23 ms·

This is genuinely how California/SV tech culture feels to people looking in, me included.

tdeck 5y ago
I was really apprehensive about this kind of "cultiness" when I moved out to SF in 2014 for my first engineering job. Luckily it really dropped off after company onboarding and I hardly ever heard this kind of talk from my normal colleagues.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  I see it all the time when someone from such companies is doing a talk. - "it is great to be here" - "I am inspired to let you know about.." - "It is delightfull experience..." - "It is such an amazing...." - "What a great opportunity...." " "It is my priviledge...."
  - tdeck 5y ago
    Yep, but when they're doing a talk they're playing a role. It's like when you're interviewing, you probably turn on the BS a bit. Most people don't do talks of any kind for their company so that group is already not representative of what it's like to work in company X on a day-to-day basis. That said, some things are true. E.g. Googlers are pretty self-congratulatory although there are plenty of internal cynics as well.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    There was a great bit from Conan O'Brien's "celebrity secrets" series in which David Bowie delivered the following dialogue: > I was on tour in the United States back in '89, and we did a show in Cincinnati. > During that show, I shouted out, "It's great to be in Cincinnati!" > That was a lie.
  - nitwit005 5y ago
    That is, perhaps unfortunately, not a thing limited to tech companies. My personal theory is that a lot of executives seem sold on this idea that they'll somehow hire a staff of people enthused to work there, for whom it's their dream job. People who act like that's true get ahead in those companies.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Yes, for me it has the effect to just turn off my attention to whatever follows.
opportune 5y ago
A lot of the time this stuff is just coordinated by HR for marketing/recruiting. It’s not just a SV thing (plenty of companies have these awkward forced “Yay I love it here!” posts) and not even just a tech or corporate thing (even fast food restaurants will do stuff like this), but I guess it is an American thing.
- geraldwhen 5y ago
  We have internal work software that can autopost to linkedin for you in a compliant manner. It has prebaked responses to articles to be shared. HR gave a presentation on the shilling software and I couldn’t stop laughing.

I was really apprehensive about this kind of "cultiness" when I moved out to SF in 2014 for my first engineering job. Luckily it really dropped off after company onboarding and I hardly ever heard this kind of talk from my normal colleagues.

pjmlp 5y ago
I see it all the time when someone from such companies is doing a talk. - "it is great to be here" - "I am inspired to let you know about.." - "It is delightfull experience..." - "It is such an amazing...." - "What a great opportunity...." " "It is my priviledge...."
- tdeck 5y ago
  Yep, but when they're doing a talk they're playing a role. It's like when you're interviewing, you probably turn on the BS a bit. Most people don't do talks of any kind for their company so that group is already not representative of what it's like to work in company X on a day-to-day basis. That said, some things are true. E.g. Googlers are pretty self-congratulatory although there are plenty of internal cynics as well.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  There was a great bit from Conan O'Brien's "celebrity secrets" series in which David Bowie delivered the following dialogue: > I was on tour in the United States back in '89, and we did a show in Cincinnati. > During that show, I shouted out, "It's great to be in Cincinnati!" > That was a lie.
- nitwit005 5y ago
  That is, perhaps unfortunately, not a thing limited to tech companies. My personal theory is that a lot of executives seem sold on this idea that they'll somehow hire a staff of people enthused to work there, for whom it's their dream job. People who act like that's true get ahead in those companies.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Yes, for me it has the effect to just turn off my attention to whatever follows.

opportune 5y ago

A lot of the time this stuff is just coordinated by HR for marketing/recruiting. It’s not just a SV thing (plenty of companies have these awkward forced “Yay I love it here!” posts) and not even just a tech or corporate thing (even fast food restaurants will do stuff like this), but I guess it is an American thing.

geraldwhen 5y ago
We have internal work software that can autopost to linkedin for you in a compliant manner. It has prebaked responses to articles to be shared. HR gave a presentation on the shilling software and I couldn’t stop laughing.