Fighting the “loneliness epidemic” at work
blog.rescuetime.com
blog.rescuetime.com
As a black employee I'm very plugged in the employee resource group for black employees at my organization. I've been able to give back to the local community through volunteering, develop mentee and mentor relationships through this network and develop a sense that there are folks who are not connected to my day to day work that 'have my back', it definitely helps with retention.
A coworker of mine is very involved with the Indian ERG, and another sings choir with the Christian ERG on Wednesdays.
These sorts of groups get a lot of flak from folks who don't think these groups should exist or that companies should not focus on "diversity", but at the end of the day they provide an infrastructure that communities can build on, and that's very important.
Even when I'm having a terrible day, walking through the hallway and having a quick chat with someone who've I've met through these networks is extremely valuable.
I'd recommend anyone who feels loneliness at work to take a look at what ERGs your company may have established, not all of them are tied to a racial, religious, or sexual identity. The maker group at my employer is pretty big and active last I checked.
Including myself (mixed race). I find the "hang out with people who look like me" mentality to be really weird and when a company's idea of diversity is basically this, it's more offensive than racial slurs to be honest.
I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender. This seems to me the opposite of diversity. In my view there should be groups around interests instead.
A great, non third-rail example of why this is relevant can be seen in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". There's a shared cultural, religious and other heritage and story that holds the characters together.
As a white guy, I would find a white-guy club really weird. I could see something like a dad group, baseball team or fan group, engineering society, a catholic religious/service group or something similar as something that I would potentially identify with. Maybe some sort of Irish heritage thing, but I don't know if that would be relevant to me, as there isn't really a shared experience there.
The reason that it makes no sense to have a "white male" group is that's the dominant culture generally. A lot of that culture, the "baseline American" culture, is of interest to people who aren't in that group, but the reverse is true way less frequently. Indian-Americans are going to know what Christmas is and might even participate in a gift exchange, but are white people going to observe Diwali?
I was the only LGBT person, and THAT experience is way more isolating.
Groups around interests are great, but you run the risk of creating groups that are popular/mainstream and still fail to include those who are not as mainstream in their interests.
The whole point is to help people who feel like they are different find their place, and a lot of potential interest groups can start to look like a white male club under a different label. For instance, consider a craft beer group, or an (American) Football group.
-- Why are 'black pride' and 'white pride' not equal?
The 'white' cultures of the west usually made it through to their colonies fairly intact and recognizable. The French, the Irish (ignoring changing notions of what 'white' is), the Germans etc. So be proud! Be proud of your Irish heritage, your French heritage, your Croatian heritage.
Black people in America... African slaves came from all over Central and West Africa. Their culture was very quickly all melted together in America and the genealogy muddied and for the most part a modern descendant can't say empirically exactly where in Africa their ancestors came from, let alone have had the elements of culture from that place handed down to them reliably. So the only 'shared experience' of black people in America is... being black in America. Then combine in the historic issues of being a 'lesser' race in American history and "black power" or "black interest groups" and holidays like Kwanzaa are a response to that. ---
Anyway, they're not my thoughts but I've paraphrased them as best as I can remember. It makes sense to me at least as a starting point. What do you think?
The real spanner in the works for this line of thinking is 'asian' groups lumping together all the individual cultures of asia!
Ideally, one day we'll have lived alongside each other long enough that this is all a historic curiosity in the same way 'whiteness' has vastly broadened it's scope in the last 100 years.
I don't see why a reason why you can't have both?
As a white male you haven't experienced any of that, which is fine! But you should try to put yourself in the shoes of people who weren't so lucky.
EDIT: I was addressing the poster directly. As a white guy with autism, I'm well aware that white males in general can experience lifelong hardship for any number of traits. But anyone who says "I don't really understand why all these groups are around race, sexuality or gender" presumably hasn't experienced that, or they'd immediately understand why someone would want to associate with folks who've been through the same shit.
(Or maybe I'm still giving him too much credit. But I try assume ignorance rather than malice.)
You know absolutely nothing about this person and yet feel completely at liberty to issue blanket statements about their life and what they have experienced and how they 'should' feel.
White privilege is obviously real. However, that doesn't mean that a white male hasn't ever been nervous around the police or felt queer thoughts.
This is why people resent contemporary 'identity politics' and 'diversity' initiatives. Not because of the end goals themselves (that is, to mitigate racism and prejudice) but because the rhetorical methods currently employed are cloying, tone-deaf, and frankly just plain condescending. The overall point you are making is a noble and important one - to self-reflect and put yourself in other people's perspective - but I don't think this is the most effective way to convey it.
Not all white males are the same and face the same challenges. Life is very different if you are good looking, tall, athletic, outgoing vs. being short, non-athletic, nerdy and socially awkward. I was in the second group and faced a lot of discrimination, bullying and ridicule when I grew up. I probably had a lot of advantages too but it's not that simple. There are plenty of rich non-white kids who probably have it much easier than most whites.
This is almost unbelievably blind.
You don't directly know what the poster has gone through. Prefacing the statement with "as a white male" implies that you know what the poster has gone through because of his race. It is willfully blind. You can make convincing statements that white people in general in certain states at certain times face certain kinds of systemic discrimination. You cannot truthfully make the statement that the poster has not encountered serious discrimination, malice, or personal difficulties merely by knowing his race and sex.
>presumably hasn't experienced that, or they'd immediately understand
This is a Scotsman fallacy. I am certain I could find some people who have faced terrible racism that would agree with the poster's opinion.
These groups are similar to an ice breaker in a conversation with someone new, usually I try to find something common with a person I've just met that we can share experiences over.
The ERGs at my org are not exclusive at all, the Latino, Women, and Black ERGs organize a yearly leadership conference that everyone is invited too and has a very diverse set of topics that can be discussed. The new grads at my company are automatically enrolled into the ERG mailing list and I've developed really tight bonds with folks I met there, there is a yearly ski trip with about 25 people that I'm apart of that started with folks who met through the new grad ERG.
It's more of a "we share the same challenges and hardships, let's compare notes" mentality.
I try to avoid repeating mistakes and I don't have a lot of comments in the negative. Pointers would be awesome.
As per the site's rules:
Instead of "you're doing it wrong", suggest alternatives. When someone is learning, help them learn more.I have no idea if that's why your post was downvoted but anecdotally, asking why you were downvoted only ever elicits more downvotes. Quoting site rules is definitely not going to help your case. They're just imaginary points. Best to just forget about it and move on.
That was my direct answer to atom-morgan's post who said: “I find the "hang out with people who look like me" mentality to be really weird”.
As for the points themselves I don't care, it's how the post slowly rose to positive and then hit negative in an instant that made me confused. But then again, perhaps I should put away my tinfoil hat.
[1] https://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2013/04/05/us_...!
Also, ERGs are simply a more formal organization, in my company official ERGs some receive funding to support events. At a previous work campus we set up regular basketball and volleyball games after work using a simple mailing list and a share point like internal forum system.
I've seen groups where the focus is those who identify as "makers" and also a group for drone hobbyists. You can think of these groups as "special interest groups" to use a political term, but most of these groups are not exclusive.. for instance, you can join the NAACP regardless of race.
There were three Africans (musicians in the German army). Yes, exactly three. Not four or five.
Indians were involved as part of British forces, but numbered well under 1% of men deployed. I wouldn't take anything away from them (good men), but it's inaccurate to say they were significantly represented by numbers.
You need to be careful about people (in this case video game developers) lying to you about history to uphold a moralistic narrative. The facts of history are not politically correct, they are actually correct (by definition), and this is a big difference.
See also: Absurd BBC depictions of Roman-era Britain where there are random black characters all throughout the society at every level of power and influence. A pure lie.
Basically what you get from media these days (95% progressive by survey) is comparable to what you'd get if the media was 95% evangelical Christians, but in another direction. Just keep the source in context.
I'm also finding about 72,000 colonial casualties on the French side - which is a smaller proportion, given the colossal numbers the French fielded, but still substantial.
The German army is a very misleading case regardless, since they were pretty much the only power without significant non-white minorities or colonies, aside from perhaps Austro-Hungary.
I'm also unsure about to what extent Romans were black. Obviously, about half their traditional dominion was in Africa, so you'd expect some part of them to be black - and there are certainly many archaeological remains suggesting so, even as far north as England. I also don't know if having black characters is any less true to history than having white characters, since Roman Romans were distinctly brownish, and very short to boot.
I work at a small company (c. 600 people), so it isn't big enough to have these kinds of groups, but I'd be more interested in joining a group based on interests, like software development (I do work for a software company), or maybe tabletop gaming. I don't care what race people are, but what their interests are like. Of course, I'm a white guy, so there wouldn't be a white guy group (nor would I want to see one).
And for what it's worth, there are a lot of immigrants at this company, so whites are a minority among mostly Indians and Chinese, etc.
Which leaves interest groups on Facebook... that's okay but talking about board games or model trains isn't really the same as talking about who you are and how you exist in the world as a person.
If you're having trouble having a place where you can talk about the challenges you have and you feel, for whatever reason, uncomfortable to call it a "white people's group", perhaps try forming it functionally? So, for instance, If you have trouble finding mentorship, a Peer Guidance Group may help?
I don't actually know here. Just suggesting in case it helps.
Black -> AA as well as African immigrants
Asian -> Japanese, old migrant Chinese, new communist-raised Chinese, Indonesian
The religious ones make more sense; at least religions are belief systems.
Whites officially commit suicide more than blacks because blacks who are even slightly inclined to self-destruction find it all to easy to get into situations that produce death by means that won't officially be viewed as suicide.
> Blacks suffer in many ways but at least they're allowed to make a community just about themselves
Whites can, and do, make communities just about themselves. Now, it's true that the ones that aren't purely and nakedly about virulent racism usually do it about some more specific subset of Whiteness (like a particular national/ethnic identity like Italian or Irish, etc.), probably because Whiteness as such (in America, at least) is not a particularly strong shared experience and identity (some other racial identities, particularly Black identity, are, but largely as a consequence of extended subjugation by the broader society which deliberately destroyed other identities in the group and produced a new common shared experience.)
> Whites officially commit suicide more than blacks because blacks who are even slightly inclined to self-destruction find it all to easy to get into situations that produce death by means that won't officially be viewed as suicide.
Do you have any data to back that up or any type of non anecdotal evidence? Not attacking you. I actually want to know but I don't believe the, "Your data is incorrect because the way you collect data is flawed. However what I think is correct even without any data." argument is particularly strong.
We all know what you're implying but you're making that statistic up.
Implying? I was being explicit, if general because I was referring to a broad class of phenomenon. If you think I was using code for something narrowly specific, you are mistaken.
> but you're making that statistic up.
I'm not presenting a statistic, made up or not.
Work can be a bit isolating when you have a very different background from a lot of your coworkers. Having a group that shares some aspect of your background that you can talk to about that shared perspective with can help a lot.
Companies should go a bit farther than making groups that are built race/religion/gender lines to bridge that gap. I've been at a lot of companies where there was some shared activity that "everybody does" after work - something that not literally everybody actually does. There should be other ways of including those people.
Often something like that can reflect a cultural background or gender (be it "everyone" is in a fantasy football league or "everyone" is competitive about a certain video game or "everyone" goes out drinking on Thursday).
If you're a member of a small group, be it because you're black, female, LGBT, have children (or don't), whatever it might be - it's easy to feel lonely and marginalized and like you don't have a community at the workplace; it helps if the organization promotes a way to feel like you do.
So that it's not just "oh everyone is talking about that thing I don't do again".
As investment into the company increased, more juniors were hired that had the similar life situations, liked to do similar activities, etc. My attachment to the company became much stronger after that.
> the fact you work for the same company can become just a footnote if you want it to
... until you have an HR complaint, or need to manage a layoff, etc.
Too small right now to have ERGs that don't apply to large groups but the soccer team, the basketball team, our running group, and those who cycle tend to form friendships that Grease the wheels of interaction at work, apart from it just being nice to have friends.
With the current thinking of companies as profit maximizing machines everything we do at the workplace is just window-dressing to cover up that soullessness.
Maximize your income at work (while minimizing time spent working) to maximize your happiness outside of work (hobbies, family, side project, working towards financial independence, whatever).
I am working on starting my own business to hire family and friends; for me, time spent with those people comes first, and the overall profitability of the business is less important (just need to break even).
I think this is a really healthy attitude but it also requires a bit of introspection and soul searching about what is "enough" for you to be happy. If your goal is to maximize income regardless of time spent, you should probably be a CEO, or an HFT developer, or a Wall Street banker. But on the other end you can do next to no productive work and earn enough to survive if not really live an exciting life, not be able to take vacations, etc.
For different people, in different stages of their lives, living in different parts of the world, this could be anything from $5k USD a year to $500k USD a year. I'm still trying to figure it out myself and I'm in my mid 30's. It's particularly hard as every promotion that comes with more than a token single- or low double-digit percentage raise usually has a pretty significant spike in work/time requirement, at least initially. So a lot of folks (like a former boss of mine) get a big promotion and raise and find out they were happier doing less work for $50k less every year.
All employment is temporary. Remember, my goal is to operate a business to spend time with those whose company I enjoy, not to be ridiculously successful.
That said, you probably shouldn't lend money to friends.
If you can give some of your less fortunate friends/family a job and break even at the same time, it sounds like a win-win for everyone. Certainly if they are currently unemployed.
That said, truly good leadership is a rare thing.
If you don't have a handful of people you work with who take a genuine interest in each other both professionally and personally you're missing out on some potentially long lasting and very meaningful relationships. It makes the hard days a lot nicer when you have someone you can take a walk with, have coffee or a drink after work. We're social creatures, not everything has to be some damn transactional.
No need to be close friends with every colleague, but after a decade or so of work I hope everyone would at least have a couple current or former coworkers that you'd invite to a wedding, Christmas party, summer bbq, etc and be genuinely happy to have them there.
As far as I can tell, this article is just another SEO/branding type effort, and written by someone who found a way to make a living selling platitudes to those not doing the thing his audience actually does.
As a 'millennial', I'm generally used to marketing mixing with life advice and whatnot, but I'm increasingly repulsed by this type of stuff.
Their product is also mostly useless.
Suddenly I'm reminded of my favorite horror story, "Doing Business in Japan", which depicts a society where your employer is God-Emperor of your Life. Marrying the expectation that you carve every bit of yourself off to resemble what the Company wants, along with the knowledge that your economic and social life can be ended by anyone above you in the org chart having a bad day, seems like a truly horrifying combination.
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
(Hell, I'm an introvert and I consider my dayjob to be my main socialization outlet otherwise I'm utterly drained.)
If there are 3 people in the team room and 2 of them feel like chatting while the other is 3 hours deep in a project, that can kill productivity. Or if you get a bad roll of the dice and have a hard time working with your teammates. Why not true private offices?
If loneliness is an epidemic then show some facts. Suicide rates, are computer programmers doing it more construction works? Other kinds of engineers? Police and firemen? No they are not. (fact check www.learning-mind.com/suicide-rates-professions/)
So everyone please help out. When you see crap like this article, call shenanigans. Don't take advice from snake oil salesmen.
Have a nice day!