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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

Not only is it terrible from a dietary standpoint, it reveals an intolerant workplace culture that I certainly wouldn't want any part of. Most of the world, and likely most of their employees, eat meat. It shows a serious lack of connection with the real world, and a willingness on the part of management to forcefully impose extreme views on a whim.

Sounds like an unhealthy place to work, even if they all become vegetarians.

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WeWork's history of firing any employee even hinting at collective bargaining or discussing employee rights in general is well known.

Whatever happened with that unpaid overtime lawsuit they got slapped with?

Heh, try being a vegetarian in the Midwest if you want to feel real intolerant workplace culture.

Love your profile message, you pretty much nailed what's going on with HN. Just keep posting, it's the only way to improve things.

It’s definitely getting more and more extreme around here. The fact that this article made it to the front page, and is generally being viewed as a good thing in the comments section, doesn’t say good things about where HN is headed.

This isn't about where HN is headed. There has been a social shift happening in many countries in the last few years where veganism has stopped being a fringe movement and is entering the Overton window. You should expect to see more and more articles like this in the media, and to see increasingly positive reactions towards them.

Actually you should expect the trend to continue. More consumers are demanding vegetarian and vegan options. Restaurants are selling out of new plant-based burgers and are being encouraged by industry magazines to offer vegan options. Demand is speaking pretty clearly in fact. What was once fringe is rapidly scaling. Nice to actually see the world moving forward in a good direction on this.

I wasn’t just talking about the whole vegetarian thing. I was talking about the idea that the HN community would be in support of any extreme idea like this. If you look at Twitter, for example, almost everyone that commented on this issue thought it was absolutely absurd. Yet here is HN, mostly supporting it, simply because it’s left-leaning. It shows how out-of-touch HN is with the rest of the world. No wonder people are starting to block access to their articles when HN is the referrer [1].

[1] https://jamie.build/how-to-build-an-npm-worm

Are we reading the same comment section? Because I do not see "mostly supporting it", but lots of people arguing on both sides.

Just as I can find both people supporting it and people thinking its stupid on Twitter when randomly looking around. The "real world" doesn't appear to have a consistent opinion on this, which isn't surprising at all.

What if your company said that they are starting a program to reimburse solar panel installation, but that program doesn't cover reimbursement for gas. Would your argument be that most of the world consumes gas, so they're "forcefully impose extreme views on a whim."

This is a false equivalence. It is apparently a matter of custom at WeWork for at least some employee meals to be paid for by the company. To dictate what employees may order in those situations is unconscionable.

Imagine your manager takes the team out for a working lunch, and you basically can’t order anything except for a garden salad from the menu. You have to be at the lunch, but you cannot order like a normal person. That’s wrong.

You can eat whatever you want, WeWork simply won't reimburse you if it is meat.

Once again to reiterate, they are not limiting your choice, they are limiting what they will reimburse.

Alright, you call false equivalence, I call petty fogging if you need your analogies to be perfect.

So to make it a proper example: what if your employer had a job benefit to reimburse gas & electric car expenses to visit clients, and then later decided to stop reimbursing gas.

Also, considering WeWork is taking this stance, if a WeWork boss takes you to a restaurant whose only vegetarian option is a garden salad, then she's totally trolling you.

edit: updating my analogy since i can't reply to your nested comment (not sure why)

Again, false equivalence. I’m not being forced to use either form of energy. However, as an employee at WeWork, there are situations where I would be forced to eat WeWork-sponsored meals, to which this policy applies.

Edit: Since my comment no longer makes sense because you completely changed yours long after I replied to it (not a cool thing to do), I think your electric/gas car analogy would be extremely problematic and would likely result in lawsuits. As you know, most cars are gas-based. If it is customary for WeWork to reimburse employees for work-related transportation expenses, and they then changed that policy to favor employees with electric cars, they'd be sued (and rightfully so). The rules are theirs to set - they can either pay for this category of expense or not - but they can't discriminate. I'd imagine that even this vegetarian policy will meet with a few lawsuit threats, but it's so ridiculous that I think they would quietly cave before any suit was actually filed. Imagine trying to justify the cost of defending such a suit to your investors. I'd love to sit in on that meeting.

Individuals requiring “medical or religious” allowances are being referred to the company’s policy team to discuss options.

In the rare occasions where you absolutely need meat it would be available...

I mentioned in my edit the reply button disappeared. I could have appended the edit instead of changing it inline. No ill will, just trying to refine my analogy as you kept insisting false equivalence (ultimately analogies aren't equivalent).

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