In my humble opinion, there is a place for expressing/speaking up about the things you care about, but workplace is not one of it. You have no locus standi.
I think it’s a bad argument to say that those who aren’t activists are also those are who better at their jobs because those who don’t do activism must be spending their time honing their craft. Just because you’re doing one not doing one activity doesn’t mean you’re doing one other. The set of activities that exist is not (activism, honing craft) - it is a much bigger set of possibilities.
The correlation is around 0.3-0.5.
That's evidence that it's used actively as a tool to gain either social status or something else.
Some people have made these things part of their core identity.
On the flip side, why should you? Companies and cultures are made of people and they change as people change. Why should you just quit before trying to institute change?
When I hire people, I generally look for people who don’t accept the status quo as inherently right and try to solve problems.
There are limits to this aren’t there? I too am a fan of contrarianism, but at some point — depending entirely on the context and the role of the employee — self-indulgent contrarianism becomes counterproductive.
It's not a question of how difficult it is. Their goal is literally the opposite. Everything is a platform for political discussion, identity, etc. Work, culture, art, etc.
It's totally possible to have a workplace you describe, but when people view everything as a platform for activism they don't want that. They want the platform.
> Medium said that 52% of departures were white, and that one third of the company is non-white and non-Asian.
Where are people working where the vast majority of their waking hours, for decades, are spent at work? At least be honest, these articles about bringing politics to work are talking about people in comfy tech jobs working 8 hours a day, not wage slaves in coal mines and factories working 12 hour days.
It's... pretty lame, honestly. All these modern conveniences and we're working more than ever these days (in the US, at least).
Also not really sure where all these "comfy tech jobs" are; every tech job I've worked in the past 15+ years often has people working ~10 hour days. I'm not aware of many people in tech who work 9-5 and that's it.
I’m a pretty productive employee (when I want to be and feel incentivized) and am paid well enough to be in the 1%.
I still agree with what you said. Just want to say that these jobs exist. It’s up to the employee to fight for it though more than anything. Many employees in tech are a bit of pushovers though. (Or are afraid of losing their visa)
I think the notion that companies should only care about their bottom line is the thing that needs to end. Returning profits for shareholders isn't enough. Employees have started to think that who they work for should reflect their values. And why not?
Because employees don’t all have the same values.
How do you know? Do you think everyone is being honest with you when they appear to state their opinions, knowing that saying the wrong thing could get them canceled? Are you naive enough to believe all humans are truthful?
Someone may support active efforts to address inequality in the workplace (eg better interviewing procedures, bias training, inclusive language in products), but be against anything that's political, such as supporting black lives matter or taking a position on middle east conflicts at work.
It doesn't mean they disagree with the latter. They just want it out of work, they might even support it.
It's a kafka trap to name your organization with political goals some obviously positive name, and then declare anyone who does not support your organizations methods or particulars of its agenda as a hater of that positive name.
It's so transparent we're just in an age where being honest is rare, and people will convince themselves obviously untrue things - 'they don't have a platform' but they removed their 'what we believe page' including being against the nuclear family https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/blm-removes-website-language-b... .
It's a weird sort of denial of reality to just insist things don't exist, like an organization (which BLM is) with a formal agenda (which BLM has, even if they tried to obfuscate after being criticized for it's more radical and harmful ideas).
Then this is perfect, they can leave and find a job that does reflect their values. They should've quitted right when they realized their values weren't aligned but I guess they valued a severance package more. Still, win-win.