5 ms·

It seems like once a week I get reminded how critical making sure that employees are safe to speak their mind, especially when the company's revenue or profit

It seems like once a week I get reminded how critical making sure that employees are safe to speak their mind, *especially* when the company's revenue or profits are concerned with what they want to say. So many times I've seen horrific situations be diffused when someone said something, and management didn't retaliate or try to silence the employee.

bombcar 2y ago
The number of "we can't do that, it murders kittens on live TV" types of discussions I've seen surprise me, both that something got as far as it did, and that it was shut down with a simple comment.
- dylan604 2y ago
  The number of times a group has created/approved something that immediately has a flaw found by the first person it is shown that is not in the group is something that I'd love to see hard numbers. It has to be very high. It's like group think takes over and nobody can think critically about it, and all sorts of things slip through. It's even more embarrassing when you do have subject matter experts already employed within the company that were either not discussed with or worse ignored. The most common example is from marketing where there is something that nobody notices until the internet noticed, or when a foreign company releases internationalized copy by someone that is not a native speaker so that the translation is nonsensical jibberish.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    I think a major part of it is a form of "institutional blindness" where the people who do see it don't mention anything wrong because there's only downside to doing so; the first person who can't be "retaliated" against goes "what the fuck is this"?
    - dylan604 2y ago
      I've found myself being on the downside. One job in particular was especially egregious in how "pitch meetings" were simply where the art director let people toss out ideas only to dismiss each one and at the end toss out their idea. Suddenly everyone in the room loved the idea. It was obvious the art director just wanted to be able to say that they were open and listened to ideas from the plebes. After the third one of these meetings where I started asking for more details from the brilliant pitch, it was clear that I was no longer a fit. Eventually, the glitch was fixed so to speak.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  I've personally derailed some projects just by honestly asking "hey, isn't this illegal" in a group of well meaning people. Somehow, people don't even notice.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    "What are the security implications for this?" does a similar thing. People don't like it and eventually you either take the hint or people stop inviting you to meetings. On the positive note, it works in so far as once it's said, the folks in charge can't hide under the blanket of ignorance. But it doesn't work in that it you're seen as the problem rather than asking "why the heck do we keep suggesting illegal things"?
    - tedivm 2y ago
      I loved working in a HIPAA regulated field- "we literally can't do that without breaking the law" would actually work to make people remember that security is important. That said I lucked out in that one of the two cofounders actually understood why this was important (and he gave me permission to revoke all access to sensitive data from the other cofounder).
snarf21 2y ago
That won't work because the incentives are misaligned. What we need is much better whistleblower programs. Programs where people are paid out $MM and witness protection if there are lose level of risks. These programs can easily pay for themselves by pulling back ill gotten gains to pay for awards and program costs. It should go without saying that it also needs to be a major crime to stop people from filing frivolously. But as Upton Sinclair has said, it is hard for a person to do what is right when their family's livelihood is at stake. People knew about Enron, Theranons, Volkswagon, etc. This sounds even more pertinent with the stuff going on right now around Boeing. I haven't researched that enough to know what is fact and what is conspiracy but it is hard to know what lengths people will go to when the stakes are high enough.
- indymike 2y ago
  > What we need is much better whistleblower programs. Programs where people are paid out $MM and witness protection if there are lose level of risks. If you need this, your culture is beyond lost and your management team will sabotage it to ensure they maintain autocratic control. > Enron, Theranons, Volkswagon... Boeing Every one of these companies either was or had become quite autocratic and bureaucratic. > hard to know what lengths people will go to when the stakes are high enough. It's pretty easy to see it in action, and all it takes to beat it is a call from the CEO or someone above the manager of an employee that seems to be holding back in a meeting or in a email. "Fran, you seemed to be holding back. You are the kind of person that I count on to let me know what is really happening. Why were you holding back?" usually results in "My boss will fire me if I tell anyone"... And what comes after this is exactly what the CEO needs to know.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  So how do you convince companies that they should be responsible to their communities and the world at large instead of focusing on shareholder profits? Corporations are created by and controlled by governments. Maybe stricter laws and heightened enforcement? > what is fact and what is conspiracy Conspiracy is criminal collaboration. It is not "falsehood."
- jedmeyers 2y ago
tedivm 2y ago
Yet every time we hear about a protest or other action by employees to make their employer behave in an ethical way the prevailing opinion on this site is that work isn't the place to have those discussions, and that people who do should expect to be fired.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Ignore those people and carry on.
- latexr 2y ago
  > the prevailing opinion on this site is that work isn't the place to have those discussions, and that people who do should expect to be fired. I think this often repeated myth of the HN hive mind¹ is both wrong and harmful². Yes, there are several people on these discussions who fit into the mould you describe, but there are also many who think that position is crazy and dehumanising and say so. Literally every time I see someone on HN complaining the website has a prevailing opinion, I could think of counter-examples. I think we (people) may have a tendency to focus on the negative opinions that boil our blood and become blind to the voices in support. ¹ Not your words, but it encompasses the sentiment. ² It perpetuates a stereotype and prevents people with different views from joining the site or its discussion, narrowing the amount of differing views.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > I don’t think you’re being fair, and I do think this often repeated myth of the HN hive mind¹ I think it's totally fair to call the top comment (most upvoted) the "prevailing opinion". That said, I suspect it's a side-effect of HN's voting ethos (don't down vote because you disagree, which is lopsided because its opposite - people upvoting because they agree - happens disproportionately, generally the comment that activates the most would-be voters wins, unemotional comments that confirm boring old truths rarely do, unlike the incendiary ones about how $GROUP is ruining the tech workplace.
    - youainti 2y ago
fzeindl 2y ago
> diffused You mean defused? "Diffused" kind of turns the meaning of your sentence around.
Aloisius 2y ago
3M reported to the EPA that PFOS was found in blood within a year of the employee's findings confirming its existence.

It seems like once a week I get reminded how critical making sure that employees are safe to speak their mind, *especially* when the company's revenue or profit

bombcar 2y ago

The number of "we can't do that, it murders kittens on live TV" types of discussions I've seen surprise me, both that something got as far as it did, and that it was shut down with a simple comment.

dylan604 2y ago
The number of times a group has created/approved something that immediately has a flaw found by the first person it is shown that is not in the group is something that I'd love to see hard numbers. It has to be very high. It's like group think takes over and nobody can think critically about it, and all sorts of things slip through. It's even more embarrassing when you do have subject matter experts already employed within the company that were either not discussed with or worse ignored. The most common example is from marketing where there is something that nobody notices until the internet noticed, or when a foreign company releases internationalized copy by someone that is not a native speaker so that the translation is nonsensical jibberish.
- bombcar 2y ago
  I think a major part of it is a form of "institutional blindness" where the people who do see it don't mention anything wrong because there's only downside to doing so; the first person who can't be "retaliated" against goes "what the fuck is this"?
  - dylan604 2y ago
    I've found myself being on the downside. One job in particular was especially egregious in how "pitch meetings" were simply where the art director let people toss out ideas only to dismiss each one and at the end toss out their idea. Suddenly everyone in the room loved the idea. It was obvious the art director just wanted to be able to say that they were open and listened to ideas from the plebes. After the third one of these meetings where I started asking for more details from the brilliant pitch, it was clear that I was no longer a fit. Eventually, the glitch was fixed so to speak.
marcosdumay 2y ago
I've personally derailed some projects just by honestly asking "hey, isn't this illegal" in a group of well meaning people. Somehow, people don't even notice.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  "What are the security implications for this?" does a similar thing. People don't like it and eventually you either take the hint or people stop inviting you to meetings. On the positive note, it works in so far as once it's said, the folks in charge can't hide under the blanket of ignorance. But it doesn't work in that it you're seen as the problem rather than asking "why the heck do we keep suggesting illegal things"?
  - tedivm 2y ago
    I loved working in a HIPAA regulated field- "we literally can't do that without breaking the law" would actually work to make people remember that security is important. That said I lucked out in that one of the two cofounders actually understood why this was important (and he gave me permission to revoke all access to sensitive data from the other cofounder).

snarf21 2y ago

That won't work because the incentives are misaligned. What we need is much better whistleblower programs. Programs where people are paid out $MM and witness protection if there are lose level of risks. These programs can easily pay for themselves by pulling back ill gotten gains to pay for awards and program costs. It should go without saying that it also needs to be a major crime to stop people from filing frivolously. But as Upton Sinclair has said, it is hard for a person to do what is right when their family's livelihood is at stake. People knew about Enron, Theranons, Volkswagon, etc. This sounds even more pertinent with the stuff going on right now around Boeing. I haven't researched that enough to know what is fact and what is conspiracy but it is hard to know what lengths people will go to when the stakes are high enough.

indymike 2y ago
> What we need is much better whistleblower programs. Programs where people are paid out $MM and witness protection if there are lose level of risks. If you need this, your culture is beyond lost and your management team will sabotage it to ensure they maintain autocratic control. > Enron, Theranons, Volkswagon... Boeing Every one of these companies either was or had become quite autocratic and bureaucratic. > hard to know what lengths people will go to when the stakes are high enough. It's pretty easy to see it in action, and all it takes to beat it is a call from the CEO or someone above the manager of an employee that seems to be holding back in a meeting or in a email. "Fran, you seemed to be holding back. You are the kind of person that I count on to let me know what is really happening. Why were you holding back?" usually results in "My boss will fire me if I tell anyone"... And what comes after this is exactly what the CEO needs to know.
drewcoo 2y ago
So how do you convince companies that they should be responsible to their communities and the world at large instead of focusing on shareholder profits? Corporations are created by and controlled by governments. Maybe stricter laws and heightened enforcement? > what is fact and what is conspiracy Conspiracy is criminal collaboration. It is not "falsehood."
jedmeyers 2y ago

tedivm 2y ago

Yet every time we hear about a protest or other action by employees to make their employer behave in an ethical way the prevailing opinion on this site is that work isn't the place to have those discussions, and that people who do should expect to be fired.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Ignore those people and carry on.
latexr 2y ago
> the prevailing opinion on this site is that work isn't the place to have those discussions, and that people who do should expect to be fired. I think this often repeated myth of the HN hive mind¹ is both wrong and harmful². Yes, there are several people on these discussions who fit into the mould you describe, but there are also many who think that position is crazy and dehumanising and say so. Literally every time I see someone on HN complaining the website has a prevailing opinion, I could think of counter-examples. I think we (people) may have a tendency to focus on the negative opinions that boil our blood and become blind to the voices in support. ¹ Not your words, but it encompasses the sentiment. ² It perpetuates a stereotype and prevents people with different views from joining the site or its discussion, narrowing the amount of differing views.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > I don’t think you’re being fair, and I do think this often repeated myth of the HN hive mind¹ I think it's totally fair to call the top comment (most upvoted) the "prevailing opinion". That said, I suspect it's a side-effect of HN's voting ethos (don't down vote because you disagree, which is lopsided because its opposite - people upvoting because they agree - happens disproportionately, generally the comment that activates the most would-be voters wins, unemotional comments that confirm boring old truths rarely do, unlike the incendiary ones about how $GROUP is ruining the tech workplace.
  - youainti 2y ago

fzeindl 2y ago

> diffused You mean defused? "Diffused" kind of turns the meaning of your sentence around.

Aloisius 2y ago

3M reported to the EPA that PFOS was found in blood within a year of the employee's findings confirming its existence.