government gets to decide who is a partner, dependant, etc... > prayer rooms Are they going to build chapels for every religion? Who decides which religions get chapels or prayer rooms? Or does only 1 religion get a prayer room because 2019 politics?
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  The reference may be to the fact that Amazon (for example) provided only space for Muslims to have prayer rooms, but no one else.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    I wonder if there is any of the kind of phenomenon I used to observe in my blue-collar days - smokers could take 10-15 minutes off every hour to go to the smoking area and light up, so non-smokers got irritated and started going along too for their "second-hand smoke" breaks...
  - javagram 7y ago
    I’d be shocked if amazon in fact had a policy that only Muslims could use the prayer rooms. Christians and Jews should be able to use them if they choose. I googled around and could only find statements that Muslim employees of a security contractor for amazon were not allowed to use the rooms for a while, but after protests and NLRB intervention now are.
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      Maybe because in the US we have religious freedom so we don't feel the need to protest to demand others accommodate us? It's like a millionaire eating at a restaurant, and instead of tipping the waitress he expects to be tipped by the waitress. The extra demands only leave a bad taste in everyone else's mouths.
      - javagram 7y ago
        I don’t really understand the relation of your comment to mine. I’ve worked at a (US) company with a prayer room that was used by some Muslim employees. As a Christian myself, I don’t think it would have been considered a problem if I used it when it was vacant to say a prayer, although my religious tradition doesn’t have the 5x/day prayer requirement like Islam does so I never did.
lobotryas 7y ago
The company must provide benefits required by law. Everything else is discretionary. What’s definitely optional is for a company to take a stance on a political issue just because a vocal minority of their employees demands that.
seibelj 7y ago
I'm a live and let live kind of guy, if a company wants to compete for employees by offering all of that, that's great! On the flip side, where do you draw the line? It's one thing not to work someplace, it's another to protest your own employer because they are not accommodating you with prayer rooms onsite.

OkGoDoIt 7y ago

I generally agree. Just like a cashier at Chick-fil-a doesn’t necessarily condone the company’s religious and political beliefs. From personal experience, I work for a big tech company which very publicly says it stands for certain things and the CEO recently has been going around saying a lot of political things. It’s unrelated to the job although it feels like an explicit part of the “company culture”. It doesn’t really affect my day to day work but the whole situation just feels weird. I didn’t sign up for a political party or to espose certain beliefs, I signed up to write code build a tech platform.

nashashmi 7y ago
People have become militarized with activist results like the departure of Brendan Eich. Lines have been blurred. People are making demands sometimes that are unreasonable. Metoo movement in tech caused expulsions of many heads. Even if unrelated to the job. Connections to Jeff Epstein is causing people to lose positions. Political positions of support for Trump is causing customers to take stand against heads. Where do we draw the line between association and belief and job?
- jancsika 7y ago
  > Where do we draw the line between association and belief and job? Line: one's university has constraints in place to prevent donations from Epstein, and one does an end run around them in order to take donations from Epstein.
mason55 7y ago
FWIW this is why job mobility is super important. Both sides of the employee/employer relationship should be relatively unconstrained so that employees can "vote" against bad employer policies. If your employer is out there making political statements or doing political things that you disagree with you should feel empowered to leave and find a new job. If you don't want employers making political statements or taking controversial political stances then vote for policies that encourage labor mobility so that the labor market can be free. Unfortunately there are lots of policies and laws in place that prevent this kind of labor mobility and give the employer a huge amount of power.

ajross 7y ago

> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like. Seems like that has more to do with the things you find weird than some kind of politics. If you're a"normal" person and like"normal" things you can do just fine with an attitude like that. Some people are different.

mason55 7y ago

> You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. It's easy to say this if your coworker likes football and you think sports are dumb. But what if your coworker likes attending KKK rallies and you're African-American? Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death to Gays" and you just happen to be gay?

driverdan 7y ago
Or management wants to help a foreign government trample its citizens' human rights?
big_chungus 7y ago
Every company for which I have worked has a clause where it can dismiss any worker which poorly-represents the company. That would certainly qualify.
- mason55 7y ago
  I agree, the point is that it's not black and white. You can't just say "people should not bring their interests to work." At the extreme end your "interests" might be "preservation of my basic human rights." But once we agree that that's a valid political stance to bring to the office then the discussion shifts from "don't bring politics to work" to "where is the line?" and it forces the conversation to become more nuanced.
cmdshiftf4 7y ago
>But what if your coworker likes attending KKK rallies and you're African-American? Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death to Gays" and you just happen to be gay? Yes yes, we can all dream up the very worst case scenario and other outliers. As someone else pointed out, companies generally have contract clauses that even govern social media whereby if you represent the company poorly you'll be fired. I'm sure that easily extends to your proposed sign waving homophobe. The point the GP made was that most people have a lot more in common than they differ on, but in this hyper-politicized era those differences have been magnified to become an issue of pure division and likely shouldn't be brought into work with you.

glitcher 7y ago

> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like What about "weird" things like not being comfortable with taking on a new project with the military that ultimately helps kill people, or amassing as much personal data on the entire population as the NSA? I mostly agree with your sentiment on the surface. Dont talk politics or religion at work, do your job, and things usually go just fine. But life is way too complex to label individuals' moral objections to employers crossing into controversial territory as weird.

big_chungus 7y ago
If you're not comfortable doing that project, ask to be re-assigned; most good managers will make that accommodation for an excellent employee. If you're not comfortable working at a company that does that, don't work there. On the other hand, I have no issue working on a military project; your actions could cost me a job if the project gets cancelled. Don't force your views on others; let me keep showing up and doing my job. I shouldn't end up un-employed because of your personal ethical issues.
- mason55 7y ago
  > Don't force your views on others Don't you think that civilians who die due to the military project think the same thing about the people who worked on it? There's more to the world than you losing your job because people protested a military project. You participating in the project also has ramifications on other people's lives.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Well, I find this completely unconvincing despite not being the sort of person who cares about the politics of my fellow committer (I'll accept a patch from Hitler). Why is this any more worthy of a view than "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". In fact, to demonstrate with an extreme, if you go all the way to building gas Chambers (just as an illustration), I'm totally okay having you be unemployed because I have a personal ethical issue with this.
- 7y ago

hindsightbias 7y ago

I can’t imagine having the energy to think about all these things outside of my day job. These people must have an incredible amount of time on their hands. And yet, Google is still evil.

discordance 7y ago
Friends who work at Google have told me they often spend hours a day reading and responding to internal threads about politics, investments, philosophy etc.
bluntfang 7y ago
Or maybe you have some kind of debilitating disorder that needs medical/psychological attention, like dysthymia.

thephyber 7y ago

> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like. This was literally a selling point at Google: > Larry Page and Sergey Brin ... had designed their company's famously open culture to facilitate free thinking. Employees were “obligated to dissent” if they saw something they disagreed with, and they were encouraged to “bring their whole selves” to work rather than check their politics and personal lives at the door.[1] Lots of companies have figured out that "having a worthwhile mission", in addition to just a paycheck, is one way to distinguish themselves from other potential employers. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery-happiest-company-tech/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery...

beerandt 7y ago
It's been years now since "don't be evil" got deleted.
- dmix 7y ago
  The cultures of companies change as they grow and as outside cultures change. Especially one closely connected to internet culture, which is way more uncivil and uncompromising against dissenting opinions.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    I don't have a problem with that. And I didn't even really mean that to be any sort of judgement. It's just a little difficult to convey that, given the phrase involved.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
nearbuy 7y ago
> Larry Page and Sergey Brin ... had designed their company's famously open culture to facilitate free thinking. Employees were “obligated to dissent” if they saw something they disagreed with, and they were encouraged to “bring their whole selves” to work rather than check their politics and personal lives at the door. Seems like James Damore took their advice.

RickJWagner 7y ago

Yes, this. Politics in America runs about 50-50. Religion is similarly every person's preference. Taking either of those to work is a formula for disaster. I'm just amazed that companies haven't done a better job of enforcing "Leave that at home" 'till now. It really wasn't a thing until a decade or so ago.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Politics is already at work. The larger the corporation, the more likely it is to be involved in politics in a very direct way. As a minion, you're discouraged from holding an opinion on company time, and even more strongly discouraged from doing anything that might affect the natural corporate power balance. Active political engagement is a privilege reserved for upper management, who certainly won't be leaving their opinions at home.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- chii 7y ago
  > Politics is already at work. The larger the corporation, the more likely it is to be involved in politics in a very direct way. politics "at work" is not the same as a company being involved in politics (or pushing for a particular political party). Work time is time the employer paid you to do a job. Unless said job involves activism, engaging in such activism is not a productive use of your time.

blondin 7y ago

really haven't been following but just curious if these people weren't happy why didn't they leave and go after the company instead of their peers?

hos234 7y ago

There is nothing weird or abnormal about people pushing their own agenda. Its normal and happens all the time. You won't find a manager who hasn't experienced it. The new dimension these days is how many people you can rally to your cause and how fast you can do it. Social media and news media amplification gives anyone that power. It can be used and misused and managers are learning how to deal. It's all new so expect good and bad outcomes. But don't expect people to stop pushing their agendas.

JohnBooty 7y ago

Generally, yes, I agree. However there are a lot of beliefs that make this kind of approach unworkable. If XYZ wants to believe that the earth is flat, sure, that can just be a personal belief and won't interfere with his work duties... well, unless he is launching satellites for NASA. If XYZ is a furry and thinks anime girls in cat outfits are hot, sure, that's cool too. Also a personal belief that probably won't interfere with work. If XYZ is an anti-vaxxer... well, probably won't interfere with their job unless they work in medicine. A dumb personal belief but this can probably stay personal. But suppose employee XYZ runs a newsletter (in his own time) and publishes views about how Jews or women or black people or whatever are inferior. Can you really trust this employee to do his job at your company, where he might have to interact with people from those groups? So, I don't think a naive approach of "just keep work and personal beliefs separate" covers 100% of situations.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bzbarsky 7y ago
The interesting thing is that the hypothetical "publishes views about how X are inferior" is considered OK if "X" is "male" or "white", say. I understand the arguments from a structural racism/sexism standpoint for treating those situations differently from the ones you describe, but the specific test you propose seems to fail just as much: can you trust someone who thinks men are inferior in a job where they might have to interact with men? (I will note that your use of the male pronoun in describing the untrustworthy employee is itself interesting; not sure whether that's meant to be a gender-neutral "he" or whether you actually believe that only males can hold "undesirable" views.)
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  It was meant to be gender-neutral. I ought to have used "they," for clarity's sake.
  - bzbarsky 7y ago

nabla9 7y ago

How about exact opposite of what you propose? People go to work in big important companies like Google so that they can have more political influence. If you are techie interested in influencing future and politics, working inside tech companies might be a new avenue to influence the world. You believe X and you go to Google to push that X. I don't know if this is effective way to influence. I'm just responding to the tone of your suggestion "people should know their place and use proper channels". As corporations are increasingly using political power and influencing governments and the society why should workers keep politics outside workplace?

dev_north_east 7y ago

To be honest, I'm glad Google and others like them are there for the crazies. My experiences working with ex-Googlers was not positive. Bordering on hysterical, cringe beyond belief (sending site-wide emails starting with "If you're reading this you're probably a white, straight, man... blah blah" etc.), more interested in their own activism than work or actually getting along with other people.

ur-whale 7y ago
> My experiences working with ex-Googlers was not positive I believe you, but the fact that they weren't working there creates a statistical bias in the sample, don't you think?
- dev_north_east 7y ago
  Sure but I couple my experiences with what I've read on what it's like there, and well what more can one do? I probably could apply for a job there but that seems a bit of an extreme move :D

baq 7y ago

you find it weird for people to like what their job is for or what their employer says?