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I have no tolerance for politics at work. As far as woke at work goes, not too long ago someone in my office commented on slack "I don't approve of unnecessari

I have no tolerance for politics at work. As far as woke at work goes, not too long ago someone in my office commented on slack "I don't approve of unnecessarily gendered emoji" - I can't even begin to imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts. First world problems? No idea.

flyinglizard 5y ago
It's like deriving and then acting upon several layers worth of meta-information from very mundane things. People would take the bit that was said (or not said), build some story around that, possibly derive a second story from the first and then go out and attack you based on that. Nothing is taken on face value.
deleted 5y ago
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lliamander 5y ago
I'm not sure the idea of "no politics at work" is exactly the right mindset. I like the idea that a narrow mission (corporate or otherwise) allows for coalition building, and that you can sometimes put your differences aside and build something great the world can benefit from (this was an idea pushed by the early defenders of open source and the OSI). When you build these coalitions, it also somewhat forces you to humanize the people not from your political faction.
eh9 5y ago
As a PoC, I’ve also fielded those comments from white co-workers and it honestly feels like a contemporary version of being blind to race.
- nailer 5y ago
  To me it seemed less racist when we all had yellow hands. Then again I think poc is a silly term - non Europeans have completely different experiences and cultures from each other even within the US.
  - darkhorse22 5y ago
    It's surely a firable offense, but part of me is so tempted to give a dark-skin-tone thumbs up in Slack as a white guy.
    - xenocratus 5y ago
      I've seen it happen - I'm just curious why? Don't think it's fireable or anything, just... weird.
      - darkhorse22 5y ago
        When I'm bored at work I imagine ways to sew discord with tasteless emoji. It's not a sincere temptation.
        alchemst 5y ago
        Super minor note: it's "sow" (as in spread seeds, "reap what you sow" "sow wild oats) as opposed to "sew" (needle and thread...)
      - fighterpilot 5y ago
        There was a piece on NPR saying that it's trivializing the experiences of black people. As usual, normal people don't have any problem with it, it's just a small clique of journalists and activists.
    - prepend 5y ago
      I’ve wondered about this but I’ve never seen anyone use an emoji thumbs up in anything but yellow. I can’t imagine ever setting it to match my skin color, but it would be neat to learn about people who want emojis that look more like them. If anything, I’d be more likely to choose a color far away from my skin.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- throwaway1959 5y ago
  Can you expand on what do you mean as being blind to race? Do you want them to see your race, treat different races differently? Aren't we supposed to be a color-blind society? Maybe I am just not understanding what you mean.
  - meowtimemania 5y ago
    I think on an individual level we should be “blind” to race but when it comes to solving some of the big problems of society we have to recognize the role that racism plays in those problems and
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    "Blind to race" claims often go along with smugly ignoring systemic racism in society and acting like it's a solved problem because a black man was elected President.
    - bhupy 5y ago
      I think it’s possible to hold the following two views at the same time: - “systemic racism” is real and not 100% solved - of all the possible strategies to solve systemic racism, racializing all facets of everyday life, including emojis, may not be the most productive
      - crooked-v 5y ago
        I don't really see how that relates to my explaining the subtext of the 'blind to race' thing, though.
        bhupy 5y ago
        It relates to your explaining the subtext because that subtext is a straw man. I can’t speak for the GP commenter to whom you responded, but I can speak for myself when I say that I strive to to treat everyone the same regardless of their race (and not make a big deal out of race), while also being well aware of the prejudices and injustices that might affect someone on the basis of race out in the world. If that doesn’t describe “race blindness”, then we probably need to come up with a phrase to represent that person.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nxmnxm99 5y ago
Yeah. I grew up in a third world country and moved to North America pretty late. I never realized how sheltered and weak Americans were till I joined a well known YC company.
- meowtimemania 5y ago
  Can you expound? In what ways do you find them weak? I can think of many but curious on your perspective
  - thrownaway564 5y ago
    Antonio García Martínez: "Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel."
    - baryphonic 5y ago
      If you quoted him in context, you'd show that he regarded this particular lady friend of his as a "strong woman" in both body and mind. Why didn't you do that?
      - anigbrowl 5y ago
        Most likely because we don't all know his individual lady friend, but we definitely know people who are 'women in the bay area'. If a person makes a broad sweeping statement then qualifying it with an individual exception is no more significant than some tiny disclaimer int he corner of a billboard.
        lliamander 5y ago
        I'm fairly sure that if his comment had been about (for instance) white men in the bay area, he would still have his job.
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runarberg 5y ago
But your workplace is full of politics. Are you not allowed to use GPL dependencies? Do you get bonuses paid in stock options? Is there a senior developer that takes no input from new hires as a general rule? Does your boss get paid a lot more then you? Are parents allowed flexible work hours? Are more and more positions being filled in low paying areas? Does your company sell software to the American Military? to ICE? Does it have manufacturing in the occupied Palestinian territories? Leaving politics outside of the office is simply not possible.
smegger001 5y ago
the one that gets me is adding race to emoji. they all used to be 'Simpsons yellow', a skin tone not found in any ethnic or racial group, and as such not representing or excluding any group but now we have black white and other various skin tones for our happy-faces. WHY? Does black happy face mean something different than white happy face isn't happiness universal? why bring race into something that was simply meant to express emotion?
- krapp 5y ago
  I don't understand why so many people get so angry about something so inconsequential.
  - dimgl 5y ago
    No one is angry. That's the point. The point is that no one should care about race, but everyone all of the sudden is.
    - krapp 5y ago
      But we're talking about expanding the color palette on a set of icons. If no one is angry about it, why do people keep complaining about it? >The point is that no one should care about race, but everyone all of the sudden is. This doesn't read like the opinion of someone who isn't angry about something.
      - smegger001 5y ago
        Not angry, exhausted. Tired of everything becoming new theater in the culture war. Tired of things that were intrinsically neutral and apolitical before are being changed for no reason other than to make it another battleground.
        open0 5y ago
        Maybe things were neutral for you, but not for others? Man I wish I could see a face attached to every comment in this thread.
rantwasp 5y ago
you do have tolerance. you just don’t know it. a lot of things are “political”. You cannot share virtually anything about you or your life without some political subtext. Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps. Unless you’re a machine, there is politics at work. does everything have to be a woke political discussion? prolly not
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  A lot of things are "political", but not that many are political. > Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps. Yeah, see, that's the problem. The problem isn't that everything is in some way political. It's people who are looking to make things political. (In fact, that could be a functional definition of woke-ness.) You don't want that at work. Eventually, the woke people will find a way to turn on some of your most valuable and most talented employees. That's not going to end well, no matter who wins the fight.
  - rantwasp 5y ago
    so you saw what i was trying to point out. the problem is not political things. it’s people that are turning a difference of opinion into “cancelling” someone else. my opinion is that you literally cannot ban politics at work. people will still talk about things. you need a culture of tolerance and openness.
  - anigbrowl 5y ago
    The problem isn't that everything is in some way political. It's people who are looking to make things political. But often they are political and people are simply pointing it out, which makes other people uncomfortable. 'That's just how X is' or 'things have always been that way, what's the big deal' are very often the product of past political decisions whose results have become the default.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
qudat 5y ago
The more our communication defaults to chat (e.g. slack) the more I feel like it is detrimental to our productivity. I think we will wake up from this fever dream of Slack and realize there are better ways to communicate.
globular-toast 5y ago
I can imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts: an unoccupied one. Lots of people are going to work just to get out of the house and doing make-work. They aren't invested in their work. It isn't what they want to do. The work isn't real with real outcomes and real responsibility. It's not hard.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > I can imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts: an unoccupied one. A distracted mind, perhaps. I think it's interesting how far from the economy politics has shifted. I have the impression that before the 21st century people used to fight a lot more for worker's rights, unionization, better working and living conditions... You know, things that actually impacted the bottom line of capitalists. Curiously, all this mainstream "wokeness" seems to have begun after Occupy Wall Street. Politics seems to have been de-economized and the economy seems to have been de-politicized.

flyinglizard 5y ago

It's like deriving and then acting upon several layers worth of meta-information from very mundane things. People would take the bit that was said (or not said), build some story around that, possibly derive a second story from the first and then go out and attack you based on that. Nothing is taken on face value.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lliamander 5y ago

I'm not sure the idea of "no politics at work" is exactly the right mindset. I like the idea that a narrow mission (corporate or otherwise) allows for coalition building, and that you can sometimes put your differences aside and build something great the world can benefit from (this was an idea pushed by the early defenders of open source and the OSI). When you build these coalitions, it also somewhat forces you to humanize the people not from your political faction.

eh9 5y ago

As a PoC, I’ve also fielded those comments from white co-workers and it honestly feels like a contemporary version of being blind to race.

nailer 5y ago
To me it seemed less racist when we all had yellow hands. Then again I think poc is a silly term - non Europeans have completely different experiences and cultures from each other even within the US.
- darkhorse22 5y ago
  It's surely a firable offense, but part of me is so tempted to give a dark-skin-tone thumbs up in Slack as a white guy.
  - xenocratus 5y ago
    I've seen it happen - I'm just curious why? Don't think it's fireable or anything, just... weird.
    - darkhorse22 5y ago
      When I'm bored at work I imagine ways to sew discord with tasteless emoji. It's not a sincere temptation.
      - alchemst 5y ago
        Super minor note: it's "sow" (as in spread seeds, "reap what you sow" "sow wild oats) as opposed to "sew" (needle and thread...)
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      There was a piece on NPR saying that it's trivializing the experiences of black people. As usual, normal people don't have any problem with it, it's just a small clique of journalists and activists.
  - prepend 5y ago
    I’ve wondered about this but I’ve never seen anyone use an emoji thumbs up in anything but yellow. I can’t imagine ever setting it to match my skin color, but it would be neat to learn about people who want emojis that look more like them. If anything, I’d be more likely to choose a color far away from my skin.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
throwaway1959 5y ago
Can you expand on what do you mean as being blind to race? Do you want them to see your race, treat different races differently? Aren't we supposed to be a color-blind society? Maybe I am just not understanding what you mean.
- meowtimemania 5y ago
  I think on an individual level we should be “blind” to race but when it comes to solving some of the big problems of society we have to recognize the role that racism plays in those problems and
- crooked-v 5y ago
  "Blind to race" claims often go along with smugly ignoring systemic racism in society and acting like it's a solved problem because a black man was elected President.
  - bhupy 5y ago
    I think it’s possible to hold the following two views at the same time: - “systemic racism” is real and not 100% solved - of all the possible strategies to solve systemic racism, racializing all facets of everyday life, including emojis, may not be the most productive
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      I don't really see how that relates to my explaining the subtext of the 'blind to race' thing, though.
      - bhupy 5y ago
        It relates to your explaining the subtext because that subtext is a straw man. I can’t speak for the GP commenter to whom you responded, but I can speak for myself when I say that I strive to to treat everyone the same regardless of their race (and not make a big deal out of race), while also being well aware of the prejudices and injustices that might affect someone on the basis of race out in the world. If that doesn’t describe “race blindness”, then we probably need to come up with a phrase to represent that person.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

nxmnxm99 5y ago

Yeah. I grew up in a third world country and moved to North America pretty late. I never realized how sheltered and weak Americans were till I joined a well known YC company.

meowtimemania 5y ago
Can you expound? In what ways do you find them weak? I can think of many but curious on your perspective
- thrownaway564 5y ago
  Antonio García Martínez: "Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel."
  - baryphonic 5y ago
    If you quoted him in context, you'd show that he regarded this particular lady friend of his as a "strong woman" in both body and mind. Why didn't you do that?
    - anigbrowl 5y ago
      Most likely because we don't all know his individual lady friend, but we definitely know people who are 'women in the bay area'. If a person makes a broad sweeping statement then qualifying it with an individual exception is no more significant than some tiny disclaimer int he corner of a billboard.
      - lliamander 5y ago
        I'm fairly sure that if his comment had been about (for instance) white men in the bay area, he would still have his job.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

runarberg 5y ago

But your workplace is full of politics. Are you not allowed to use GPL dependencies? Do you get bonuses paid in stock options? Is there a senior developer that takes no input from new hires as a general rule? Does your boss get paid a lot more then you? Are parents allowed flexible work hours? Are more and more positions being filled in low paying areas? Does your company sell software to the American Military? to ICE? Does it have manufacturing in the occupied Palestinian territories? Leaving politics outside of the office is simply not possible.

smegger001 5y ago

the one that gets me is adding race to emoji. they all used to be 'Simpsons yellow', a skin tone not found in any ethnic or racial group, and as such not representing or excluding any group but now we have black white and other various skin tones for our happy-faces. WHY? Does black happy face mean something different than white happy face isn't happiness universal? why bring race into something that was simply meant to express emotion?

krapp 5y ago
I don't understand why so many people get so angry about something so inconsequential.
- dimgl 5y ago
  No one is angry. That's the point. The point is that no one should care about race, but everyone all of the sudden is.
  - krapp 5y ago
    But we're talking about expanding the color palette on a set of icons. If no one is angry about it, why do people keep complaining about it? >The point is that no one should care about race, but everyone all of the sudden is. This doesn't read like the opinion of someone who isn't angry about something.
    - smegger001 5y ago
      Not angry, exhausted. Tired of everything becoming new theater in the culture war. Tired of things that were intrinsically neutral and apolitical before are being changed for no reason other than to make it another battleground.
      - open0 5y ago
        Maybe things were neutral for you, but not for others? Man I wish I could see a face attached to every comment in this thread.

rantwasp 5y ago

you do have tolerance. you just don’t know it. a lot of things are “political”. You cannot share virtually anything about you or your life without some political subtext. Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps. Unless you’re a machine, there is politics at work. does everything have to be a woke political discussion? prolly not

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
A lot of things are "political", but not that many are political. > Try sharing something, anything and I’ll make it political in 2 easy steps. Yeah, see, that's the problem. The problem isn't that everything is in some way political. It's people who are looking to make things political. (In fact, that could be a functional definition of woke-ness.) You don't want that at work. Eventually, the woke people will find a way to turn on some of your most valuable and most talented employees. That's not going to end well, no matter who wins the fight.
- rantwasp 5y ago
  so you saw what i was trying to point out. the problem is not political things. it’s people that are turning a difference of opinion into “cancelling” someone else. my opinion is that you literally cannot ban politics at work. people will still talk about things. you need a culture of tolerance and openness.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  The problem isn't that everything is in some way political. It's people who are looking to make things political. But often they are political and people are simply pointing it out, which makes other people uncomfortable. 'That's just how X is' or 'things have always been that way, what's the big deal' are very often the product of past political decisions whose results have become the default.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

qudat 5y ago

The more our communication defaults to chat (e.g. slack) the more I feel like it is detrimental to our productivity. I think we will wake up from this fever dream of Slack and realize there are better ways to communicate.

globular-toast 5y ago

I can imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts: an unoccupied one. Lots of people are going to work just to get out of the house and doing make-work. They aren't invested in their work. It isn't what they want to do. The work isn't real with real outcomes and real responsibility. It's not hard.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> I can imagine what sort of mind produces such thoughts: an unoccupied one. A distracted mind, perhaps. I think it's interesting how far from the economy politics has shifted. I have the impression that before the 21st century people used to fight a lot more for worker's rights, unionization, better working and living conditions... You know, things that actually impacted the bottom line of capitalists. Curiously, all this mainstream "wokeness" seems to have begun after Occupy Wall Street. Politics seems to have been de-economized and the economy seems to have been de-politicized.