22 ms·

We don't do that here (2017)

141 points by ThePadawan 4y ago

vorpalhex 4y ago
"Semantic stop signs" are what are being used here. They indicate that the conversation is over. The problem is that it cuts both ways: "I think I might not be straight" "Oh, we don't do that here, we believe in the lord." If you're like me and believe in maximizing individual agency, you teach people to resist semantic stop signs and not use them. We question the stop signs. We actively interrogate the rules we are told to not question.
- hansword 4y ago
  Your comment made me remember another handy rule: "if stuff doesn't cut both ways, find out why it doesn't"
- strken 4y ago
  If you're like me, and probably also like you and the author, you pick your battles. "We don't write tests here" is probably a more worthy use of your time than "we don't talk about the receptionist's boobs here."
- jtbayly 4y ago
  “Question authority.” Why should I? Or Who’s going to make me? Or Or what?
  - a1369209993 4y ago
    Congratulations, you've reached the de minimis level of contrariness that that advice was meant to instill; provided you're not a hypocrit about it, you should do fine.
    - jtbayly 4y ago
      Thanks for the condescension.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  This is just like "racist" and "groomer" in online discourse. I would hate being told "we don't do that here." Tell me why you don't do it. This is another way to ossify discourse and prevent people from questioning anything.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    The problem with that is that a lot of things, like for example racism or the value of eugenics, were publicly litigated decades ago and we overall decided we'd be overall better without them. Not everyone agrees with that! And by continually pushing back against the "we don't do that" consensus, and arguing about the details, they keep these ideas floating around longer than they really should. Choosing to engage with them when they've already been "settled" gives them apparent legitimacy and now you're setting explicit written policies about which words can and can't be used in what contexts and shit, rather than enforcing a social norm via a social mechanism. Some things need to be ossified! You can't be an athlete without a skeleton, you can't keep every idea in a pliable cartilage form forever if you want to do useful work on or around it. When things are more or less settled they should be solidified as well.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      "Eugenics was a failure because it fundamentally misunderstands human development and behavior. We now have strong evidence that nurture and social expectations play a bigger role in behavior and outcomes than your genetics" is a much, much, much stronger answer than "we don't talk about eugenics". The semantic stop sign betrays weakness, like eugenics might maybe have some secret kernal of truth. The thrashing of it is both scientifically correct and demystifies it.
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        And now you're having a nature vs nurture debate at work, how is this a better outcome? That approach assumes that 1) every venue is an appropriate venue for a debate, 2) that everyone who supports a value or norm is educated enough on it to explain its technical merits to a skeptical audience and 3) everyone is capable of defending that idea against a hostile debate opponent in public. To me "we decided, it's not like that here" is firm and clear, communicates that this is a social norm that is not up for debate at this time in this venue, without necessarily declaring it's absolutely final or that there is no appropriate venue. There are not really any perfect solutions here but this is a quite good one.
- hinkley 4y ago
  If you don’t ever use the stop signs, you will get trolled as a means of blunting your effectiveness. Something I wish the Left would figure out because the Right uses it on them all the time. “We don’t do that here” means there are more important things for us to discuss right now. I knew a mother who allowed her kids to question everything all the time. It was cool to watch. Once. After a while I realized why she was also the most tired mom I had met. At some point the kids realize dessert before dinner is a question we are safe to ask, so we are gonna ask it four times a week. I’m not sure if she ever saw that she conditioned them into that via random reinforcement. They didn’t stop until the youngest was about 14. That’s a long time to be tired.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    There is an online segment that uses semantic stopsogns so much they have lost their power. "That's racist!" "You're a bigot!" "You can't use that word!" The response is predictably, "Yes, Yes, I'm a terrible nazi bigot racist. Now as I was saying..." There is a guide to responding, especially to the repeated questions, which often comes with discussions. Yes, you may need to repeat that discussion a bunch. So it goes.
    - olsonjeffery 4y ago
      You're just describing online interactions. This post was written for people who work in the real world with real people, not online freaks. There are many other pressures at play that make this a totally appropriate tool to communicate shared values, none of which you've considered in your argument.
  - kaoD 4y ago
    > Something I wish the Left would figure out because the Right uses it on them all the time. Nice flamebait but I'll take it. Funny you said that considering the american left (and therefore the western left, delayed a couple years) is postmodernism distilled. The left is the kids in your story, and society is the mom. The right is just watching and reaping the rewards.
  - valarauko 4y ago
- axblount 4y ago
  From the essay: > “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals. Of course it cuts both ways. Any method of setting a boundary can be used to enforce morally just or unjust rules. The authors point is that > “We don’t do that here” was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture. Genuinely asking: Does your position of "maximizing individual agency" mean that we should not enforce boundaries? If am running an office and someone makes a homophobic joke (not acceptable), what (in your view) is my recourse?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    "Hey, I find that to be really hurtful and would appreciate it if you didn't make jokes like that." To in wit you might get the reply "Why do you find that joke hurtful?" You can either throw out a semantic stop sign or engage in empathy. You can share meaningfully why you don't like those terms or jokes. You might say something like "My father told a lot of homophobic jokes to crush my self esteem once I came out as gay and I still find them hurtful." Notice how we are enforcing a boundary not as an arbitrary line but as a conversation between two people? We use reasoning - not just cold rationality but the full spectrum of emotional reasoning too - to negotiate boundaries.
    - axblount 4y ago
      I think she's very clear that "We don't do that here." shouldn't be the first line of defense or used in every situation. > When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated. So in this case, I would agree with you. I think the author would as well. She is not making this suggestion as a one size fits all response to off-color remarks. It's useful when people really should know better and there's other work that should be done. Or, the person is unable to accept criticism.
- screye 4y ago
  The word "We" is of critical importance here. It implies that the one asking the question is by definition an outsider, and they should know their place. It also implies : "You do not need to know the answer because you are too unimportant; OR this is a stupid question who's answer is obvious." IMO, it is easier and less combative to tell the real reason you refuse to answer and take personal/individual ownership for it. "I spent X amount of time figuring out architecture. It will take a Y time to explain. Let's discuss this in another venue where time isn't a bottleneck"; OR; "The manager / higher-ups decided that certain personal topics are off the table to maintain cohesion between the team." It is fine to impose culture onto new entrants to the group. But, that inherently implies a power imbalance which is important to acknowledge and communicate. If this is supposed to be an equal relationship with equal agency, then this sort of behavior veers on workplace bullying. I agree with the above commenter, that such rigidity and opaqueness towards interrogating a team's culture cuts both ways. If you wish to use it, then do so at your own peril.
- tomjen3 4y ago
  It also doesn't work when you are prepared for it. If you tell me we don't do x here and I then say "then you haven't paid attention" or something like that, then all we do is set us up for conflict.
- mcguire 4y ago
  "teach people to resist semantic stop signs and not use them" Why would you do that? What's wrong with them?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Question asking and rationality are how humans grow. We both need to be able to explain our reasoning and listen to the reasoning of others.
immigrantheart 4y ago
I like it. I think this is a good approach to take. We don’t have to convince someone to change their worldviews. Its not that useful, especially in work context. This goes on both ways, left or right. Just say “we don’t do that here”, like “we don’t discuss politics here in the workplace”.
- causi 4y ago
  Changing to an employer who happened to be death on politics at work was such an incredible relief. Coming from a place where the break areas were full of vile politics on one side of the spectrum and the e-mail/slack channels full of vile politics on the opposite side, wiping both of those from my daily life significantly reduced my stress and friction working with others.
chomp 4y ago
Awesome article, but: >It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. Modifying anyone's behavior can cause people to go on the defensive, it's just normal human behavior. It's also to good to remember that because you have a hammer, not everything should be a nail. These stop signs do lose their potency if they're overused.
tasuki 4y ago
My blood pressure increased just reading that and imagining myself on the receiving end. We don't post things like that here, pretty please. > "we don't do that here" As a newcomer to wherever, given this treatment I'd feel excluded and somewhat upset. Who is "we"? Am I dealing with a homogeneous group and this person is speaking for all of them? Why don't they do "that"? Am I the only one that's different? > preferred way to say no: “that doesn’t work for me.” That... doesn't work for me? If you want to say no, just say no. If you want to say more, I'd be very grateful if you could tell me why not. I'm sure the magic phrases have made the author's professional career easier. Also I'm sure they made life worse for other people.
- projectazorian 4y ago
  Usually it's better to criticize in private and offer space for questions, but sometimes you need to shut down a behavior fast, eg. when someone is using offensive language around other employees. Saying "we don't do that here" is a great way to do that.
- vinceguidry 4y ago
  Author did specify that it's a last-resort option to be used when the energy or time for a deeper conversation wasn't available.
  - dymk 4y ago
    They said no such thing, the opening example given was to whip out the phrase the moment the visitor said "gay", which then lead to an in-the-moment defensive fight. The later examples are the same, whipping out the phrase the moment the 'offender' does something the author doesn't like, and then doubling down on it when challenged.
    - axblount 4y ago
      Quote from the article: > When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated.
seydor 4y ago
France had to use legal means so women are not skin shy on the beach. Maybe they should have told them we don't do that here instead. The article reeks of elitist ignorance of reality outside exclusive bubbles like academia or tech, and that irks me
- vinceguidry 4y ago
  It's nice when you can pass laws.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Why, in any sane moral scheme, should women be forced to display skin on the beach? Why is "skin shy" a problem that the state should step in to solve? Let them be free to dress how they want on the beach. (But then, I guess France has a problem with letting them dress how they want other places, too...)
Siddarth1977 4y ago
It would be great to see this happen in the opposite direction. The next time someone intentionally misinterprets something as offensive when that clearly wasn't the intended meaning, or goes searching for ever more obscure terms to deem problematic, or tries to silence and shame people who try to do anything other than fight for social justice, we all just reply with "We don't do that here". Someone starts to lecture you about how referencing "winter" is non-inclusive to Southern Hemisphere readers? "We don't do that here". Someone says you need to rename your firewall "whitelist" of IP addresses? "We don't do that here". It would be glorious. Everyone could treat each other courtesy, grace and assume positive-intent. Instead of walking around on eggshells and always worrying about what the most cynical, negative interpretation of a word or phrase could be, everyone could relax, treat one another as friends and allies and focus on solving real problems. Or, we could continue down our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves.
- dijit 4y ago
  I think that's a good idea. No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect. Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm C-Level, so I can hopefully instil this as culture.
  - NoraCodes 4y ago
    > Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm curious as to how you think lobbying works in the present day and the past four decades or so.
    - dijit 4y ago
      I'm not American, lobbying is corruption and that it's fully legal is one of the scariest things when looking towards America. BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :)
ggoo 4y ago
This person sounds like a huge pain to work with.
turdnagel 4y ago
I'm not sure "we don't do that here" is any more neutral than any other way of telling someone to stop doing something. It has the added weight of "we," which implies a shared set of cultural values, which in turn may help get the message across. But it does nothing to defuse someone feeling defensive about their actions.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  It makes clear, though still implicit, that was has been transgressed is a social norm specific to that context. It communicates that if you mean to oppose it, you're opposing the social cohesion of that context rather than the value of the thing itself. It doesn't address the feelings of the person or help their defensiveness, no. It just makes it less likely they'll continue to push against it.
  - restingrobot 4y ago
    >It makes clear, though still implicit, that was has been transgressed is a social norm specific to that context. But it really doesn't though. In the example of the off color, (e.g. racist), joke, saying "we don't do that here", doesn't specify what "we" don't do. We don't make jokes about that specific race, but others are ok? We don't make any race based jokes, but sex based jokes are OK? We don't make jokes specifically about that topic? Its farm more effective to say something along the lines of "what you just said is inappropriate for our work environment, please keep others in mind when making jokes"
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      No you've got it but maybe don't see the value of it fully. It's pointing out an instance of transgression, not articulating a general rule. There probably is or needs to be a rule as well, but this doesn't by itself tell you what it is or define its bounds. You want to separate the definition of a rule and its enforcement. Even if the rule is just an informal social one among a friend group this is valuable. Think about the common trope of someone in a group making a joke about a car accident, potentially funny, but not knowing someone else in the group recently lost a parent in a car accident. You shut them up tactfully and then give them the context of the transgression later and potentially debate its boundaries then if that's valuable. What you absolutely don't want is, on the spot, having a public group-wide conversation about jokes about car accidents. Are they ever ok? Ok when someone isn't grieving from one? How long a buffer do we give for grief? Those are probably useful questions for this group to tackle, but this is the wrong time for it. "We don't joke about that" is good enough for now.
dymk 4y ago
lexx 4y ago
That's the best recipe to favorite tribalism. No thank you. New age patronizing is as old as humans. It's just that the current humans think it's new
- ibejoeb 4y ago
  Absolutely. > I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity On what aspect of diversity are you conducting this education? "We don't do that here" doesn't sound very diverse. This whole piece is about how to take down an outsider. Then, "I am here to educate you about inclusion." I wonder if the author actually read the piece and realized how it comes across. It's fitting that this is a post about "magic" phrases. Uttering "diversity" means nothing when you are cultivating a monoculture. Just stop using that word. Say what you really mean. Is it really worth the effort to try to redefine terms like diversity and inclusion to mean their opposites? You're going to have much more success with your team when you are honest. Don't hire someone from a different camp if this is your attitude.
  - oh_sigh 4y ago
    I didn't read it as how to take down an outsider, because why would an outsider care how "they do things there"? If someone has a club where they only open doors with their left hand, it isn't particularly interesting to me as an outsider who isn't subject to the same rules. It seems more about educating a newbie to the group, or someone in-group who broke some social rule, in a manner that accepts no rebuttals. The "we" in that sense seems inclusive of the person being chastised too. If a parent says to their child "We don't throw balls in the house", they aren't saying their child isn't part of the family. Having said that, I don't like this advice because it is condescending(which is why it was so easy to find an example of about a parent-child relationship).
balentio 4y ago
Maybe stop defining cultures and simply define the rules?
- balentio 4y ago
  Wow. The fact people are downvoting this just goes to show there are people in the world who get their rocks off on defining cultures--as if anyone has the authority to do that...
  - etchalon 4y ago
    As a business owner, I have the authority to define what the culture of my company is. I get to print up manuals and make people sign them and everything.
    - guhidalg 4y ago
      Manuals are rulesets, you can evaluate if they’re being followed or not. How do you do that for culture?
      - etchalon 4y ago
        What do you believe the difference is in evaluating whether someone is following the rule of "Be kind" and whether someone is contributing to a culture of kindness?
        guhidalg 4y ago
        I think both are equally ambiguous, and I don't think a "Be kind" clause in a contract would hold up in court.
        etchalon 4y ago
        Are you under the impression that, every time someone is fired for violating a rule in an employee manual, lawyers get involved?
NoGravitas 4y ago
The article: > It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. I don’t think it should be, but I don’t get to make the rules. The comments: Controversy about talking about basic civil behaviour.
- guhidalg 4y ago
  If you’re talking about civil behavior, you’re not working are you?
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  I honestly did not expect this topic to be this controversial. As a reader, I am always disappointed when a HN submission gets torn apart disproportionally to its original scope (just look at every submission on the topic of dieting, psychedelics, microservices, TSLA). On the other hand, it does make me happy to see that lots of people are unable to relate to the uncomfortable social situation the author describes. In a naive way, I hope that means the commenters haven't experienced it, rather than having experienced but not noticed it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bifftastic 4y ago
I think this is a very HN phrase and sentiment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22We%20don%27t%20do%20that%20here%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- mgdlbp 4y ago
  "We're trying to avoid that here." https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by%3Adang%20%22that%20here%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by%3Adang%20%22that%20here%22&...
- drewbug01 4y ago
  Of course - it’s a very common rhetorical tool. The reason it’s getting so much debate here is because of the context in which the author employed it - shutting down someone who used homophobic language.
bogrollben 4y ago
I don't like it. It sounds too close to "we've always done it this way" which is often a terrible answer to someone challenging the status quo. "We don't do that here" is very easy to abuse.
- kaoD 4y ago
  That's exactly the point. It's a feel-good way to exercise power in a non-confrontational way (or else...)
etchalon 4y ago
Overall, I think I like this approach quite a bit, and the rational behind it. Though I have no doubt it will run afoul of people who believe there's some inherent virtue in running around acting like Mindy from Animaniacs.
jph 4y ago
"We don't do that here" is way to shut down communication. For team leadership, it's much better to open up communication, and create team practices called ways-of-working. Team values are big-idea statements of what teammates hold as important. Example: We value courage, collaboration, respect. Ground rules then make the values explicit, by describing the team's expectations. Example: We reject slurs and pejoratives. Some people who hear about this respond by saying it's too much overhead, or rigidity, or handholding. To me, these people sound much like the people who used to say "using version control is too much overhead, or rigidity, or handholding". It turns out that in my direct professional experience with many teams, teams that create ways-of-working improve because of it, and work significantly better with many more stakeholders. https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ways-of-working https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ways-of-working
- axblount 4y ago
  I think the author clearly addresses this: > When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated. I don't think the author is suggesting that every cultural faux pas should be met with "We don't do that here." She's suggesting it for a certain use-case.
- mcguire 4y ago
  "For team leadership, it's much better to open up communication, and create team practices called ways-of-working. Team values are big-idea statements of what teammates hold as important. Example: We value courage, collaboration, respect. Ground rules then make the values explicit, by describing the team's expectations. Example: We reject slurs and pejoratives." One question: Once you have done this, are your ground rules and team values always open for debate (including, say, on Friday afternoon when all your services have gone belly up), or when someone new (a vendor say, or an intern) violates those ground rules and values do you shut them down with some variant of "we don't do that here" like "you have violated the ground rules"? P.S. As an extra question: Are your ground rules explicitly enumerated somewhere and all team members familiar with them in enough specific detail to know whether or not something violates them?
kleer001 4y ago
Just thinking out loud... -- Initially it smells a bit like fascism to me, not sure why. Maybe some unspoken assumptions based on unquestioned privilege. > If no one has told you yet, as your career in tech progresses you will eventually become a “custodian of culture.” There it is. Will I? progresses over time or progresses up the ladder? I'd have to assume the latter. >... but I don’t get to make the rules. IMHO enforcement is 10/10ths of the law. If you're enforcing it you're making it, you're taking personal responsibility for it. Being an authority is being as good as an author. Letting something die is the same as killing it. Omission is as good as a lie. > a tool for ending and defusing situations when other approaches don’t work. And that's the lede, buried. An argument of last resort. I would have started with that. That's why it smelled like fascism. It is, but it's got an on-by-default safety on it.
draw_down 4y ago
labrador 4y ago
There's an easy way to practice this skill and that's to learn how to say "no" without feeling like you have to explain yourself. Once you get the hang of it, saying no becomes a magic word that puts control of your life where it belongs: with you
cwp 4y ago
Ok, the specific culture that she wants to protect aside, I can see this being an effective way to give reminders. It's not going to work with people that are so new that they don't know what the cultural norms are. But, let's say there's an issue with the continuous deployment system: "Ah, let's just build it locally and copy the binary to the production servers." "No. We don't do that here." <sigh> "Yeah. Ok, I'll see if I can debug this thing..." The reasons are obvious, and we don't need to open a debate right now, despite the inconvenience at the moment.
scrozier 4y ago
"When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. ... And sometimes...the person involved doesn’t want to be educated." This mindset seems to me the reason that there's a backlash against (us) progressive-minded people. Can you imagine a more condescending, insulting approach? "I'm advanced, you're a Neanderthal" doesn't win many hearts or minds.
- drewbug01 4y ago
  “Neanderthal” seems to be a bit of an exaggeration there, don’t you think? That seems to be applying the worst possible lens to what the author stated, and frankly I don’t think the text supports it.
  - scrozier 4y ago
    I suppose so. Sometimes we use colorful language to make a point. I think the text absolutely supports the idea that the author feels it is their place to educate others in what they (the author) have determined is the correct moral stance. Frankly, it makes my blood boil (metaphorically, of course), and I'm on the author's side, politically speaking.
    - drewbug01 4y ago
      Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate colorful language. Frankly, I wish we used more of it. I do disagree with the point you were trying to make, though. The author described themselves as a “custodian of culture” in several instances where such an informal position might legitimately arise. If we take that at face value (it’s certainly hard to refute, in any case), then the technique they describe doesn’t seem to be as harsh to me as your colorful language implies. I mean - the scenario wherein someone appoints themselves a culturally custodian when they really aren’t would be pretty different. And annoying. But that’s a lot to read into the article (in my opinion).
      - scrozier 4y ago
helge9210 4y ago
There is a reason a new person was hired. For example, to start doing something "they don't do here".
scrozier 4y ago
"It is a conversation ender." It certainly is.
jackson1442 4y ago
I think a lot of commenters here are missing the point that your workplace is not an appropriate place to hold political debates. Just treat each other with respect and do your job.
camdenlock 4y ago
The author is taking part in the current trend of implicitly (and without consent) grouping people into a “we”, or a “community”. It’s presumptuous, and it weakens the individual’s opportunities to think critically and grow their powers of reason. Hard pass on the nonsense offered by this author.
efsavage 4y ago
"It is a conversation ender." I have no doubt the author is correct, but I suspect it's frequently not because they have won or settled the issue at hand, but rather signaled that they are not willing to have a reasonable conversation about it. When you have someone using a slur, it's probably a mutual scenario, where that person isn't interested in being reasonable either. In many other cases, this technique is a symptom of disagreeableness and a sign of someone to generally avoid.
- elil17 4y ago
  I get what you're saying, but if someone uses a slur it's actually totally reasonable not to want to have a debate with them about it.
jcadam 4y ago
People like this are why I'm working remotely from a rural area and never want to set foot in an office again.
swayvil 4y ago
He's just replacing "don't stand so close to that person" and "I found your joke offensive" with a weird personal-responsibility-avoiding phrasing. Do we do that here?
motohagiography 4y ago
Even though I disagree with the article, a variation of "not here," is appropriate in a bunch of different contexts. The way the article presents it is just as a thought terminating cliche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A..., which itself is an oddly circular reference), but there are a bunch of legitimate ways to recognize what are essentially personal epistemic boundaries. However, someone collecting catchphrases to re-use as cliches in discourse is only signalling they are beneath the bar for engagement. Cliches are the torches and pitchforks of cognitive tools. "Please not here," I would evaluate and accept. "We don't do that here," just begs one of dozens of responses that would humiliate them and reinforce their sense of aggreivement. What I think triggers people is the passive appeal to authority in the use of "we" that doesn't exist. If someone addresses me from the royal "we," without establishing some kind of bona fides, it's just a threat that earns an insult. The funny things about a lot of the words that are now policed is that those words themselves were informal shorthand or euphemisms for much more serious accusations. As if to say, "I'm not going to issue an ultimatum to your integrity, but your behaviour is a bit <euphemism>." These weren't challenges, they were collegial and polite. The sentiment behind many of the words that are now policed can be adequately (if less satisfyingly) captured in terms like fatuous, pretentious, unctuous, perfidious, pandering, ingratiating, pusilanimous, inferior, morbid, infra dig, perverse, lurid, oily, prefect, errand runner, unmasculine, unfeminine, impetuous, disgusting, dishonest, misleading, back biting, patronizing, matronizing, histrionic, low, cunning, brutish, proletarian, palooka, bumpkin, predator, seducer, sleaze, lazy, fraudulent, sadistic, animus, avarice, petty, small, spiteful, vengeful, begrudged, aggreived, etc. These are all important concepts and values, and I can see why someone invested in behaving this way would like to remove our words for them, but the concepts and sentiments are there whether we use a shorthand for them or not. Our species uses words as an alternative to violence, and if we want to dissolve language we can, but the outcome seems foreseeable. I talk to people all the time who repeat phrases they think are powerful, and they're not trying to be enlightening, they're invoking an imagined power. They want to be humiliated because it reinforces their sense of self righteousness, and the more absurdly they behave, the more of a burden they place on others not to give them the humiliation reinforcement they are seeking. Personally, I've shrugged. I deal with individuals, and not groups, symbols, or identities. The rest is small.
planarhobbit 4y ago
Honestly? Flag and move on. It’s really not worth getting controversial over something like this. It’s clearly a cultural/power flex bereft of any technical curiosity and it serves the HN crowd absolutely no use nor leads to any enlightenment to further discuss it - let alone try to “educate” (pardon the term) the author as to why their musing on calcification of thought and behaviour is unhealthy. Whenever someone tries to pull a little clever power trip and politely silence you or tell you how you should behave and that your language is inappropriate, you owe it to yourself to tell them to fuck off (right after you call their behaviour “gay”, of course.)
- seydor 4y ago
  But you just told people how to behave...
zecken 4y ago
Using "that doesn't work for me" as a euphemism for "no" sounds crazy to me.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  I'm personally glad to hear that! I have also personally met people who, - when I tell them "You're sort of right, but I have to disagree", hear "I agree with you". - when I tell them "No, that's wrong", hear "I'm challenging your ego to prove that you're right!" It takes a lot lot lot of nuance to discover how to communicate effectively.
antisthenes 4y ago
> This is when I pull out “we don’t do that here.” It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. False. That's my conversation ender that I like pulling out.
debacle 4y ago
'One day someone came to visit and used the word “gay” as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s.' People in certain spaces need to understand that, for most people, this is just as prevalent today as it has ever been. And I don't mean to justify this kind of language, but it is my experience that progressivism has become insular. I joined a gaming group recently for "adults," and I was blown away by the amount of casual homophobia expressed in this group. When I brought this to the attention of the moderators, they explained that they didn't feel comfortable addressing the issue because of the backlash that they might receive. We need to reassess what we believe about American culture, what we aspire to, and what the reality is. The Internet is not real life - it gives an outsized voice to vocal minorities, for better or worse.
ericmcer 4y ago
This felt off to me as her goal wasn't to figure out how to work with the person, it was to win. Her strategy is to fully shut the person down using seniority and peer pressure. She claims anything softer will result in an argument. It just feels wrong that the interpersonal tool she likes best gives no consideration to her coworker being a rational individual who can have a discussion, I don't know about her "interpersonal toolbox".
virtualritz 4y ago
That's an example of very poor communication skills. All points for the 'why' given by the author are fair enough But if you can't explain, in very simple terms and briefly why "we don't do X here", you probably have nothing to stand on yourself to make such a statement in the first place.
lxe 4y ago
Oof these comments. Let's take the "woke" part of this whole argument out, and apply this to technical bikeshed debates over inconsequential minutia that go on for days, that you're probably very familiar with as a tech worker. Would be nice to employ a Thought-terminating cliché like of some sort to nip these things in the bud, instead of "fostering a culture of questioning everything". Well, the same applies to those wishing to engage in an inconsequential cultural debate in a workplace. I welcome this "We don't do that here" thing. Or maybe y'all are right, this is literally 1984.
elil17 4y ago
People seem to be mistaking the author's claim that this phrase is useful with a claim that it is moral. The phrase makes it clear that something is not open for debate - which saves everyone from wasting time and losing face by having an argument. That's useful. Even if I disagree with a workplace norm, even if it makes me mad, I would rather know that people are not going to be open to discussing it. If you disagree with the workplace norm, your options are now very clear: get over it, leave, or, depending on what the norm is and where you are, file a lawsuit.
ls_waiting 4y ago
Excellent article. This is the professional version of "OK Boomer" and we really need this to be the standard response to behaviour that needs to be immediately stopped and not debated, along with an implied threat that it will be escalated if continued.
csours 4y ago
We avoid talking about morality and morals based behavior in a business context because it triggers feelings of righteousness, and the number one way to get non-constructive fights is to get humans to share conflicting feelings of righteousness. When our morals are challenged, our lived experience is also challenged, because we've used those morals to make or justify many decisions and feelings. It should be possible to share personal experiences or points of view. I don't know what needs to change in our behavior to let this happen.
- drewbug01 4y ago
  A truly pluralistic, non-oppressive society is a necessary prerequisite.
  - csours 4y ago
    If that is a prerequisite, how do we get there? Maybe it's a forlorn hope, but it's how I imagine the future of the human race.
    - drewbug01 4y ago
      I honestly wish I knew.

141 points by ThePadawan 4y ago

"Semantic stop signs" are what are being used here. They indicate that the conversation is over. The problem is that it cuts both ways: "I think I might not be straight" "Oh, we don't do that here, we believe in the lord." If you're like me and believe in maximizing individual agency, you teach people to resist semantic stop signs and not use them. We question the stop signs. We actively interrogate the rules we are told to not question.

hansword 4y ago
Your comment made me remember another handy rule: "if stuff doesn't cut both ways, find out why it doesn't"
strken 4y ago
If you're like me, and probably also like you and the author, you pick your battles. "We don't write tests here" is probably a more worthy use of your time than "we don't talk about the receptionist's boobs here."
jtbayly 4y ago
“Question authority.” Why should I? Or Who’s going to make me? Or Or what?
- a1369209993 4y ago
  Congratulations, you've reached the de minimis level of contrariness that that advice was meant to instill; provided you're not a hypocrit about it, you should do fine.
  - jtbayly 4y ago
    Thanks for the condescension.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
This is just like "racist" and "groomer" in online discourse. I would hate being told "we don't do that here." Tell me why you don't do it. This is another way to ossify discourse and prevent people from questioning anything.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  The problem with that is that a lot of things, like for example racism or the value of eugenics, were publicly litigated decades ago and we overall decided we'd be overall better without them. Not everyone agrees with that! And by continually pushing back against the "we don't do that" consensus, and arguing about the details, they keep these ideas floating around longer than they really should. Choosing to engage with them when they've already been "settled" gives them apparent legitimacy and now you're setting explicit written policies about which words can and can't be used in what contexts and shit, rather than enforcing a social norm via a social mechanism. Some things need to be ossified! You can't be an athlete without a skeleton, you can't keep every idea in a pliable cartilage form forever if you want to do useful work on or around it. When things are more or less settled they should be solidified as well.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    "Eugenics was a failure because it fundamentally misunderstands human development and behavior. We now have strong evidence that nurture and social expectations play a bigger role in behavior and outcomes than your genetics" is a much, much, much stronger answer than "we don't talk about eugenics". The semantic stop sign betrays weakness, like eugenics might maybe have some secret kernal of truth. The thrashing of it is both scientifically correct and demystifies it.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      And now you're having a nature vs nurture debate at work, how is this a better outcome? That approach assumes that 1) every venue is an appropriate venue for a debate, 2) that everyone who supports a value or norm is educated enough on it to explain its technical merits to a skeptical audience and 3) everyone is capable of defending that idea against a hostile debate opponent in public. To me "we decided, it's not like that here" is firm and clear, communicates that this is a social norm that is not up for debate at this time in this venue, without necessarily declaring it's absolutely final or that there is no appropriate venue. There are not really any perfect solutions here but this is a quite good one.
hinkley 4y ago
If you don’t ever use the stop signs, you will get trolled as a means of blunting your effectiveness. Something I wish the Left would figure out because the Right uses it on them all the time. “We don’t do that here” means there are more important things for us to discuss right now. I knew a mother who allowed her kids to question everything all the time. It was cool to watch. Once. After a while I realized why she was also the most tired mom I had met. At some point the kids realize dessert before dinner is a question we are safe to ask, so we are gonna ask it four times a week. I’m not sure if she ever saw that she conditioned them into that via random reinforcement. They didn’t stop until the youngest was about 14. That’s a long time to be tired.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  There is an online segment that uses semantic stopsogns so much they have lost their power. "That's racist!" "You're a bigot!" "You can't use that word!" The response is predictably, "Yes, Yes, I'm a terrible nazi bigot racist. Now as I was saying..." There is a guide to responding, especially to the repeated questions, which often comes with discussions. Yes, you may need to repeat that discussion a bunch. So it goes.
  - olsonjeffery 4y ago
    You're just describing online interactions. This post was written for people who work in the real world with real people, not online freaks. There are many other pressures at play that make this a totally appropriate tool to communicate shared values, none of which you've considered in your argument.
- kaoD 4y ago
  > Something I wish the Left would figure out because the Right uses it on them all the time. Nice flamebait but I'll take it. Funny you said that considering the american left (and therefore the western left, delayed a couple years) is postmodernism distilled. The left is the kids in your story, and society is the mom. The right is just watching and reaping the rewards.
- valarauko 4y ago
axblount 4y ago
From the essay: > “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals. Of course it cuts both ways. Any method of setting a boundary can be used to enforce morally just or unjust rules. The authors point is that > “We don’t do that here” was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture. Genuinely asking: Does your position of "maximizing individual agency" mean that we should not enforce boundaries? If am running an office and someone makes a homophobic joke (not acceptable), what (in your view) is my recourse?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  "Hey, I find that to be really hurtful and would appreciate it if you didn't make jokes like that." To in wit you might get the reply "Why do you find that joke hurtful?" You can either throw out a semantic stop sign or engage in empathy. You can share meaningfully why you don't like those terms or jokes. You might say something like "My father told a lot of homophobic jokes to crush my self esteem once I came out as gay and I still find them hurtful." Notice how we are enforcing a boundary not as an arbitrary line but as a conversation between two people? We use reasoning - not just cold rationality but the full spectrum of emotional reasoning too - to negotiate boundaries.
  - axblount 4y ago
    I think she's very clear that "We don't do that here." shouldn't be the first line of defense or used in every situation. > When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated. So in this case, I would agree with you. I think the author would as well. She is not making this suggestion as a one size fits all response to off-color remarks. It's useful when people really should know better and there's other work that should be done. Or, the person is unable to accept criticism.
screye 4y ago
The word "We" is of critical importance here. It implies that the one asking the question is by definition an outsider, and they should know their place. It also implies : "You do not need to know the answer because you are too unimportant; OR this is a stupid question who's answer is obvious." IMO, it is easier and less combative to tell the real reason you refuse to answer and take personal/individual ownership for it. "I spent X amount of time figuring out architecture. It will take a Y time to explain. Let's discuss this in another venue where time isn't a bottleneck"; OR; "The manager / higher-ups decided that certain personal topics are off the table to maintain cohesion between the team." It is fine to impose culture onto new entrants to the group. But, that inherently implies a power imbalance which is important to acknowledge and communicate. If this is supposed to be an equal relationship with equal agency, then this sort of behavior veers on workplace bullying. I agree with the above commenter, that such rigidity and opaqueness towards interrogating a team's culture cuts both ways. If you wish to use it, then do so at your own peril.
tomjen3 4y ago
It also doesn't work when you are prepared for it. If you tell me we don't do x here and I then say "then you haven't paid attention" or something like that, then all we do is set us up for conflict.
mcguire 4y ago
"teach people to resist semantic stop signs and not use them" Why would you do that? What's wrong with them?
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Question asking and rationality are how humans grow. We both need to be able to explain our reasoning and listen to the reasoning of others.

immigrantheart 4y ago

I like it. I think this is a good approach to take. We don’t have to convince someone to change their worldviews. Its not that useful, especially in work context. This goes on both ways, left or right. Just say “we don’t do that here”, like “we don’t discuss politics here in the workplace”.

causi 4y ago
Changing to an employer who happened to be death on politics at work was such an incredible relief. Coming from a place where the break areas were full of vile politics on one side of the spectrum and the e-mail/slack channels full of vile politics on the opposite side, wiping both of those from my daily life significantly reduced my stress and friction working with others.

chomp 4y ago

Awesome article, but: >It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. Modifying anyone's behavior can cause people to go on the defensive, it's just normal human behavior. It's also to good to remember that because you have a hammer, not everything should be a nail. These stop signs do lose their potency if they're overused.

tasuki 4y ago

My blood pressure increased just reading that and imagining myself on the receiving end. We don't post things like that here, pretty please. > "we don't do that here" As a newcomer to wherever, given this treatment I'd feel excluded and somewhat upset. Who is "we"? Am I dealing with a homogeneous group and this person is speaking for all of them? Why don't they do "that"? Am I the only one that's different? > preferred way to say no: “that doesn’t work for me.” That... doesn't work for me? If you want to say no, just say no. If you want to say more, I'd be very grateful if you could tell me why not. I'm sure the magic phrases have made the author's professional career easier. Also I'm sure they made life worse for other people.

projectazorian 4y ago
Usually it's better to criticize in private and offer space for questions, but sometimes you need to shut down a behavior fast, eg. when someone is using offensive language around other employees. Saying "we don't do that here" is a great way to do that.
vinceguidry 4y ago
Author did specify that it's a last-resort option to be used when the energy or time for a deeper conversation wasn't available.
- dymk 4y ago
  They said no such thing, the opening example given was to whip out the phrase the moment the visitor said "gay", which then lead to an in-the-moment defensive fight. The later examples are the same, whipping out the phrase the moment the 'offender' does something the author doesn't like, and then doubling down on it when challenged.
  - axblount 4y ago
    Quote from the article: > When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated.

seydor 4y ago

France had to use legal means so women are not skin shy on the beach. Maybe they should have told them we don't do that here instead. The article reeks of elitist ignorance of reality outside exclusive bubbles like academia or tech, and that irks me

vinceguidry 4y ago
It's nice when you can pass laws.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Why, in any sane moral scheme, should women be forced to display skin on the beach? Why is "skin shy" a problem that the state should step in to solve? Let them be free to dress how they want on the beach. (But then, I guess France has a problem with letting them dress how they want other places, too...)

Siddarth1977 4y ago

It would be great to see this happen in the opposite direction. The next time someone intentionally misinterprets something as offensive when that clearly wasn't the intended meaning, or goes searching for ever more obscure terms to deem problematic, or tries to silence and shame people who try to do anything other than fight for social justice, we all just reply with "We don't do that here". Someone starts to lecture you about how referencing "winter" is non-inclusive to Southern Hemisphere readers? "We don't do that here". Someone says you need to rename your firewall "whitelist" of IP addresses? "We don't do that here". It would be glorious. Everyone could treat each other courtesy, grace and assume positive-intent. Instead of walking around on eggshells and always worrying about what the most cynical, negative interpretation of a word or phrase could be, everyone could relax, treat one another as friends and allies and focus on solving real problems. Or, we could continue down our current path of Orwellian new-speak, where a new group of religious extremists deem ever more language as blasphemous and everyone joins the witch-burners for fear of being labelled a witch themselves.

dijit 4y ago
I think that's a good idea. No politics, you come to work to work, as long as you treat your colleagues with respect. Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm C-Level, so I can hopefully instil this as culture.
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  > Companies shouldn't be changing the political landscape anyway, that would be a scary world. I'm curious as to how you think lobbying works in the present day and the past four decades or so.
  - dijit 4y ago
    I'm not American, lobbying is corruption and that it's fully legal is one of the scariest things when looking towards America. BTW: I'm a big fan of your work. :)

ggoo 4y ago

This person sounds like a huge pain to work with.

turdnagel 4y ago

I'm not sure "we don't do that here" is any more neutral than any other way of telling someone to stop doing something. It has the added weight of "we," which implies a shared set of cultural values, which in turn may help get the message across. But it does nothing to defuse someone feeling defensive about their actions.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
It makes clear, though still implicit, that was has been transgressed is a social norm specific to that context. It communicates that if you mean to oppose it, you're opposing the social cohesion of that context rather than the value of the thing itself. It doesn't address the feelings of the person or help their defensiveness, no. It just makes it less likely they'll continue to push against it.
- restingrobot 4y ago
  >It makes clear, though still implicit, that was has been transgressed is a social norm specific to that context. But it really doesn't though. In the example of the off color, (e.g. racist), joke, saying "we don't do that here", doesn't specify what "we" don't do. We don't make jokes about that specific race, but others are ok? We don't make any race based jokes, but sex based jokes are OK? We don't make jokes specifically about that topic? Its farm more effective to say something along the lines of "what you just said is inappropriate for our work environment, please keep others in mind when making jokes"
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    No you've got it but maybe don't see the value of it fully. It's pointing out an instance of transgression, not articulating a general rule. There probably is or needs to be a rule as well, but this doesn't by itself tell you what it is or define its bounds. You want to separate the definition of a rule and its enforcement. Even if the rule is just an informal social one among a friend group this is valuable. Think about the common trope of someone in a group making a joke about a car accident, potentially funny, but not knowing someone else in the group recently lost a parent in a car accident. You shut them up tactfully and then give them the context of the transgression later and potentially debate its boundaries then if that's valuable. What you absolutely don't want is, on the spot, having a public group-wide conversation about jokes about car accidents. Are they ever ok? Ok when someone isn't grieving from one? How long a buffer do we give for grief? Those are probably useful questions for this group to tackle, but this is the wrong time for it. "We don't joke about that" is good enough for now.

dymk 4y ago

lexx 4y ago

That's the best recipe to favorite tribalism. No thank you. New age patronizing is as old as humans. It's just that the current humans think it's new

ibejoeb 4y ago
Absolutely. > I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity On what aspect of diversity are you conducting this education? "We don't do that here" doesn't sound very diverse. This whole piece is about how to take down an outsider. Then, "I am here to educate you about inclusion." I wonder if the author actually read the piece and realized how it comes across. It's fitting that this is a post about "magic" phrases. Uttering "diversity" means nothing when you are cultivating a monoculture. Just stop using that word. Say what you really mean. Is it really worth the effort to try to redefine terms like diversity and inclusion to mean their opposites? You're going to have much more success with your team when you are honest. Don't hire someone from a different camp if this is your attitude.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  I didn't read it as how to take down an outsider, because why would an outsider care how "they do things there"? If someone has a club where they only open doors with their left hand, it isn't particularly interesting to me as an outsider who isn't subject to the same rules. It seems more about educating a newbie to the group, or someone in-group who broke some social rule, in a manner that accepts no rebuttals. The "we" in that sense seems inclusive of the person being chastised too. If a parent says to their child "We don't throw balls in the house", they aren't saying their child isn't part of the family. Having said that, I don't like this advice because it is condescending(which is why it was so easy to find an example of about a parent-child relationship).

balentio 4y ago

Maybe stop defining cultures and simply define the rules?

balentio 4y ago
Wow. The fact people are downvoting this just goes to show there are people in the world who get their rocks off on defining cultures--as if anyone has the authority to do that...
- etchalon 4y ago
  As a business owner, I have the authority to define what the culture of my company is. I get to print up manuals and make people sign them and everything.
  - guhidalg 4y ago
    Manuals are rulesets, you can evaluate if they’re being followed or not. How do you do that for culture?
    - etchalon 4y ago
      What do you believe the difference is in evaluating whether someone is following the rule of "Be kind" and whether someone is contributing to a culture of kindness?
      - guhidalg 4y ago
        I think both are equally ambiguous, and I don't think a "Be kind" clause in a contract would hold up in court.
        etchalon 4y ago
        Are you under the impression that, every time someone is fired for violating a rule in an employee manual, lawyers get involved?

NoGravitas 4y ago

The article: > It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. I don’t think it should be, but I don’t get to make the rules. The comments: Controversy about talking about basic civil behaviour.

guhidalg 4y ago
If you’re talking about civil behavior, you’re not working are you?
ThePadawan 4y ago
I honestly did not expect this topic to be this controversial. As a reader, I am always disappointed when a HN submission gets torn apart disproportionally to its original scope (just look at every submission on the topic of dieting, psychedelics, microservices, TSLA). On the other hand, it does make me happy to see that lots of people are unable to relate to the uncomfortable social situation the author describes. In a naive way, I hope that means the commenters haven't experienced it, rather than having experienced but not noticed it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bifftastic 4y ago

I think this is a very HN phrase and sentiment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22We%20don%27t%20do%20that%20here%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

mgdlbp 4y ago
"We're trying to avoid that here." https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by%3Adang%20%22that%20here%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by%3Adang%20%22that%20here%22&...
drewbug01 4y ago
Of course - it’s a very common rhetorical tool. The reason it’s getting so much debate here is because of the context in which the author employed it - shutting down someone who used homophobic language.

bogrollben 4y ago

I don't like it. It sounds too close to "we've always done it this way" which is often a terrible answer to someone challenging the status quo. "We don't do that here" is very easy to abuse.

kaoD 4y ago
That's exactly the point. It's a feel-good way to exercise power in a non-confrontational way (or else...)

etchalon 4y ago

Overall, I think I like this approach quite a bit, and the rational behind it. Though I have no doubt it will run afoul of people who believe there's some inherent virtue in running around acting like Mindy from Animaniacs.

jph 4y ago

"We don't do that here" is way to shut down communication. For team leadership, it's much better to open up communication, and create team practices called ways-of-working. Team values are big-idea statements of what teammates hold as important. Example: We value courage, collaboration, respect. Ground rules then make the values explicit, by describing the team's expectations. Example: We reject slurs and pejoratives. Some people who hear about this respond by saying it's too much overhead, or rigidity, or handholding. To me, these people sound much like the people who used to say "using version control is too much overhead, or rigidity, or handholding". It turns out that in my direct professional experience with many teams, teams that create ways-of-working improve because of it, and work significantly better with many more stakeholders. https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ways-of-working https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/ways-of-working

axblount 4y ago
I think the author clearly addresses this: > When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated. I don't think the author is suggesting that every cultural faux pas should be met with "We don't do that here." She's suggesting it for a certain use-case.
mcguire 4y ago
"For team leadership, it's much better to open up communication, and create team practices called ways-of-working. Team values are big-idea statements of what teammates hold as important. Example: We value courage, collaboration, respect. Ground rules then make the values explicit, by describing the team's expectations. Example: We reject slurs and pejoratives." One question: Once you have done this, are your ground rules and team values always open for debate (including, say, on Friday afternoon when all your services have gone belly up), or when someone new (a vendor say, or an intern) violates those ground rules and values do you shut them down with some variant of "we don't do that here" like "you have violated the ground rules"? P.S. As an extra question: Are your ground rules explicitly enumerated somewhere and all team members familiar with them in enough specific detail to know whether or not something violates them?

kleer001 4y ago

Just thinking out loud... -- Initially it smells a bit like fascism to me, not sure why. Maybe some unspoken assumptions based on unquestioned privilege. > If no one has told you yet, as your career in tech progresses you will eventually become a “custodian of culture.” There it is. Will I? progresses over time or progresses up the ladder? I'd have to assume the latter. >... but I don’t get to make the rules. IMHO enforcement is 10/10ths of the law. If you're enforcing it you're making it, you're taking personal responsibility for it. Being an authority is being as good as an author. Letting something die is the same as killing it. Omission is as good as a lie. > a tool for ending and defusing situations when other approaches don’t work. And that's the lede, buried. An argument of last resort. I would have started with that. That's why it smelled like fascism. It is, but it's got an on-by-default safety on it.

draw_down 4y ago

labrador 4y ago

There's an easy way to practice this skill and that's to learn how to say "no" without feeling like you have to explain yourself. Once you get the hang of it, saying no becomes a magic word that puts control of your life where it belongs: with you

cwp 4y ago

Ok, the specific culture that she wants to protect aside, I can see this being an effective way to give reminders. It's not going to work with people that are so new that they don't know what the cultural norms are. But, let's say there's an issue with the continuous deployment system: "Ah, let's just build it locally and copy the binary to the production servers." "No. We don't do that here." <sigh> "Yeah. Ok, I'll see if I can debug this thing..." The reasons are obvious, and we don't need to open a debate right now, despite the inconvenience at the moment.

scrozier 4y ago

"When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. ... And sometimes...the person involved doesn’t want to be educated." This mindset seems to me the reason that there's a backlash against (us) progressive-minded people. Can you imagine a more condescending, insulting approach? "I'm advanced, you're a Neanderthal" doesn't win many hearts or minds.

drewbug01 4y ago
“Neanderthal” seems to be a bit of an exaggeration there, don’t you think? That seems to be applying the worst possible lens to what the author stated, and frankly I don’t think the text supports it.
- scrozier 4y ago
  I suppose so. Sometimes we use colorful language to make a point. I think the text absolutely supports the idea that the author feels it is their place to educate others in what they (the author) have determined is the correct moral stance. Frankly, it makes my blood boil (metaphorically, of course), and I'm on the author's side, politically speaking.
  - drewbug01 4y ago
    Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate colorful language. Frankly, I wish we used more of it. I do disagree with the point you were trying to make, though. The author described themselves as a “custodian of culture” in several instances where such an informal position might legitimately arise. If we take that at face value (it’s certainly hard to refute, in any case), then the technique they describe doesn’t seem to be as harsh to me as your colorful language implies. I mean - the scenario wherein someone appoints themselves a culturally custodian when they really aren’t would be pretty different. And annoying. But that’s a lot to read into the article (in my opinion).
    - scrozier 4y ago

helge9210 4y ago

There is a reason a new person was hired. For example, to start doing something "they don't do here".

scrozier 4y ago

"It is a conversation ender." It certainly is.

jackson1442 4y ago

I think a lot of commenters here are missing the point that your workplace is not an appropriate place to hold political debates. Just treat each other with respect and do your job.

camdenlock 4y ago

The author is taking part in the current trend of implicitly (and without consent) grouping people into a “we”, or a “community”. It’s presumptuous, and it weakens the individual’s opportunities to think critically and grow their powers of reason. Hard pass on the nonsense offered by this author.

efsavage 4y ago

"It is a conversation ender." I have no doubt the author is correct, but I suspect it's frequently not because they have won or settled the issue at hand, but rather signaled that they are not willing to have a reasonable conversation about it. When you have someone using a slur, it's probably a mutual scenario, where that person isn't interested in being reasonable either. In many other cases, this technique is a symptom of disagreeableness and a sign of someone to generally avoid.

elil17 4y ago
I get what you're saying, but if someone uses a slur it's actually totally reasonable not to want to have a debate with them about it.

jcadam 4y ago

People like this are why I'm working remotely from a rural area and never want to set foot in an office again.

swayvil 4y ago

He's just replacing "don't stand so close to that person" and "I found your joke offensive" with a weird personal-responsibility-avoiding phrasing. Do we do that here?

motohagiography 4y ago

Even though I disagree with the article, a variation of "not here," is appropriate in a bunch of different contexts. The way the article presents it is just as a thought terminating cliche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A..., which itself is an oddly circular reference), but there are a bunch of legitimate ways to recognize what are essentially personal epistemic boundaries. However, someone collecting catchphrases to re-use as cliches in discourse is only signalling they are beneath the bar for engagement. Cliches are the torches and pitchforks of cognitive tools. "Please not here," I would evaluate and accept. "We don't do that here," just begs one of dozens of responses that would humiliate them and reinforce their sense of aggreivement. What I think triggers people is the passive appeal to authority in the use of "we" that doesn't exist. If someone addresses me from the royal "we," without establishing some kind of bona fides, it's just a threat that earns an insult. The funny things about a lot of the words that are now policed is that those words themselves were informal shorthand or euphemisms for much more serious accusations. As if to say, "I'm not going to issue an ultimatum to your integrity, but your behaviour is a bit <euphemism>." These weren't challenges, they were collegial and polite. The sentiment behind many of the words that are now policed can be adequately (if less satisfyingly) captured in terms like fatuous, pretentious, unctuous, perfidious, pandering, ingratiating, pusilanimous, inferior, morbid, infra dig, perverse, lurid, oily, prefect, errand runner, unmasculine, unfeminine, impetuous, disgusting, dishonest, misleading, back biting, patronizing, matronizing, histrionic, low, cunning, brutish, proletarian, palooka, bumpkin, predator, seducer, sleaze, lazy, fraudulent, sadistic, animus, avarice, petty, small, spiteful, vengeful, begrudged, aggreived, etc. These are all important concepts and values, and I can see why someone invested in behaving this way would like to remove our words for them, but the concepts and sentiments are there whether we use a shorthand for them or not. Our species uses words as an alternative to violence, and if we want to dissolve language we can, but the outcome seems foreseeable. I talk to people all the time who repeat phrases they think are powerful, and they're not trying to be enlightening, they're invoking an imagined power. They want to be humiliated because it reinforces their sense of self righteousness, and the more absurdly they behave, the more of a burden they place on others not to give them the humiliation reinforcement they are seeking. Personally, I've shrugged. I deal with individuals, and not groups, symbols, or identities. The rest is small.

planarhobbit 4y ago

Honestly? Flag and move on. It’s really not worth getting controversial over something like this. It’s clearly a cultural/power flex bereft of any technical curiosity and it serves the HN crowd absolutely no use nor leads to any enlightenment to further discuss it - let alone try to “educate” (pardon the term) the author as to why their musing on calcification of thought and behaviour is unhealthy. Whenever someone tries to pull a little clever power trip and politely silence you or tell you how you should behave and that your language is inappropriate, you owe it to yourself to tell them to fuck off (right after you call their behaviour “gay”, of course.)

seydor 4y ago
But you just told people how to behave...

zecken 4y ago

Using "that doesn't work for me" as a euphemism for "no" sounds crazy to me.

ThePadawan 4y ago
I'm personally glad to hear that! I have also personally met people who, - when I tell them "You're sort of right, but I have to disagree", hear "I agree with you". - when I tell them "No, that's wrong", hear "I'm challenging your ego to prove that you're right!" It takes a lot lot lot of nuance to discover how to communicate effectively.

antisthenes 4y ago

> This is when I pull out “we don’t do that here.” It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. False. That's my conversation ender that I like pulling out.

debacle 4y ago

'One day someone came to visit and used the word “gay” as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s.' People in certain spaces need to understand that, for most people, this is just as prevalent today as it has ever been. And I don't mean to justify this kind of language, but it is my experience that progressivism has become insular. I joined a gaming group recently for "adults," and I was blown away by the amount of casual homophobia expressed in this group. When I brought this to the attention of the moderators, they explained that they didn't feel comfortable addressing the issue because of the backlash that they might receive. We need to reassess what we believe about American culture, what we aspire to, and what the reality is. The Internet is not real life - it gives an outsized voice to vocal minorities, for better or worse.

ericmcer 4y ago

This felt off to me as her goal wasn't to figure out how to work with the person, it was to win. Her strategy is to fully shut the person down using seniority and peer pressure. She claims anything softer will result in an argument. It just feels wrong that the interpersonal tool she likes best gives no consideration to her coworker being a rational individual who can have a discussion, I don't know about her "interpersonal toolbox".

virtualritz 4y ago

That's an example of very poor communication skills. All points for the 'why' given by the author are fair enough But if you can't explain, in very simple terms and briefly why "we don't do X here", you probably have nothing to stand on yourself to make such a statement in the first place.

lxe 4y ago

Oof these comments. Let's take the "woke" part of this whole argument out, and apply this to technical bikeshed debates over inconsequential minutia that go on for days, that you're probably very familiar with as a tech worker. Would be nice to employ a Thought-terminating cliché like of some sort to nip these things in the bud, instead of "fostering a culture of questioning everything". Well, the same applies to those wishing to engage in an inconsequential cultural debate in a workplace. I welcome this "We don't do that here" thing. Or maybe y'all are right, this is literally 1984.

elil17 4y ago

People seem to be mistaking the author's claim that this phrase is useful with a claim that it is moral. The phrase makes it clear that something is not open for debate - which saves everyone from wasting time and losing face by having an argument. That's useful. Even if I disagree with a workplace norm, even if it makes me mad, I would rather know that people are not going to be open to discussing it. If you disagree with the workplace norm, your options are now very clear: get over it, leave, or, depending on what the norm is and where you are, file a lawsuit.

ls_waiting 4y ago

Excellent article. This is the professional version of "OK Boomer" and we really need this to be the standard response to behaviour that needs to be immediately stopped and not debated, along with an implied threat that it will be escalated if continued.

csours 4y ago

We avoid talking about morality and morals based behavior in a business context because it triggers feelings of righteousness, and the number one way to get non-constructive fights is to get humans to share conflicting feelings of righteousness. When our morals are challenged, our lived experience is also challenged, because we've used those morals to make or justify many decisions and feelings. It should be possible to share personal experiences or points of view. I don't know what needs to change in our behavior to let this happen.

drewbug01 4y ago
A truly pluralistic, non-oppressive society is a necessary prerequisite.
- csours 4y ago
  If that is a prerequisite, how do we get there? Maybe it's a forlorn hope, but it's how I imagine the future of the human race.
  - drewbug01 4y ago
    I honestly wish I knew.