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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

My first thought whenever I hear how much effort and time is spent on all this drama, especially in large companies, is "how do these people have any time to do actual work?"

Part of me honestly considered getting a job at some Woke Megacorp because I figured I'd have at least a couple extra hours to myself everyday where other folks were involved in internal forum wars.

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While I do think there are bigger societal and systemic issues, I agree with you. My first thought is that they don't have enough work to do. I've worked with gay, trans, transitioning, liberal/conservative, whatever and it's never been an issue (or even anything we thought about). We were too busy trying to make enough money to keep from going out of business.

The shared challenge with people different from yourself is a great way to remove biases. Unfortunately, there are fewer avenues for that type of challenge today, and fewer still as people retreat into their homogenous bubbles.

One thing about these politics and Megacorp: they're mostly easy to avoid if you don't subscribe to the forums they're in.

Playing 4D chess ;)

If these people simply weren’t doing their jobs, then surely there would be no need for any pretense in firing them, right?

Haha, no.

They have a clear story for other wokists then: fired for just existing. If they spend all day saying the company is Xist, then when they get fired they'll make it look Xist, just like they said.

Pay me to be your official DEI officer, or else.

You’re saying that the “wokists” cannot be fired for being unproductive because that would yield too much bad PR about the company being “Xist,” but they can be fired because of a policy against being “wokist?” Never mind the absurd terminology there, even the basic reasoning is nonsensical.

I thought they left, to find a company to pay them for being wokists, not get fired?

It sounds like you don't believe that things like racism actually exist. The rest of your argument is bizarre and illogical.

It sounds like you're a nazi.

See how easy that was? Just make shit up like that? It's sure one of us being bizarre and illogical.

Whenever there's a high-profile activist worker firing, I'm suspicious of motives on both sides because the company really could be trying to suppress something, but someone spending this much time as an activist could be seriously underperforming in their job.

Something that pushed me to resign from a job at a 2nd tier technology company (gaming) was receiving in invitation (company-wide or locality-wide) from an HR person, via company communication channels, to an after-work-hours drag queen conference call event.

It just made me question the value of the HR department-- Here I am with a ton of pressure on me to build a product.

And the HR department is organizing a very non-work related politicized event, using company resources?

I was disgusted-- not about people attending an online, non-work related drag queen event-- Fine, people can do whatever they want in their off hours-- it's none of my business.

But I was disgusted simply that company resources were used to organize peoples' attendance to an event that promotes drag queens. It was the last straw, decided to quit soon after.

HR departments are often charged with helping overstressed workers release some of the stress and tension. That often means crappy pizza parties at the end of a quarter. Sometimes it means off-site parties with BBQ and beer. Sometimes it means renting out a movie theater. Sometimes it means giving funds to 'clubs' at the company to buy some craft alcohol, host a drag event, go play tennis, or anything else.

I don't understand what is political about a drag event. It's a form of performance a la theater, comedy, dance, etc. Can you explain what would bother you about drag queens being promoted? Perhaps drag performances disturb you for some personal reason but to another person a workplace craft whiskey club with a bit of funding from the company to buy a bottle once a month would be disturbing because of the life experience of having an alcoholic as a father or loved one. But I wouldn't expect every event a workplace to put on to appeal to every employee. If that is the goal that is how you end up with the pizza party and that's about it.

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