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> 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 d

> 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.
- cyborgx7 7y ago
  > in this hyper-politicized era People are still largely extremely de-politized. The fact that people are starting to have opinions that they care about again, and this is immediately viewed as extremism is very telling.
- mike00632 7y ago
  You know, in most parts of the world and in many parts of the United States, being accepting to gay people is the outlier. See TikTok's banning LGBT content and Facebook's banning HIV drug awareness ads.
  - lucifirius 7y ago
    >See TikTok's banning LGBT content China owns TikTok
  - grzte 7y ago
    TikTok is not (only) banning LGBT content, they are banning political stuff altogether.
    - mike00632 7y ago
      Being LGBT isn't the same as being political. It's not a subset of politics. Being accepting of gay people or prejudice against them might align with the two parties in the United States but someone's existence and visibility isn't inherently political. The point is that China (and many others in the world) are taking a stand against LGBT people, not just to preserve their hold on political power.
megous 7y ago
Maybe if the coworker meets an actual gay, s/he'll hate gays less? People sometimes hate/dislike out of ignorance/unfamiliarity.
- chrisdirkis 7y ago
  That may or may not be true, but it's definitely not the responsibility of any individual LGBT+ individual to try change someone's mind. Especially when said person will likely have a pretty bad time while interacting with someone who hates who they are.
- andrewflnr 7y ago
  Or maybe not. The possibility is in any case not germane. If you're gay, it's stupid to count on your shining personality reforming a homophobe.
gwbas1c 7y ago
The problem with political causes is that there is no objective definition of "good" and "bad." At this point, the co-worker's discomfort of working with an African-American or an openly gay person pretty much helps bring these issues out in the open rather quickly. (And yes, I've been in a similar situation when a co-worker freaked out that I don't believe in Jesus, that I see the Bible as literature instead of factual, that I fully accept evolution as scientific fact, and yet I somehow see "Jesus" as a good role model for life.) Spying is a very poor way to handle situations like this. Instead, include some basic diversity training in all onboarding, and periodically renew it. It tends to scare away racists and homophobes.
- RangerScience 7y ago
  But, there is an available objective definition of "tolerate": as a peace treaty. You are tolerated as long as you tolerate. If you don't (as in, say, the case of the KKK), well, by non-participation in the "treaty", you no longer have to be tolerated by anyone adhering to it. OFC, this doesn't work in all circumstances, but, perhaps, it should be applied in all circumstances in which it _could_.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    Perhaps put you biases aside? There are white supremacists who don't think they're racist. (It's kind of like someone claiming they aren't homophobic but also opposing gay marriage.) It's a complicated subject. IMO, I don't see how someone can be a racist / homophobe in secret; thus I don't see a justification for spying on a co-worker just to find out things like this.
    - RangerScience 7y ago
      > Perhaps put you biases aside? I don't follow? Maybe try rephrasing? > can be a racist / homophobe in secret I can kind of see that, but, the KKK wears hoods? > I don't see a justification for spying on a co-worker Hmm. I don't have an examined opinion on this, outside of general hesitation to go looking for problems for reasons such as confirmation bias and whatever the name is for what self-fulfilling-prophecies looks like this in kind of situation. Well, and maybe that if you're looking for justification you've already messed up. Just because you can somehow find a consolation prize doesn't mean you should have done something in the first pace.
geodel 7y ago
I think more likely that someone donate to anti-gay cause in personal capacity and some gay right activist in Google finds out. So they go ahead and declare "GOOGLE IS A FESTERING HELL-HOLE OF ANTI-GAY SHITBAGS" or some such on Twitter. After that they organize a walkout demanding anti gay employee be fired to make Google a safe workplace.
baggy_trough 7y ago
What if your co-worker participates in Twitter outrage mobs trying to get people fired for something you believe?
manfredo 7y ago
Do you genuinely believe that the cultural issues at Google are about employees announcing their support for the Klu Klux Klan, or calling for the deaths of gays? Do you think this kind of rhetoric is productive?
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  Not op, but I do think that many employees at my company dont distinguish between between republicans and kkk homophobes.
fareesh 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? What's the solution for the people in your country who are attending these rallies and holding up these signs? This boycott model of employment will eventually have them fired from minimum wage jobs too. So where would these people work? They have a responsibility to contribute to society, make money, support themselves, pay taxes. I would not like to see such people as my coworkers but I'm at a loss as to what should be done with them. As the years go by, robots will do more repetitive and manual jobs. Where would such people be exiled to work? To a large extent, if we both showed up to work, accepted each other's pull requests, acted professionally and respectfully and went home, I'd be ok with it as a compromise. Broadly though I'm finding it difficult to reconcile the prospect of someone exceptional who is working at a top tech company, with someone whose intelligence is low enough to advocate outright racism or bigotry. It seems like the example is very far fetched, and doesn't do much to advance whatever point you're trying to make. I think it's probably best to use a more realistic example, wherein the prospect of working side by side with someone would honestly not be so daunting.
- MockObject 7y ago
  > Broadly though I'm finding it difficult to reconcile the prospect of someone exceptional who is working at a top tech company, with someone whose intelligence is low enough to advocate outright racism or bigotry. It's simple if the threshold for racism and bigotry is driven low enough that it ends up including the private beliefs of most of the country and even more of the world.
  - fareesh 7y ago
    Right, which is why I was curious to know if there was a better example than KKK member, because we have seen this kind of inquisition approach to politics before. If you go back to 9/11 we saw this same type of reasoning where instead of "KKK", "terrorist" was used as a fringe stand-in to justify the draconian structure where crazy things like spying, witch-hunting / denial of due process etc. became the norm. I remember watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in which they interview these sweet old people running a book club where they eat cookies and discuss books. A few weeks into it, the club members read an article in the paper that showed that one of their book club members was there under a fake name and was actually an undercover anti-terrorism police detective, which was confirmed by his department. Thereafter he explores the case of a retired old man who said critical things about President Bush at the gym and the FBI showed up to ask questions about him. (Around this timestamp: https://youtu.be/Q6lcP2f6Nvs?t=3515 https://youtu.be/Q6lcP2f6Nvs?t=3515)
JenrHywy 7y ago
> Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death to Gays" and you just happen to be gay? In the early social media days, I worked in a small team with a man and a woman for a couple of years. When FB came around we friended each other, and I found out that she was a very leftist lesbian and he was a conservative church leader. I was a libertarian-leaning atheist, so we made quite the trifecta. It was never an issue, before or after, because we didn't bring any of the potentially contentious parts of ourselves into the work environment. We can, and should, be able to present different personas depending on the company we are in. The inability to do so, rather than being a moral failing, is a sign of fanaticism.

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.

cyborgx7 7y ago
> in this hyper-politicized era People are still largely extremely de-politized. The fact that people are starting to have opinions that they care about again, and this is immediately viewed as extremism is very telling.
mike00632 7y ago
You know, in most parts of the world and in many parts of the United States, being accepting to gay people is the outlier. See TikTok's banning LGBT content and Facebook's banning HIV drug awareness ads.
- lucifirius 7y ago
  >See TikTok's banning LGBT content China owns TikTok
- grzte 7y ago
  TikTok is not (only) banning LGBT content, they are banning political stuff altogether.
  - mike00632 7y ago
    Being LGBT isn't the same as being political. It's not a subset of politics. Being accepting of gay people or prejudice against them might align with the two parties in the United States but someone's existence and visibility isn't inherently political. The point is that China (and many others in the world) are taking a stand against LGBT people, not just to preserve their hold on political power.

megous 7y ago

Maybe if the coworker meets an actual gay, s/he'll hate gays less? People sometimes hate/dislike out of ignorance/unfamiliarity.

chrisdirkis 7y ago
That may or may not be true, but it's definitely not the responsibility of any individual LGBT+ individual to try change someone's mind. Especially when said person will likely have a pretty bad time while interacting with someone who hates who they are.
andrewflnr 7y ago
Or maybe not. The possibility is in any case not germane. If you're gay, it's stupid to count on your shining personality reforming a homophobe.

gwbas1c 7y ago

The problem with political causes is that there is no objective definition of "good" and "bad." At this point, the co-worker's discomfort of working with an African-American or an openly gay person pretty much helps bring these issues out in the open rather quickly. (And yes, I've been in a similar situation when a co-worker freaked out that I don't believe in Jesus, that I see the Bible as literature instead of factual, that I fully accept evolution as scientific fact, and yet I somehow see "Jesus" as a good role model for life.) Spying is a very poor way to handle situations like this. Instead, include some basic diversity training in all onboarding, and periodically renew it. It tends to scare away racists and homophobes.

RangerScience 7y ago
But, there is an available objective definition of "tolerate": as a peace treaty. You are tolerated as long as you tolerate. If you don't (as in, say, the case of the KKK), well, by non-participation in the "treaty", you no longer have to be tolerated by anyone adhering to it. OFC, this doesn't work in all circumstances, but, perhaps, it should be applied in all circumstances in which it _could_.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  Perhaps put you biases aside? There are white supremacists who don't think they're racist. (It's kind of like someone claiming they aren't homophobic but also opposing gay marriage.) It's a complicated subject. IMO, I don't see how someone can be a racist / homophobe in secret; thus I don't see a justification for spying on a co-worker just to find out things like this.
  - RangerScience 7y ago
    > Perhaps put you biases aside? I don't follow? Maybe try rephrasing? > can be a racist / homophobe in secret I can kind of see that, but, the KKK wears hoods? > I don't see a justification for spying on a co-worker Hmm. I don't have an examined opinion on this, outside of general hesitation to go looking for problems for reasons such as confirmation bias and whatever the name is for what self-fulfilling-prophecies looks like this in kind of situation. Well, and maybe that if you're looking for justification you've already messed up. Just because you can somehow find a consolation prize doesn't mean you should have done something in the first pace.

geodel 7y ago

I think more likely that someone donate to anti-gay cause in personal capacity and some gay right activist in Google finds out. So they go ahead and declare "GOOGLE IS A FESTERING HELL-HOLE OF ANTI-GAY SHITBAGS" or some such on Twitter. After that they organize a walkout demanding anti gay employee be fired to make Google a safe workplace.

baggy_trough 7y ago

What if your co-worker participates in Twitter outrage mobs trying to get people fired for something you believe?

manfredo 7y ago

Do you genuinely believe that the cultural issues at Google are about employees announcing their support for the Klu Klux Klan, or calling for the deaths of gays? Do you think this kind of rhetoric is productive?

s1artibartfast 7y ago
Not op, but I do think that many employees at my company dont distinguish between between republicans and kkk homophobes.

fareesh 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? What's the solution for the people in your country who are attending these rallies and holding up these signs? This boycott model of employment will eventually have them fired from minimum wage jobs too. So where would these people work? They have a responsibility to contribute to society, make money, support themselves, pay taxes. I would not like to see such people as my coworkers but I'm at a loss as to what should be done with them. As the years go by, robots will do more repetitive and manual jobs. Where would such people be exiled to work? To a large extent, if we both showed up to work, accepted each other's pull requests, acted professionally and respectfully and went home, I'd be ok with it as a compromise. Broadly though I'm finding it difficult to reconcile the prospect of someone exceptional who is working at a top tech company, with someone whose intelligence is low enough to advocate outright racism or bigotry. It seems like the example is very far fetched, and doesn't do much to advance whatever point you're trying to make. I think it's probably best to use a more realistic example, wherein the prospect of working side by side with someone would honestly not be so daunting.

MockObject 7y ago
> Broadly though I'm finding it difficult to reconcile the prospect of someone exceptional who is working at a top tech company, with someone whose intelligence is low enough to advocate outright racism or bigotry. It's simple if the threshold for racism and bigotry is driven low enough that it ends up including the private beliefs of most of the country and even more of the world.
- fareesh 7y ago
  Right, which is why I was curious to know if there was a better example than KKK member, because we have seen this kind of inquisition approach to politics before. If you go back to 9/11 we saw this same type of reasoning where instead of "KKK", "terrorist" was used as a fringe stand-in to justify the draconian structure where crazy things like spying, witch-hunting / denial of due process etc. became the norm. I remember watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in which they interview these sweet old people running a book club where they eat cookies and discuss books. A few weeks into it, the club members read an article in the paper that showed that one of their book club members was there under a fake name and was actually an undercover anti-terrorism police detective, which was confirmed by his department. Thereafter he explores the case of a retired old man who said critical things about President Bush at the gym and the FBI showed up to ask questions about him. (Around this timestamp: https://youtu.be/Q6lcP2f6Nvs?t=3515 https://youtu.be/Q6lcP2f6Nvs?t=3515)

JenrHywy 7y ago

> Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death to Gays" and you just happen to be gay? In the early social media days, I worked in a small team with a man and a woman for a couple of years. When FB came around we friended each other, and I found out that she was a very leftist lesbian and he was a conservative church leader. I was a libertarian-leaning atheist, so we made quite the trifecta. It was never an issue, before or after, because we didn't bring any of the potentially contentious parts of ourselves into the work environment. We can, and should, be able to present different personas depending on the company we are in. The inability to do so, rather than being a moral failing, is a sign of fanaticism.