5 ms·

In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. There ar

by strken 5y ago

In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. There are plenty who don't refuse to talk to the cleaning staff, lecture others on their choice of tampon, or snob fat people at the gym. I don't want people from outside the bubble (e.g. me, three years ago) to read this and think they'll be surrounded by wall-to-wall wankery and class prejudice if they take a job at a SF startup, because it's not wholly representative of all employees at all startups. Most of them are nice. Most people everywhere are nice.

oaiey 5y ago
I also do not read this article that way. I think she does not complain about them. Most of them are most likely nice people (ignoring the gym paragraph). She reflect that "she realizes" that she is "poor compared to them". She does not imply that they are bad people or that she feels miserable about her "poorness" (she seems to earn much more than before .. and quit ... and probably got something better ... and ... seems to write a successful novelthingy)
- domador 5y ago
  The only other implicit criticism toward her coworkers was ignoring and not greeting the cleaning staff. For the most part, her coworkers come across as privileged, rather than mean or otherwise morally deficient.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    I'm not sure I see anything wrong with not bothering the cleaning staff while they're at work. The whole reason they've been hired is to spare everyone else the time and effort involved in cleaning, so to have everyone waste time on greetings would just be demeaning their work.
    - NortySpock 5y ago
      Not even a "good evening" for your fellow human? I usually nod or say a quick greeting in passing as I head out for the evening. I've also thanked the guy who refills the soda can dispenser, pointing out that the company runs on caffeine. Each of these interactions takes less than 30 seconds and reminds us of our shared experience on this planet.
      - kyawzazaw 5y ago
        A nod. But if I know them, a greeting. I just don't want to disrupt their work or impose that they have to respond back.
    - gammarator 5y ago
      There is a difference between “not bothering the cleaning staff” and not acknowledging that they exist and are human and are standing right in front of you. Author is describing the second, and it happens pervasively in the upper classes.
      - jkepler 5y ago
        Sadly, this is true. Though it also leaves a huge opportunity for people to encourage cleaning staff (or drivers or any other manual labor in cultures that privilege intellectual work) with brief yet heartfelt greetings and genuine thanks for the valuable work they do. Seeing and thanking overlooked people for the work they do takes almost no time if its habitual, yet can potentially brighten someone's day.
    - bumby 5y ago
      >The whole reason they've been hired is to spare everyone else the time Do you extend this to other jobs as well? Is it demeaning to say hello to your boss because she's been hired to spare you the time of managerial decisions? What about the QA folks who've been hired to save you the time of executing tests?
    - fl0wenol 5y ago
      Do you never say hi to a contractor ever in the workplace? Dude, that's cold.
  - pentagrama 5y ago
    > her coworkers come across as privileged, rather than mean or otherwise morally deficient. Yes, I find a parallel with the representation of the rich/privileged on the movie Parasite.
watwut 5y ago
> In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point. Many are about authors own behavior. The thing with tampons was that rich person would not think of that tampon as "save me money" resource the way poor person did. Telling you not to use this or that for bogus health reasons is not something exlusive to rich people and author does not claim so. It just made the encounter more annoying.
- bumby 5y ago
  >I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point. I did not read the article as commenting about what is "bad" about the tech industry but rather about how the homogeneity of the culture can make people feel alienated. Imagine your statement written by someone else read: "I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I have a super yacht, it does cost money, we talked about the best places to take our super-yachts at work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point." Can you see how that would cause some people to feel alienated? Just because something is normative to you and your peer group does not mean it's normative across the board. It also doesn't mean it's automatically good or bad.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Did you read my comment and comment I was responding to before writing yours? The parent complains that article listed things "act like wankers". Which clearly means "bad". Second, I worked with people who had completely different hobbies and interests than I do. I am not always in dominant majority, with climbing in that team I was. As far as I know, people having hobbies I don't care about is completely normal.
JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
Not to detract from the broader point, which I completely agree with, but the gym example didn't strike me as a Valley-specific phenomenon. I could imagine something similar happening at a gym in a working class neighborhood, and I could also think of gyms which welcome all, regardless of being a beginner or not. People not near the median get critiqued often for their weight, and it happens to underweight people too.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  She didn't really elaborate on why she didn't feel welcome in the gym. I've felt out of place and unwelcome in gyms - but it was all in my head. Nobody said or did anything to make me feel that way, they were all just in really great shape. I've also had it made explicitly clear to me that I wasn't welcome in certain places.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> Most people everywhere are nice. While true, places earn their reputations for a reason.
metalforever 5y ago
I came from a family of coal miners and moved to the bay for a tech job. The second paragraph is more of the truth than I think people want to admit. People are nice, but they are also wankers. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them a lot of the time, it’s just they are extremely, extremely naive and sometimes in their naive ness and lack of perspective say incredibly offensive things. You have to shrug it off like you are part of the in group even though they just insulted your family. No one told me about this part of the job in college.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  Much of this comes down to 'theory of mind' though. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in that group misguidedly said the same about you, and that you'd be utterly shocked to hear it. At the end of the day, I feel a good number of these problems have more to do with poor communication rather than tribalism. And as Scott Adams likes to say, you can't fix what you don't talk about. So perhaps shrugging things off is not as noble as you think it is, because that makes you complicit in perpetuating that problem. One of my most mature and eye-opening moments was when I realised that if someone mistreats you, but they seem unaware of it, and you don't tell them this is the case, then when they do it a second time and you get pissed off, you are in fact the asshole in this scenario, not them. Because if you implode a year later when it has happend for the Nth time, and you call them an asshole for having done it N times, they will very reasonably be upset you didn't trust them enough to set that boundary from day 1 when it first happened, but simply assumed they were naturally an asshole and not worth your time. Whereas if you immediate point your boundaries as soon as they're crossed, this leads to respect and mutual understanding, because you care enough about the engagement to set respectful rules for it. I have never met anyone since who didn't appreciate me setting clear, reasonable, respectful boundaries as soon as they crossed a line. Not only that, this tends to lead to people feeling more comfortable to share their own boundaries, which has more than once shown me my own stupidity when dealing with people, and I was more than grateful for them letting me know in a respectful manner.
mgh2 5y ago
"They are nice because they are rich" - Parasite
coldtea 5y ago
>In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. People have a tendency to act irritatingly stereotypical too.

by strken 5y ago

oaiey 5y ago

I also do not read this article that way. I think she does not complain about them. Most of them are most likely nice people (ignoring the gym paragraph). She reflect that "she realizes" that she is "poor compared to them". She does not imply that they are bad people or that she feels miserable about her "poorness" (she seems to earn much more than before .. and quit ... and probably got something better ... and ... seems to write a successful novelthingy)

domador 5y ago
The only other implicit criticism toward her coworkers was ignoring and not greeting the cleaning staff. For the most part, her coworkers come across as privileged, rather than mean or otherwise morally deficient.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  I'm not sure I see anything wrong with not bothering the cleaning staff while they're at work. The whole reason they've been hired is to spare everyone else the time and effort involved in cleaning, so to have everyone waste time on greetings would just be demeaning their work.
  - NortySpock 5y ago
    Not even a "good evening" for your fellow human? I usually nod or say a quick greeting in passing as I head out for the evening. I've also thanked the guy who refills the soda can dispenser, pointing out that the company runs on caffeine. Each of these interactions takes less than 30 seconds and reminds us of our shared experience on this planet.
    - kyawzazaw 5y ago
      A nod. But if I know them, a greeting. I just don't want to disrupt their work or impose that they have to respond back.
  - gammarator 5y ago
    There is a difference between “not bothering the cleaning staff” and not acknowledging that they exist and are human and are standing right in front of you. Author is describing the second, and it happens pervasively in the upper classes.
    - jkepler 5y ago
      Sadly, this is true. Though it also leaves a huge opportunity for people to encourage cleaning staff (or drivers or any other manual labor in cultures that privilege intellectual work) with brief yet heartfelt greetings and genuine thanks for the valuable work they do. Seeing and thanking overlooked people for the work they do takes almost no time if its habitual, yet can potentially brighten someone's day.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >The whole reason they've been hired is to spare everyone else the time Do you extend this to other jobs as well? Is it demeaning to say hello to your boss because she's been hired to spare you the time of managerial decisions? What about the QA folks who've been hired to save you the time of executing tests?
  - fl0wenol 5y ago
    Do you never say hi to a contractor ever in the workplace? Dude, that's cold.
- pentagrama 5y ago
  > her coworkers come across as privileged, rather than mean or otherwise morally deficient. Yes, I find a parallel with the representation of the rich/privileged on the movie Parasite.

watwut 5y ago

> In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point. Many are about authors own behavior. The thing with tampons was that rich person would not think of that tampon as "save me money" resource the way poor person did. Telling you not to use this or that for bogus health reasons is not something exlusive to rich people and author does not claim so. It just made the encounter more annoying.

bumby 5y ago
>I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I do indoor climbing, it does cost money, we talked about climbing in the work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point. I did not read the article as commenting about what is "bad" about the tech industry but rather about how the homogeneity of the culture can make people feel alienated. Imagine your statement written by someone else read: "I dont think this is true about article at all. Quite a few points are not complains about other peoples behavior nor do they contain anything bad. I have a super yacht, it does cost money, we talked about the best places to take our super-yachts at work a lot. I would really have to work hard to perceive myself being criticizes by that point." Can you see how that would cause some people to feel alienated? Just because something is normative to you and your peer group does not mean it's normative across the board. It also doesn't mean it's automatically good or bad.
- watwut 5y ago
  Did you read my comment and comment I was responding to before writing yours? The parent complains that article listed things "act like wankers". Which clearly means "bad". Second, I worked with people who had completely different hobbies and interests than I do. I am not always in dominant majority, with climbing in that team I was. As far as I know, people having hobbies I don't care about is completely normal.

JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago

Not to detract from the broader point, which I completely agree with, but the gym example didn't strike me as a Valley-specific phenomenon. I could imagine something similar happening at a gym in a working class neighborhood, and I could also think of gyms which welcome all, regardless of being a beginner or not. People not near the median get critiqued often for their weight, and it happens to underweight people too.

nsxwolf 5y ago
She didn't really elaborate on why she didn't feel welcome in the gym. I've felt out of place and unwelcome in gyms - but it was all in my head. Nobody said or did anything to make me feel that way, they were all just in really great shape. I've also had it made explicitly clear to me that I wasn't welcome in certain places.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> Most people everywhere are nice. While true, places earn their reputations for a reason.

metalforever 5y ago

I came from a family of coal miners and moved to the bay for a tech job. The second paragraph is more of the truth than I think people want to admit. People are nice, but they are also wankers. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them a lot of the time, it’s just they are extremely, extremely naive and sometimes in their naive ness and lack of perspective say incredibly offensive things. You have to shrug it off like you are part of the in group even though they just insulted your family. No one told me about this part of the job in college.

tpoacher 5y ago
Much of this comes down to 'theory of mind' though. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in that group misguidedly said the same about you, and that you'd be utterly shocked to hear it. At the end of the day, I feel a good number of these problems have more to do with poor communication rather than tribalism. And as Scott Adams likes to say, you can't fix what you don't talk about. So perhaps shrugging things off is not as noble as you think it is, because that makes you complicit in perpetuating that problem. One of my most mature and eye-opening moments was when I realised that if someone mistreats you, but they seem unaware of it, and you don't tell them this is the case, then when they do it a second time and you get pissed off, you are in fact the asshole in this scenario, not them. Because if you implode a year later when it has happend for the Nth time, and you call them an asshole for having done it N times, they will very reasonably be upset you didn't trust them enough to set that boundary from day 1 when it first happened, but simply assumed they were naturally an asshole and not worth your time. Whereas if you immediate point your boundaries as soon as they're crossed, this leads to respect and mutual understanding, because you care enough about the engagement to set respectful rules for it. I have never met anyone since who didn't appreciate me setting clear, reasonable, respectful boundaries as soon as they crossed a line. Not only that, this tends to lead to people feeling more comfortable to share their own boundaries, which has more than once shown me my own stupidity when dealing with people, and I was more than grateful for them letting me know in a respectful manner.

mgh2 5y ago

"They are nice because they are rich" - Parasite

coldtea 5y ago

>In some ways it's a laundry list of ways rich people in the Bay Area act like wankers, which is interesting, but also quite irritatingly stereotypical. People have a tendency to act irritatingly stereotypical too.