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Oooof - "The Tentaclemandments of Kraken" made my skin crawl. There's something unbelievably cringy to me about "culture" initiatives at companies framed aroun

Oooof - "The Tentaclemandments of Kraken" made my skin crawl. There's something unbelievably cringy to me about "culture" initiatives at companies framed around cutesy animals/monsters. It's infantilizing. :shrug: Otherwise reads like most culture docs I've seen at startups. I guess this is notable because "No politics at work"?

ramesh31 4y ago
>"No politics at work"? I love it when people act like politics is something we can just "not do". As if "politics" were this special thing that gets played out in an official forum. Politics is life. Politics is what happens when more than two people need to agree on anything anywhere. Politics is everything. And when you say "no politics", what you're actually saying is "My politics override yours, so shut up.".
- sshine 4y ago
  To quote the article, rather than OP: > Kraken despises office politics (i.e., activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal interests). If you have worked in a big company environment in your past (even if it was years ago), you may want to reflect on what behaviors, tendencies, or habits you have been exposed to (or have unintentionally learned) and make a point to not do those things here. Yes, so being diplomatic rather than manipulative is still political, so "no politics" doesn't make a lot of sense. And by "improve personal interests", a big "at the benefit of the interests of everyone else" is surely implied, since there's nothing bad about about improving your personal interests at no cost. The wording is simplistic, so nitpicking aside: perhaps grouping all manipulative influence tactics as "office politics" is a way to strike down on bullying through in-group hierarchies and aggressive behavior. I don't know if having a document that says "Don't bully!" prevents bullying; a proactive counter-culture does.
  - dmarchand90 4y ago
    I'm almost certain this policy will do a great job of making everyone try to hide office politics from the founders× while doing little to actually change the nature of politics. × and even then only hide the kinds of politics the founders _don't_ like
- panarky 4y ago
  CEO Jesse Powell, at work, ridiculed preferred pronouns. At work, he debated who is entitled to say racial slurs. At work, he asked "If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?" At work, he said women may have intrinsically lower intelligence and risk appetite than men. His workplace culture document extols "libertarian philosophical values". All this shit is ultra-political, and he brought it all into the workplace. But if you say so, you're guilty of "bringing politics to work".
  - etchalon 4y ago
    It's only bringing politics into work if you disagree with them.

ramesh31 4y ago

>"No politics at work"? I love it when people act like politics is something we can just "not do". As if "politics" were this special thing that gets played out in an official forum. Politics is life. Politics is what happens when more than two people need to agree on anything anywhere. Politics is everything. And when you say "no politics", what you're actually saying is "My politics override yours, so shut up.".

sshine 4y ago
To quote the article, rather than OP: > Kraken despises office politics (i.e., activities associated with the use of influence tactics to improve personal interests). If you have worked in a big company environment in your past (even if it was years ago), you may want to reflect on what behaviors, tendencies, or habits you have been exposed to (or have unintentionally learned) and make a point to not do those things here. Yes, so being diplomatic rather than manipulative is still political, so "no politics" doesn't make a lot of sense. And by "improve personal interests", a big "at the benefit of the interests of everyone else" is surely implied, since there's nothing bad about about improving your personal interests at no cost. The wording is simplistic, so nitpicking aside: perhaps grouping all manipulative influence tactics as "office politics" is a way to strike down on bullying through in-group hierarchies and aggressive behavior. I don't know if having a document that says "Don't bully!" prevents bullying; a proactive counter-culture does.
- dmarchand90 4y ago
  I'm almost certain this policy will do a great job of making everyone try to hide office politics from the founders× while doing little to actually change the nature of politics. × and even then only hide the kinds of politics the founders _don't_ like
panarky 4y ago
CEO Jesse Powell, at work, ridiculed preferred pronouns. At work, he debated who is entitled to say racial slurs. At work, he asked "If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?" At work, he said women may have intrinsically lower intelligence and risk appetite than men. His workplace culture document extols "libertarian philosophical values". All this shit is ultra-political, and he brought it all into the workplace. But if you say so, you're guilty of "bringing politics to work".
- etchalon 4y ago
  It's only bringing politics into work if you disagree with them.