4 ms·

"Day care" doesn't do anything. Somebody working there does this. It happens everywhere. My sister went to buy a car, with her husband tagging along. She could

"Day care" doesn't do anything. Somebody working there does this. It happens everywhere. My sister went to buy a car, with her husband tagging along. She couldn't get a sales person to talk to her. She had to go away and come back without him. My wife cannot be seen in a certain car parts store. The counter guys will "see right through her" and talk to the man behind her in line when it's her turn. Not quite 'institutional', its certainly cultural. And it it doesn't happen to you, it's easy to think it doesn't exist.

jojobas 6y ago
Bayesian statistics at work. If a mechanic or a car salesman speaks to the man he'll be correct 99% of the time. Same for a pram salesman talking to the woman. I blame these monkeys: https://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-trucks.html https://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-truck...
- rich_sasha 6y ago
  I hate stereotyping, but also sympathise when people use Bayesian reasoning. These two are hard to reconcile, but in an imperfect information world, we have to make assumptions.
  - TuringTest 6y ago
    Bayesian reasoning also means that treating a female client like shit is likely to encourage her to make a fuss, but somehow "bayesian reasoners" never make that inference.
    - rich_sasha 6y ago
      Yeah, it’s not a one-size-fits-all. If an old granny asks about computers, will you contemplate that she may well be a Linux engineer and know lots, or will your first pitch assume she doesn’t?
      - TuringTest 6y ago
        If she's buying at a Linux shop, I'd give a try to the hypothesis that she's an ancient hacker with l337 sk1lls, and make sure before assuming she's just entered the wrong store and really was looking for the grocery next door. For the same reason as the car example above or the Pascal's Wager - the cost of a prediction failure is so high that it changes the probabilities of your wrong-case calculations, no matter how strong the stereotype.
        rich_sasha 6y ago
        It's not an either-or. You can treat people with respect, and assume they are knowledgable, and yet make Bayesian reasoning-type arguments. If I'm driving through what looks like a dodgy neighbourhood and need to stop and ask for directions, I'll be extra vigilant - based on essentially impressions. But I won't assume anyone I speak to is a thug, much less treat them that way. In other words, Bayesian reasoning is not an excuse for being an arsehole. Really, no cognitive process can be...
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Probably. But its pointless - the cost of a mistake here is zero. The value is in not pissing off the customer. So its a lazy, biased approach and it pays to be self-aware enough to cure oneself of it.
cmiller1 6y ago
Yup, there are people working in all sorts of industries that have their own biases and it gets reflected in their work. It goes the other way too, there are plenty of professionals (female engineers, male primary education teachers, etc.) who get harmed by the biases of the general public. Really tangential story but I was calling large supplier in my industry looking for an application engineer to help me figure out how to set something up. I first asked for one and got put on hold until someone picked up, I started describing the problem and was told "oh, hold on, it sounds like you need an applications engineer, I'll go get one" so I get put on hold again. The next person picks up and the exact same thing happens. Finally I'm getting a little flustered and a woman picks up the phone and because of what just happened I say "Am I speaking to an applications engineer?!?" She sighs and responds in the positive in an annoyed voice and I finally get my questions answered. This stuck with me for a while because I felt really bad knowing she assumed my initial incredulity was because it was a female voice on the line, and I certainly don't blame her for thinking that either.
- bityard 6y ago
  In much earlier stage of life, I did a stint of tech support for a well-known web hosting company. Basically to get the job, you needed to have a better-than-average knowledge Linux, Apache, and PHP. Because of the wide variety of questions and problems you would come across, you would fill in any gaps very, _very_ quickly. I got to work alongside many excellent people that I still touch base with occasionally to this day. There were two groups that sometimes had it rough, though. From time to time, everyone gets the "fun" of picking up the call from a verbally abusive customer (who you can't just hang up on because of company policy) but I really felt bad for the women who had to deal with misogynist pricks. I never got a chance to hear both sides of the conversations but I could tell from the tone in their voices when they had to deal with one of these guys. Along the lines of, "No, I am the only one available right now, how I can I help?" "Sorry, my manager isn't around at the moment." That sort of thing. One particularly egregious case was when some asshole kept calling in because he broke his site and wanted us to fix it. One woman kept picking up the call (by chance) and every time she tried to help him, he demanded to speak to someone else. After the 3rd or 4th time of this, she quit on the spot. My word of advice: If you're going to be sexist douchebag, at least have the courtesy to just hang up without saying anything instead of berating the human being on the other end for their crime of having a vagina. The other group I felt bad for was those with non-US accents. Every so often, they would find themselves on a receiving end of an anti-outsourcing tirade from out of our customers. Even though they were sitting in a call center in the middle of a Midwest state.

jojobas 6y ago

Bayesian statistics at work. If a mechanic or a car salesman speaks to the man he'll be correct 99% of the time. Same for a pram salesman talking to the woman. I blame these monkeys: https://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-trucks.html https://www.livescience.com/22677-girls-dolls-boys-toy-truck...

rich_sasha 6y ago
I hate stereotyping, but also sympathise when people use Bayesian reasoning. These two are hard to reconcile, but in an imperfect information world, we have to make assumptions.
- TuringTest 6y ago
  Bayesian reasoning also means that treating a female client like shit is likely to encourage her to make a fuss, but somehow "bayesian reasoners" never make that inference.
  - rich_sasha 6y ago
    Yeah, it’s not a one-size-fits-all. If an old granny asks about computers, will you contemplate that she may well be a Linux engineer and know lots, or will your first pitch assume she doesn’t?
    - TuringTest 6y ago
      If she's buying at a Linux shop, I'd give a try to the hypothesis that she's an ancient hacker with l337 sk1lls, and make sure before assuming she's just entered the wrong store and really was looking for the grocery next door. For the same reason as the car example above or the Pascal's Wager - the cost of a prediction failure is so high that it changes the probabilities of your wrong-case calculations, no matter how strong the stereotype.
      - rich_sasha 6y ago
        It's not an either-or. You can treat people with respect, and assume they are knowledgable, and yet make Bayesian reasoning-type arguments. If I'm driving through what looks like a dodgy neighbourhood and need to stop and ask for directions, I'll be extra vigilant - based on essentially impressions. But I won't assume anyone I speak to is a thug, much less treat them that way. In other words, Bayesian reasoning is not an excuse for being an arsehole. Really, no cognitive process can be...
JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Probably. But its pointless - the cost of a mistake here is zero. The value is in not pissing off the customer. So its a lazy, biased approach and it pays to be self-aware enough to cure oneself of it.

cmiller1 6y ago

Yup, there are people working in all sorts of industries that have their own biases and it gets reflected in their work. It goes the other way too, there are plenty of professionals (female engineers, male primary education teachers, etc.) who get harmed by the biases of the general public. Really tangential story but I was calling large supplier in my industry looking for an application engineer to help me figure out how to set something up. I first asked for one and got put on hold until someone picked up, I started describing the problem and was told "oh, hold on, it sounds like you need an applications engineer, I'll go get one" so I get put on hold again. The next person picks up and the exact same thing happens. Finally I'm getting a little flustered and a woman picks up the phone and because of what just happened I say "Am I speaking to an applications engineer?!?" She sighs and responds in the positive in an annoyed voice and I finally get my questions answered. This stuck with me for a while because I felt really bad knowing she assumed my initial incredulity was because it was a female voice on the line, and I certainly don't blame her for thinking that either.

bityard 6y ago
In much earlier stage of life, I did a stint of tech support for a well-known web hosting company. Basically to get the job, you needed to have a better-than-average knowledge Linux, Apache, and PHP. Because of the wide variety of questions and problems you would come across, you would fill in any gaps very, _very_ quickly. I got to work alongside many excellent people that I still touch base with occasionally to this day. There were two groups that sometimes had it rough, though. From time to time, everyone gets the "fun" of picking up the call from a verbally abusive customer (who you can't just hang up on because of company policy) but I really felt bad for the women who had to deal with misogynist pricks. I never got a chance to hear both sides of the conversations but I could tell from the tone in their voices when they had to deal with one of these guys. Along the lines of, "No, I am the only one available right now, how I can I help?" "Sorry, my manager isn't around at the moment." That sort of thing. One particularly egregious case was when some asshole kept calling in because he broke his site and wanted us to fix it. One woman kept picking up the call (by chance) and every time she tried to help him, he demanded to speak to someone else. After the 3rd or 4th time of this, she quit on the spot. My word of advice: If you're going to be sexist douchebag, at least have the courtesy to just hang up without saying anything instead of berating the human being on the other end for their crime of having a vagina. The other group I felt bad for was those with non-US accents. Every so often, they would find themselves on a receiving end of an anti-outsourcing tirade from out of our customers. Even though they were sitting in a call center in the middle of a Midwest state.