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Comment by devsda | Hacker News Reader

At almost every company I've worked over the years, I had to go through countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable, risky and can be grounds for termination in extreme cases.

Either these people genuinely believed there was scope for discussion, or believed their opinion/choice of topic is a PR minefield that their employer wouldn't dare take action or they really wanted to get fired.

I'm not from the US. So, unless I'm missing some cultural context, their actions like political activism at work (unless related to labor issues and laws) are unthinkable atleast in my country.

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This was most certainly work related. It was about a Google contract which is 100% related to Google and workers at Google.

But a company isn’t a democracy. They don’t have a right to protest it.

If they as employees refuse to work (what they’re paid to do), then the employer has every right to fire them. They aren’t forming a union or something.

This is not universally so, but as far as I can see in the US it is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination

I don’t follow.

You’re saying that there are countries where there could be an employee that does all this stuff (refusing to din their day to day job) and potentially politicizes the public image of the company and the company couldn’t fire them?

Not talking about fairness or morality. Just legality.

These aren’t whistleblowers either.

It's a stretch to call it work related for the person protesting. If it were, the simple act of not working would be sufficient protest against the opposed work.

Those trainings are mandatory but usually done via an edutech platform that is basically just a QuickTime movie. Ethics, compliance, corporate policy, it’s just a 30 minute video you play while you do something else and then click the obvious multiple choice answers for 100%. Then forget everything in a week.

Lately it’s been those 2D animations using canned software and AI voice over because that’s cheaper than actually giving a damn. Animaker I believe.

What country and what company made you undergo these "countless" training sessions? I suspect you are making stuff up.

it was front and center in every US non-FAANG employee handbook and sexual harassment training I went to.

No thanks. I'm not really keen on doxxing myself.

But hey, if you are an IT employee and haven't had to go through those annoying trainings I'd be surprised and a little jealous.

Well, if you aren't keen on doxxing yourself you shouldn't use arguments that require the reader to trust you. Internet is full of liars who claim to be everything from astronauts, to law professors, to IT employees who have gone through "countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable". I have not gone through "those annoying trainings" and since you can't offer a single shred of evidence for their existence...

> Internet is full of liars who claim to be everything from astronauts, to law professors,

And bitter people too I suppose.

I'm honestly shocked you're skeptical about this

Because I'm very used to well poisoners and their lies. As in this case, the liars can't offer any corroborating evidence and implicitly demands that you should disprove their lies. Which of course is impossible. Eventually, the lies become so entrenched because they aren't questioned that people like you become shocked when others disbelieve them.

I work for the US government. The trainings are real. I don’t remember this exact verbiage but similar for sure. The grounds of harassment basically constitute whatever the claimed victim feels to be so. For example, (and this is from training), saying goodmorning, commenting on hair, not saying good morning or not repeating back, and more. I just skip through but it’s an in depth asynchronous training supplemented by multiple live events.

Edit: and lest I be accused of harassment, good morning or -silence- to everyone according to your preference!

Ps Also our calendars are provided by the equal employment opportunity office and have helpful quotes each month on what is harassment and what is going to happen to you if you do it!

PPS in addition to multiple asynchronous trainings and live events and calendars it’s also plastered all over the buildings, bathrooms, and break rooms.

PPPS we also get emails regularly from top level secretaries and directors and I think there may be dedicated months as well to increase awareness.

Final: I sound bitter here but I agree harassment is bad but the level of psychological programming makes my stomach turn. Anyways yes it’s real.

Even if what you claim is correct (which I doubt and you aren't going to offer any evidence), it is irrelevant since you are working in the US and they are not. Moreover, their claim was about "expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics" while yours is about what constitutes harassment. And this is perhaps what they experienced too. They are told that when someone says "hi" they should reply with "hi", but on the Internet this is blown way out of proportions to be about how every job they ever been at tried to stifle political speech.

Extremely common in corporate America. I had to click through more of them than I can count, luckily the service my employer did it through would let you skip to the end of the videos and blow through it faster. I don't understand why routine CYA being done is so hard to believe.

United States. Every 6 months, mandatory courses exactly as GP described. If you refuse, you don't have a job. This is so absolutely normal for most tech and finance companies, and has been for years, that I'm utterly astonished that you believe the GP is making it up. Hell, even my fast food working niece has to do these courses!

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