4 ms·

Everything is relative to the discussion and beliefs at hand. If you want to disagree about fried chicken, fine, have your beliefs even if I think you're wrong.

Everything is relative to the discussion and beliefs at hand. If you want to disagree about fried chicken, fine, have your beliefs even if I think you're wrong. If you want to disagree about, say, LGBT rights, then I will probably deem that you are the bad person. That's how strong, deeply held beliefs work. I'm sure if I tried hard I could come up with an example of a belief that would make you consider me a bad person if I stated it as a coworker. What you're describing is just that your values differ greatly from "new culture" values, not some new entitlement among young people.

stronglikedan 7y ago
It's definitely entitlement when your supposed "right to be heard" on non-work-related issues seems more important than the workplace disruption it causes.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  Well, I can't speak for your experiences because I don't know your experiences. What is "right to be heard" mean? For me it usually means employees speak their concerns with management, and management is receptive enough (ie they care about employee retention) that if something is really bad they hold a Q&A session. Maybe act on it. I'm an empowered, high-demand employee in a high demand industry. If management doesn't want to hear about my concerns, that's fine and they can say so. I'll find another employer in less than a week. Edit: to give a more concrete example, my employer was in talks to write software for client X, a corporation well known for being Bad People™️. A bunch of employees came forward that they didn't want to do business with client X. Management discussed it thoroughly with these employees, hosted public roundtables, etc. I wasn't part of this discussion so I can't say the outcome, but yes the employees who cared demanded a right to be heard, because often that's why we work for progressive employers in the first place.
kelnos 7y ago
I think it's both what you and the parent are saying. People in the younger generation (myself somewhat included in that) do feel extra entitlement toward saying what they want, when they want, in whatever forum they want. But it's a lot harder nowadays to keep one's personal and professional lives completely separate. I'd lean toward considering this trend a good thing; we don't work in a vacuum. Activism absolutely does have a place in a professional setting when so many social and political issues contribute to discrimination in the workplace. At the same time, making judgments about the parent's values is a bit out of line. Some people really do just want to go to the office, put in a full day of work, and go home where their "real" life happens. I personally think that's a limiting attitude, but don't begrudge people their need or desire to go that route.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  > making judgments about the parent's values is a bit out of line. Some people really do just want to go to the office, put in a full day of work, and go home where their "real" life happens. My impression, from working in one of these progressive workplaces, is that nobody is forced to interject or defend their personal opinions, or be a part of those discussions at all. Indeed, just as we have employees bringing the latest from the social justice circus to work, we also have employees who sit it out entirely. We even have a dedicated #activism slack channel, which is obviously opt-in. So when I see complaints like the parents, my impression is the true feelings are "I want to disagree and say X but my coworkers will think I'm a bad person." Obviously, the coworkers will only think you're a bad person if you're disagreeing with them on a strongly held, deeply personal value, hence my example of LGBT rights. There are a such thing as bad opinions. If I share bad opinions, people will think I'm a bad person. Every person's conception of bad opinions is a little different - For example, most people here agree that mass surveillance and censorship is bad, but only some people here feel that deporting DACA immigrants is bad. Thus, I concluded the parent probably just holds vastly different values from his or her more vocal coworkers. There's nothing wrong with having different values, in fact it's quite normal. I don't know why else parent would be concerned with being labelled a bad person.
  - DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
    I too work in one of these "progressive" workplaces. On political / social matters, I sometimes have an opinion that differs from the one that the company (very vocally) advertises. People holding the majority view are publicly cheered by the company, but people holding minority views are (at best) tolerated. This frustrates me on several levels: - There's no room for debate on these topics. The official company position is treated as so obviously correct that a reasoned debate on the matters is treated as unnecessary, or even worse, immoral. I find this insulting. - The company / majority position seems to be self-contradictory. E.g., they promote LGBTQ behavior as praiseworthy, which implies that certain religions' teachings about sexual ethics are factually incorrect. But the company also claims to respect people's religious choices. These leave me with the impression that the employer is hypocritical and/or disingenuous.

stronglikedan 7y ago

It's definitely entitlement when your supposed "right to be heard" on non-work-related issues seems more important than the workplace disruption it causes.

helen___keller 7y ago
Well, I can't speak for your experiences because I don't know your experiences. What is "right to be heard" mean? For me it usually means employees speak their concerns with management, and management is receptive enough (ie they care about employee retention) that if something is really bad they hold a Q&A session. Maybe act on it. I'm an empowered, high-demand employee in a high demand industry. If management doesn't want to hear about my concerns, that's fine and they can say so. I'll find another employer in less than a week. Edit: to give a more concrete example, my employer was in talks to write software for client X, a corporation well known for being Bad People™️. A bunch of employees came forward that they didn't want to do business with client X. Management discussed it thoroughly with these employees, hosted public roundtables, etc. I wasn't part of this discussion so I can't say the outcome, but yes the employees who cared demanded a right to be heard, because often that's why we work for progressive employers in the first place.

kelnos 7y ago

I think it's both what you and the parent are saying. People in the younger generation (myself somewhat included in that) do feel extra entitlement toward saying what they want, when they want, in whatever forum they want. But it's a lot harder nowadays to keep one's personal and professional lives completely separate. I'd lean toward considering this trend a good thing; we don't work in a vacuum. Activism absolutely does have a place in a professional setting when so many social and political issues contribute to discrimination in the workplace. At the same time, making judgments about the parent's values is a bit out of line. Some people really do just want to go to the office, put in a full day of work, and go home where their "real" life happens. I personally think that's a limiting attitude, but don't begrudge people their need or desire to go that route.

helen___keller 7y ago
> making judgments about the parent's values is a bit out of line. Some people really do just want to go to the office, put in a full day of work, and go home where their "real" life happens. My impression, from working in one of these progressive workplaces, is that nobody is forced to interject or defend their personal opinions, or be a part of those discussions at all. Indeed, just as we have employees bringing the latest from the social justice circus to work, we also have employees who sit it out entirely. We even have a dedicated #activism slack channel, which is obviously opt-in. So when I see complaints like the parents, my impression is the true feelings are "I want to disagree and say X but my coworkers will think I'm a bad person." Obviously, the coworkers will only think you're a bad person if you're disagreeing with them on a strongly held, deeply personal value, hence my example of LGBT rights. There are a such thing as bad opinions. If I share bad opinions, people will think I'm a bad person. Every person's conception of bad opinions is a little different - For example, most people here agree that mass surveillance and censorship is bad, but only some people here feel that deporting DACA immigrants is bad. Thus, I concluded the parent probably just holds vastly different values from his or her more vocal coworkers. There's nothing wrong with having different values, in fact it's quite normal. I don't know why else parent would be concerned with being labelled a bad person.
- DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
  I too work in one of these "progressive" workplaces. On political / social matters, I sometimes have an opinion that differs from the one that the company (very vocally) advertises. People holding the majority view are publicly cheered by the company, but people holding minority views are (at best) tolerated. This frustrates me on several levels: - There's no room for debate on these topics. The official company position is treated as so obviously correct that a reasoned debate on the matters is treated as unnecessary, or even worse, immoral. I find this insulting. - The company / majority position seems to be self-contradictory. E.g., they promote LGBTQ behavior as praiseworthy, which implies that certain religions' teachings about sexual ethics are factually incorrect. But the company also claims to respect people's religious choices. These leave me with the impression that the employer is hypocritical and/or disingenuous.