> ...a Dalit rights activist was not allowed to give a presentation on caste following emails by employees calling her "anti-Hindu."
I must be the last person still alive that keeps their opinions to themselves while on the job.
I must be the last person still alive that keeps their opinions to themselves while on the job.
I previously worked at Unity Technologies (3d game engine company) and as well as a CRM Consultancy, and I was amazed by how much time people spent arguing their political agenda. It was a major contributing factor of why I left both places. I had this feeling of "Why are these people chatting about things irrelevant to our work, while I am working? They should be working too-- they're paid to work, not chat & check their slack feed for 30-60 minutes a day about politics"
Honestly, this seems boring as hell.
I've often discussed politics, religion, and all sorts of things with coworkers, and we've often disagreed. And then we went about our day working together, or having a beer after work. No problems. It's just part of normal regular socializing, and I'd argue that socializing with co-workers is somewhat important for a healthy workplace.
Excessively pushing politics is a different thing of course, but "absolutely no politics allowed" has just a kind of boring superficiality to it. And also leaves us with the rather tricky question on what "politics" is, exactly.
I love the lack of politics at work. It really makes it more pleasant-- almost an escape from an otherwise over-politically involved society. I can't turn on the news or open the browser (sometimes even IRC) without politics seeping in.
It allows me to stay focused on work, not on what people think about/how I might be judged on my non-work related opinions. Nor that there could be favoritism based on such things.
It levels the playing field.
There are numerous articles discussing any non-liberal voices resulting in people being let-go/fired at various California-based technology companies.
Also non-Indian managers are very unlikely to be interested in discriminating against specific subgroups of Indians even if they're huge bigots or something, so this is a pretty specifically inter-Indian issue.
https://www.wired.com/story/trapped-in-silicon-valleys-hidde...
to me it seems that people got carried away by political debacle so much they forgot what they should actually be doing on their job
moreover i doubt Basecamp had a caste problem to begin with
Economic activity is an outcome that happens in the presence of a stable civic situation. Economic activity does not spontaneously create polite and cooperative groups of people.
If anything, civic/political matters take primacy over economics any day. Once your political landscape degenerates, your economic underpinning is generally quick to follow in the ensuing chaos.
How have people not realized this yet?
why talk shit about politics when we can spend time together making money!
we already contribute a significant portion of our income to taxes
maybe we should have political debates with the very people we sponsor and not our coworkers?
This policy only came into play after leadership was called out.
the management said no funny names no more
and this has made some of the employees very upset
they just couldn’t accept they won’t be able to call their customers funny names no more while being hired to do a job
The luxury of ignoring politics is usually reserved for those who are not threatened by the dominant politics. And that luxury is one that most people in tech management have, so it can produce unintentional harm.
The Civil Rights Act and its consequences have meant that America will forever be politicized along every fault line of human identity. Whether it can withstand this burden and remain a functional civilization remains to be seen.