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The supply of non woke workers just isn't there The responses to the Basecamp and Coinbase announcements were equally mixed between people who wanted to avoid

The supply of non woke workers just isn't there The responses to the Basecamp and Coinbase announcements were equally mixed between people who wanted to avoid them, and people who want to seek them out. There are plenty of people who want work to be about working together on work. I for one want work to be welcoming and productive for everyone. Ironically, the best way to accomplish that is to focus on work, and not non-work.

cgrealy 5y ago
> I for one want work to be welcoming and productive for everyone. Ironically, the best way to accomplish that is to focus on work, and not non-work. Sure, if you’re a white, middle-aged, straight, cis male (speaking as one myself). But for other people, it’s not as easy to “leave your politics at home”, especially if you’re politics are “can I please be paid fairly in comparison to other workers” or “sorry, I’m late for work, the police unnecessarily stopped me because of my race” or even “I can’t get a job at this company because of my sexuality”. The fact is, the world is changing and companies have to change with it. It’s happened before (women in the workplace for example) and it’s going to keep happening. Everything is political. Even saying you don’t have a position is tacit endorsement of the status quo. Obviously, there are reasonable limits and expected standards of behaviour. It’s not ok to harass your coworkers about a political cause and it shouldn’t impact your ability to do your job. But we are all going to have to deal with it.
- Opt_Out_Fed_IRS 5y ago
  > Even saying you don’t have a position is tacit endorsement of the status quo. No it's not. It's a statement that your goal is to elevate yourself as an individual not via group association Because duh you delegate the group elevation part to the representatives you select when casting your vote That's the whole point. Delegate group elevation so you can take care of business with regards to your own individual social elevation
  - bollu 5y ago
    What does it mean to elevate onseelf as an individual? I don't follow
    - Opt_Out_Fed_IRS 5y ago
      It means that you are not interested when a politician or a work based group with political ideas (official or unofficial) tries to "recruit" you and join their cause telling you that they are fighting to elevate your rights and status. You'll simply decline knowing full well that you can elevate yourself just as much (actually way more) solely with your hard work and performance.
      - cgrealy 5y ago
        This is exactly what I'm talking about. Perpetuating the complete and utter nonsense that political issues are personal and not systemic. The notion that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps with enough hard work and determination is simply not true for most people.
        Opt_Out_Fed_IRS 5y ago
        > The notion that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps with enough hard work and determination is simply not true for most people. And? Once you go to the polls and elect politicians which represent your interests...what else can you do? Might as well focus on yourself once you are done voting. Talking about stuff is very lame and unproductive. You are not better off financially after you are done talking politics with other people
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I don't resent people raising political or social arguments. Actually, I quite enjoy them and actively partake outside of hackernews. What I do resent is being told what the right answers are and forbidden from disagreeing on threat of termination and ostracisation. My own preference order is appropriate discussion of social issues, no discussion, told what the answers are without discussion. Let me give an example. At my most recent job there is a monthly lunch for women at my level with our VP. Who is also a woman. The explicit topic of this lunch is career advancement for women. I learned about the lunch from my two female coworkers. In order to get promoted you need to have feedback and buy off from upper management. Same for raises and bonuses. Now, I don't know, but I assume having a monthly meeting to talk about my career advancement with the VP of our group would be a benefit for the pursuit of getting promoted and getting more money. My perception is that if I said something like "Hey, isn't it a bit unfair we give this perk to women and not men?" Is that I would be quickly shamed. If I stuck to it, I'd expect to get fired. I don't think I could even question the logic of it, and I do have some questions, without being fired. Ironically, it strikes me as an extremely privileged perspective to have the same political beliefs as the company and also to insist on talking about them at the company. "We just want to say what the owners think and punish people who disagree. Who could object to that?"
  - cool_dude85 5y ago
    >My own preference order is appropriate discussion of social issues, no discussion, told what the answers are without discussion. Surely "appropriate discussion" includes a lot of telling people what the answers are without discussion. It's just hidden from your view. For instance, you would probably agree that your co-worker wearing a swastika, walking around the offices during lunch giving seig heils to his friends, is not "appropriate discussion". Nor would it be "appropriate discussion" for your coworker to wear his klan hood on casual Friday. So where's the line between "appropriate discussion" and "told what the answers are"? Are you telling your poor nazi and klansman coworkers what the answers are, without discussion, when you ask them not to do such things?
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Cullinet 5y ago
  you say that everything is political and I do not disagree. But I consider it is a essential professional skill to be able to at least minimise the prevalence and effects of political ideas in the workplace and anywhere where the subject and debate is not appropriate. Too many people are outright declaring they are entirely set against even considering adapting to the needs and requirements of and elementary civil courtesy and manners towards paymasters who already not only provide exceptional levels of pay and additional lifestyle enhancements alongside a job but also nothing less than incomparable freedom of expression in your actual performance of your work which is easily recognised by comparison with your freedom of solutions for the work involved in any other engineering job. edit what baffles me - translation : disgusts me - is the total lack of consideration given by politically activist employees to their colleagues. It's time for this behaviour and practicing of intolerance to no longer be tolerated.
  - Cullinet 5y ago
    this prompted me to further thinking today (cut from a separate comment draft): The recent discussion about how programmers are bringing politics to work with them has suddenly made me wonder how I'll find recruitment if I am open about this business being a means to a cultural end. The trick with having any political component in your business is maintaining the absolute separation and distinction between the objective and everything else : the moment you allow political thought or anything else for that matter to permeate your work, you're neutered. And if you don't maintain a very clear fix on and evaluative feedback from your goals then you will fail as well. I surprised myself yesterday I am so stridently from a older generation and mentality to generalise where from my views on work politics must appear to have arisen - irrespective the plain sensibility and logic and educational experience agreeing with me - since I am intensely political and have spent 30 years working on possible means to balance the power of advertising and more importantly to return to sub multinational scale companies the ability to advertise which is effectively denied by the status quo. I mean how is Amazon not political in the act of providing unprecedented access to literature.. [0] The UK legislation prohibits all conduct of political aims via any incorporated business. I don't know why I can't immediately tell you if the USA is the same or not, but I'll be surprised if it isn't. if you need any better reason why you shouldn't allow politics in your workplace, I should say that this is why. [0] rather than improve my logic and rewrite this conspicuously inconsistent statement, I have realised I want to go and think about this further in some depth. I have added my own self reply comment deliberately to contradict any impression that I have given of being a political in my work and life. I have seen here that I need to better delineate the distinction in my mind that separates politics from my business in the way I have entirely accurately reported, because I should be inclusive of my personal political animus and purpose that I have furthered through commercial activities. Of course, providing access to literature as Amazon did on unprecedented scale, is political and obviously not party political. However, non partisan action can very often be taken to be partisan tactics by individuals and organisations in party political life. However this is where I see that we need to eliminate all connections to partisanship attached to actions of social benefit. This is a problem inherent to privilege and social class structure and economic inequality. We need to urgently learn collectively the true political meaning of the ranges of corporate action which are presumed as being socially beneficial and aligned with Democrat policy and society and identify where this is not true. I'm looking immediately at the effects of the gig economy and the increasing similarity to serfdom and indenture that is the combined function of low interest rates and impossible to escape debts from education that's become compulsory irrespective if you have no ambition in accordance with the traditional necessity for university education. low interest rates have almost certainly forced into debt children of parents who in my generation could have paid for education from interest on modest savings. the current requirements for millions in capital in retirement is a insufferable burden I struggle to comprehend not least because I must save for retirement over again due to medical bills and I have barely the years of expected life in which to do so. the most important consequence is my company is re-established on financial assumptions designed to provide a retirement income within 20 years and that's very much faster than any employer is capable of doing, who has come to my attention m I think that the real politics that has begun to enter into American and European business life is a financial political anxiety which is manifesting itself to become vocal and visible in very many different ways other than talking about money because especially in America we don't like to talk about how much we earn and less and less so because of increasing inequality. and because of this social taboo I think I am beginning to understand why the introduction of political ideas into the workplace has been so fraught and emotional but I'm not even started in my search for a understanding of this problem - all I know is that I have to actually find a way of resolving this contention if I am going to be able to retire myself, because the only likely employment I can get due to my health is the ongoing revival of my company which inevitably is going to face these issues head to head sooner than later.
- mbg721 5y ago
  The "saying you don't have a position is an endorsement of the status quo" argument implies that the entire world needs to stop until your favorite problem is fixed. That's a recipe for getting to the political equilibrium where anti-abortion voters live.
  - cgrealy 5y ago
    Again, I really don't understand that logic. You can express an opinion about something or support something without dedicating your life to it. This might also be a cultural thing. I live in NZ and I can happily talk politics with people from all sides of the political spectrum. The US, on the other hand... is insane.
dkdk8283 5y ago
I avoid woke workplaces. I’m much, much happier. I don’t give a shit about politics or activism and it just gets under my skin.
- PurpleFoxy 5y ago
  Agreed, as long as there isn’t some major issue internally (sexism/racism) that affects your ability to work, or the work itself is an issue (being made to create distasteful content for example) I don’t want to think about politics at all. I don’t want to have outside matters pushed on me while working regardless of how much I agree with them. I’ll happily engage in activism outside of work where people aren’t forced to sit around me every day.

cgrealy 5y ago

> I for one want work to be welcoming and productive for everyone. Ironically, the best way to accomplish that is to focus on work, and not non-work. Sure, if you’re a white, middle-aged, straight, cis male (speaking as one myself). But for other people, it’s not as easy to “leave your politics at home”, especially if you’re politics are “can I please be paid fairly in comparison to other workers” or “sorry, I’m late for work, the police unnecessarily stopped me because of my race” or even “I can’t get a job at this company because of my sexuality”. The fact is, the world is changing and companies have to change with it. It’s happened before (women in the workplace for example) and it’s going to keep happening. Everything is political. Even saying you don’t have a position is tacit endorsement of the status quo. Obviously, there are reasonable limits and expected standards of behaviour. It’s not ok to harass your coworkers about a political cause and it shouldn’t impact your ability to do your job. But we are all going to have to deal with it.

Opt_Out_Fed_IRS 5y ago
> Even saying you don’t have a position is tacit endorsement of the status quo. No it's not. It's a statement that your goal is to elevate yourself as an individual not via group association Because duh you delegate the group elevation part to the representatives you select when casting your vote That's the whole point. Delegate group elevation so you can take care of business with regards to your own individual social elevation
- bollu 5y ago
  What does it mean to elevate onseelf as an individual? I don't follow
  - Opt_Out_Fed_IRS 5y ago
    It means that you are not interested when a politician or a work based group with political ideas (official or unofficial) tries to "recruit" you and join their cause telling you that they are fighting to elevate your rights and status. You'll simply decline knowing full well that you can elevate yourself just as much (actually way more) solely with your hard work and performance.
    - cgrealy 5y ago
      This is exactly what I'm talking about. Perpetuating the complete and utter nonsense that political issues are personal and not systemic. The notion that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps with enough hard work and determination is simply not true for most people.
      - Opt_Out_Fed_IRS 5y ago
        > The notion that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps with enough hard work and determination is simply not true for most people. And? Once you go to the polls and elect politicians which represent your interests...what else can you do? Might as well focus on yourself once you are done voting. Talking about stuff is very lame and unproductive. You are not better off financially after you are done talking politics with other people
ALittleLight 5y ago
I don't resent people raising political or social arguments. Actually, I quite enjoy them and actively partake outside of hackernews. What I do resent is being told what the right answers are and forbidden from disagreeing on threat of termination and ostracisation. My own preference order is appropriate discussion of social issues, no discussion, told what the answers are without discussion. Let me give an example. At my most recent job there is a monthly lunch for women at my level with our VP. Who is also a woman. The explicit topic of this lunch is career advancement for women. I learned about the lunch from my two female coworkers. In order to get promoted you need to have feedback and buy off from upper management. Same for raises and bonuses. Now, I don't know, but I assume having a monthly meeting to talk about my career advancement with the VP of our group would be a benefit for the pursuit of getting promoted and getting more money. My perception is that if I said something like "Hey, isn't it a bit unfair we give this perk to women and not men?" Is that I would be quickly shamed. If I stuck to it, I'd expect to get fired. I don't think I could even question the logic of it, and I do have some questions, without being fired. Ironically, it strikes me as an extremely privileged perspective to have the same political beliefs as the company and also to insist on talking about them at the company. "We just want to say what the owners think and punish people who disagree. Who could object to that?"
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  >My own preference order is appropriate discussion of social issues, no discussion, told what the answers are without discussion. Surely "appropriate discussion" includes a lot of telling people what the answers are without discussion. It's just hidden from your view. For instance, you would probably agree that your co-worker wearing a swastika, walking around the offices during lunch giving seig heils to his friends, is not "appropriate discussion". Nor would it be "appropriate discussion" for your coworker to wear his klan hood on casual Friday. So where's the line between "appropriate discussion" and "told what the answers are"? Are you telling your poor nazi and klansman coworkers what the answers are, without discussion, when you ask them not to do such things?
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Cullinet 5y ago
you say that everything is political and I do not disagree. But I consider it is a essential professional skill to be able to at least minimise the prevalence and effects of political ideas in the workplace and anywhere where the subject and debate is not appropriate. Too many people are outright declaring they are entirely set against even considering adapting to the needs and requirements of and elementary civil courtesy and manners towards paymasters who already not only provide exceptional levels of pay and additional lifestyle enhancements alongside a job but also nothing less than incomparable freedom of expression in your actual performance of your work which is easily recognised by comparison with your freedom of solutions for the work involved in any other engineering job. edit what baffles me - translation : disgusts me - is the total lack of consideration given by politically activist employees to their colleagues. It's time for this behaviour and practicing of intolerance to no longer be tolerated.
- Cullinet 5y ago
  this prompted me to further thinking today (cut from a separate comment draft): The recent discussion about how programmers are bringing politics to work with them has suddenly made me wonder how I'll find recruitment if I am open about this business being a means to a cultural end. The trick with having any political component in your business is maintaining the absolute separation and distinction between the objective and everything else : the moment you allow political thought or anything else for that matter to permeate your work, you're neutered. And if you don't maintain a very clear fix on and evaluative feedback from your goals then you will fail as well. I surprised myself yesterday I am so stridently from a older generation and mentality to generalise where from my views on work politics must appear to have arisen - irrespective the plain sensibility and logic and educational experience agreeing with me - since I am intensely political and have spent 30 years working on possible means to balance the power of advertising and more importantly to return to sub multinational scale companies the ability to advertise which is effectively denied by the status quo. I mean how is Amazon not political in the act of providing unprecedented access to literature.. [0] The UK legislation prohibits all conduct of political aims via any incorporated business. I don't know why I can't immediately tell you if the USA is the same or not, but I'll be surprised if it isn't. if you need any better reason why you shouldn't allow politics in your workplace, I should say that this is why. [0] rather than improve my logic and rewrite this conspicuously inconsistent statement, I have realised I want to go and think about this further in some depth. I have added my own self reply comment deliberately to contradict any impression that I have given of being a political in my work and life. I have seen here that I need to better delineate the distinction in my mind that separates politics from my business in the way I have entirely accurately reported, because I should be inclusive of my personal political animus and purpose that I have furthered through commercial activities. Of course, providing access to literature as Amazon did on unprecedented scale, is political and obviously not party political. However, non partisan action can very often be taken to be partisan tactics by individuals and organisations in party political life. However this is where I see that we need to eliminate all connections to partisanship attached to actions of social benefit. This is a problem inherent to privilege and social class structure and economic inequality. We need to urgently learn collectively the true political meaning of the ranges of corporate action which are presumed as being socially beneficial and aligned with Democrat policy and society and identify where this is not true. I'm looking immediately at the effects of the gig economy and the increasing similarity to serfdom and indenture that is the combined function of low interest rates and impossible to escape debts from education that's become compulsory irrespective if you have no ambition in accordance with the traditional necessity for university education. low interest rates have almost certainly forced into debt children of parents who in my generation could have paid for education from interest on modest savings. the current requirements for millions in capital in retirement is a insufferable burden I struggle to comprehend not least because I must save for retirement over again due to medical bills and I have barely the years of expected life in which to do so. the most important consequence is my company is re-established on financial assumptions designed to provide a retirement income within 20 years and that's very much faster than any employer is capable of doing, who has come to my attention m I think that the real politics that has begun to enter into American and European business life is a financial political anxiety which is manifesting itself to become vocal and visible in very many different ways other than talking about money because especially in America we don't like to talk about how much we earn and less and less so because of increasing inequality. and because of this social taboo I think I am beginning to understand why the introduction of political ideas into the workplace has been so fraught and emotional but I'm not even started in my search for a understanding of this problem - all I know is that I have to actually find a way of resolving this contention if I am going to be able to retire myself, because the only likely employment I can get due to my health is the ongoing revival of my company which inevitably is going to face these issues head to head sooner than later.
mbg721 5y ago
The "saying you don't have a position is an endorsement of the status quo" argument implies that the entire world needs to stop until your favorite problem is fixed. That's a recipe for getting to the political equilibrium where anti-abortion voters live.
- cgrealy 5y ago
  Again, I really don't understand that logic. You can express an opinion about something or support something without dedicating your life to it. This might also be a cultural thing. I live in NZ and I can happily talk politics with people from all sides of the political spectrum. The US, on the other hand... is insane.

dkdk8283 5y ago

I avoid woke workplaces. I’m much, much happier. I don’t give a shit about politics or activism and it just gets under my skin.

PurpleFoxy 5y ago
Agreed, as long as there isn’t some major issue internally (sexism/racism) that affects your ability to work, or the work itself is an issue (being made to create distasteful content for example) I don’t want to think about politics at all. I don’t want to have outside matters pushed on me while working regardless of how much I agree with them. I’ll happily engage in activism outside of work where people aren’t forced to sit around me every day.