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Jeoh posted:minorities, in my tech company?! Asian minorities are just fine in IT You almost get reverse racism with Indians it seems like. Indian? Hire him he must be a tech genius!
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Aug 14, 2020 16:53
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Contingency posted:You guys need to work in some lovely environments or something. At my last job, my senior engineer burned out. Our junior engineers left and weren't replaced. The director put in his notice when it was just me, him, and an analyst. If you got a good number of outstanding applicants for open positions, it's a great policy. If there's not much difference in output between a low performer and a top performer, no big deal. When your team is permanently short staffed, you don't have the luxury of giving people a six month ramp up time. It perpetuates the cycle of needing experience to get experience, but that's on companies for cutting to the bone rather than pasty white guys only wanting to work with ubermensch. First a priori assuming a diverse candidate is a low performer is uh not great. Second lol that bad management is competent to hire high performers or that they’d stick around.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:00
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Case in point?
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Aug 14, 2020 17:01
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originalnickname posted:Case in point? Contingency posted:You guys need to work in some lovely environments or something. At my last job, my senior engineer burned out. Our junior engineers left and weren't replaced. The director put in his notice when it was just me, him, and an analyst. If you got a good number of outstanding applicants for open positions, it's a great policy. If there's not much difference in output between a low performer and a top performer, no big deal. When your team is permanently short staffed, you don't have the luxury of giving people a six month ramp up time. It perpetuates the cycle of needing experience to get experience, but that's on companies for cutting to the bone rather than pasty white guys only wanting to work with ubermensch. loving yikes guys.  I didn't think I would see a defense for anti-diversity being "but what about lovely environments?" unironically.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:06
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Methanar posted:https://www.amazon.ca/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414 It’s a good introduction, and if you actually read the book maybe you’d find the chapter on morality and racism not being black and white helpful. On it’s own, White Fragility is not the way to solve racism. It is, however, an excellent starting point. I don’t agree with everything said in it, and that’s fine! Something doesn’t need to be a 100% cure in order to be a helpful treatment, and denigrating anything that doesn’t perfectly solve racism is unhelpful when there is no cure that magically makes it all go away. I am sympathetic to people who are concerned that their opinions are being silenced. That’s why it’s so important to have these conversations face to face with people who you actually know personally - like your coworkers! It is so easy to assume ill faith in online discussions when all you see is a username. Having the courage to assume people are coming from somewhere genuine and exploring honestly and fully their concerns and beliefs is really tough, next to impossible to do on an Internet forum, and absolutely essential to making the world a better, more open and diverse place. So I beg of you, read the book! It’s not a panacea to racism, and Robin D’Angelo says as much herself. It is however a useful starting point, and if you go in with an open mind, maybe you can learn something from it.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:06
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Cat Army 
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Smh that “a PC nightmare” is “ some people saying hey, the "mitigation efforts" are often misguided, divisive, or outright stupid”
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Aug 14, 2020 17:07
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Sickening posted:loving yikes guys. Oh, OK. Also I'm not sure duder was advocating anti-diversity. But maybe I'm reading that differently.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:08
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I don't want to read anymore posts/reports about how this topic doesn't belong in the IT thread - this industry has a massive problem with racism, sexism, and diversity. It needs to be talked about. The PC Brigade Mustache OP deserved to get dunked on for that post, and I'm very happy to see some solid allyship in this thread. Most of you are great people.Methanar posted:Tbh I didn't appreciate when my company started pushing that "how not to be racist while white" book either Speaking of, gently caress this, dude. Stop being such a lovely person. You're better than this.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:11
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Mustache Ride posted:I've got a buddy that works for them. Basically it's a PC nightmare. Congratulations on being a bigot.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:11
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There is just no way the ceo said no more hiring on merit. Ops trash friend inserted that in his head But yeah if that book was white fragility that is a god awful book from the perspective of some white corporate stooge. It’s a corporate training seminar in book form
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Aug 14, 2020 17:11
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The Fool posted:Smh that “a PC nightmare” is “ some people saying hey, the "mitigation efforts" are often misguided, divisive, or outright stupid” See but actually saying that is actually very different than saying “a PC nightmare”. Because you can have a conversation about mitigation efforts being unhelpful, you can’t have a conversation with someone who just says “oh it’s all PC bullshit.” on its own, book clubs aren’t going to do much, and being critical of that is OK. It needs to be combined with clear, transparent, and consistent policy change. Education is a really important part of that though, and I think opening people’s eyes to the pervasive racism and bigotry in everyday society is going to pay dividends for years down the line.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:11
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originalnickname posted:Case in point? Case in point what? That he didn't want to engage with someone who is being disingenuous and lovely? "You guys were right on the cusp of solving racism" - Do you not think that having conversations in predominantly white, male, well-off spaces is part of the work of combating racism? No one is saying it was solved. Methanar posted:https://www.amazon.ca/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414 Would it be nice if they were sending around Angela Davis's work instead? Yes. But this is better than nothing and the fact that companies are even talking about it is an improvement. If your criticism is the content of the book and not just that a company was sending something around, it would be important to include what book and why you were "unappreciative" of it so you don't come off as being critical of the concept in general. And maybe use the opportunity to recommend better books to coworkers. Or use conversations about it, like this one, to recommend better books. --- If anyone wants to learn more or has the opinion that this stuff doesn't matter, I would suggest checking out the following as a start: Women, Race, & Class by Angela Davis, or really anything by her How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi CLAM DOWN posted:I don't want to read anymore posts/reports about how this topic doesn't belong in the IT thread - this industry has a massive problem with racism, sexism, and diversity. It needs to be talked about. The PC Brigade Mustache OP deserved to get dunked on for that post, and I'm very happy to see some solid allyship in this thread. Most of you are great people. Thank you for being a good mod. I spoke up because I had a feeling that you would be more supportive of it than SA has been in the past.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:12
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The thing with people calling for “diversity in tech” is they are going the wrong way it it. “We should have more Babylonians in tech” Cool. But it’s not like we have all these Babylonians just hanging around with the qualifications that aren’t getting in. It isn’t like they are being actively blocked there just isn’t a huge pool to draw from. I’ve rarely had any applications from non-whites when I’ve been involved with hiring.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:14
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PCjr sidecar posted:First a priori assuming a diverse candidate is a low performer is uh not great. The scenario quoted was "Minorities are going to have less experience than average," and advocating the hiring of people with less experience. That's not tarring minorities as low performers--it's a straight "hire" vs "train up" proposition. If companies really find it worth pursuing, shouldn't they hire more than sufficient staff instead of having coworkers shoulder the burden? If you want hiring managers to take a chance, give them enough slack to be able to. Management there hired high performers and bad performers. Both good and bad stick around, turns out that managers can't always pick them, and same goes for applicants. We don't have a system with perfect information.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:15
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Methanar posted:https://www.amazon.ca/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414 This is such a terrible joke of a book
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Aug 14, 2020 17:17
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Bob Morales posted:The thing with people calling for “diversity in tech” is they are going the wrong way it it. Part of understanding a problem is first acknowledging it. What you are talking about is acknowledgement, not problem solving. They aren't "going about it the wrong way" by simply stating a goal.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:18
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Bob Morales posted:The thing with people calling for “diversity in tech” is they are going the wrong way it it. I have no clue where you are going with "Babylonians" and I hope this is in good faith. I am hoping I am missing out on some kind common lingo. Your question though is valid. Why aren't you seeing non-white applicants? Are you the person that gets the applications directly or is there another part screening them before they get to you? What level of position are you hiring for? The issue is that at the mid to sr level, there are less minority applicants because far fewer of them got their shot at the entry level. Bias at the entry level leads to fewer people in the industry. There is also this huge issue with minorities and the communities/education handicap they often have to endure before they even get to the entry level positions. Its a stacked deck. Contingency posted:The scenario quoted was "Minorities are going to have less experience than average," and advocating the hiring of people with less experience. That's not tarring minorities as low performers--it's a straight "hire" vs "train up" proposition. If companies really find it worth pursuing, shouldn't they hire more than sufficient staff instead of having coworkers shoulder the burden? If you want hiring managers to take a chance, give them enough slack to be able to. You are completely missing some big points that hopefully someone else is going to have the patience to explain because GOD drat.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:22
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I guess this might be a general management question rather than strictly IT, but maybe some of you higher up dudes might know the answer: How do you hire an SME if you yourself are not an SME for a subject? For example, say company X needed someone whose a real wiz with managing GIT projects, he'll do squashes, committs, keep the code clean, help users learn git, etc, basically if there's a problem or a weird use case this is the dude you're gonna go ask about GIT. Now lets say management is one dude and he knows how to manage people and he may know a tiny bit about GIT, but he is by no means better than an average user. How do you figure out whose bullshitting and who actually knows a bit more than average? Honestly this is just a backhanded way of bitching that my company continually hires SME's that come to me(general IT man) with problems in their domain that I solve with googling and staring at the problem for a couple hours.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:23
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Sickening posted:I have no clue where you are going with "Babylonians" and I hope this is in good faith. I am hoping I am missing out on some kind common lingo. This is a fantastic reply and I want to frame it. You’re entirely correct, you engaged with the subject, and you assumed good faith even when the post as written didn’t do much to engender it. I’ll just say there was a good six to eight months I sat I’ll tell you straight up that’s not an experience that men in tech typically go through, and it sure as hell will drive otherwise qualified people away from IT. You wonder why you’re not seeing more top tier female applicants? I wonder if it’s because so many of us end up being abused by our mentors. Making the world a better place can happen in a lot of different areas at once. Is it so bad to try and make an effort?
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Aug 14, 2020 17:30
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Internet Explorer posted:Part of understanding a problem is first acknowledging it. What you are talking about is acknowledgement, not problem solving. They aren't "going about it the wrong way" by simply stating a goal. By that measure, they aren't going about it at all. I think Contingency has it right as far as strategy goes. If I need to train up 3 people on my team to replace 1 person who would arguably not need training, I need both budget and direction to be able to do so, and there's no way my company is going to pay 3 people a living wage where one was sufficient previously, in an arguably senior role. I want to be the change I want to see, but I need budget to do so. What this means is that my leadership needs to maybe skip on their fat bonuses for a while and invest in the employees instead of just reaping the benefits. Give back to the industry. I guess what I'm saying here, is that yes, tech absolutely needs more diversity, but just saying "we need more diversity" doesn't help, there needs to be buy-in and actual effort and money put towards the problem. Unfortunately, most of the companies I work for are already lean-ing themselves to death by "doing more with less". A lot of the change needs to come from upper management by loosening the purse strings a little and setting KPIs that allow for learning and training people who can't instantly be TenX employees.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:31
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Sickening posted:I have no clue where you are going with "Babylonians" and I hope this is in good faith. I am hoping I am missing out on some kind common lingo. Aren’t they called Bablyonians in dilbert? It’s just a generic term for not white people I don’t know why we don’t get non-white applicants. I live a city that’s 40% white? You’d think we’d get some younger minority kids for helpdesk. Maybe they don’t have as many students taking the classes in high school or at career center? Maybe they only apply at other bigger companies? Maybe they get picked up by other companies when they visit their colleges looking for interns? I’ve actually had a few non white people apply for other positions but they are almost always older. Like 45-55. We usually don’t have a use for them (no matter what color they are) because they don’t have experience in anything relative, or they worked for a big company for 25 years and got laid off and want huge salaries. Bob Morales fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 17:34
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Internet Explorer posted:Part of understanding a problem is first acknowledging it. What you are talking about is acknowledgement, not problem solving. They aren't "going about it the wrong way" by simply stating a goal. I am completely on the side of teaching more disadvantaged (white fragility implies non-white) kids tech. Teach these kids something so they can have a job. Just don’t blame tech. I try to tell my younger cousins if they can just learn php I can get them a job. They don’t want to do it. Sit on your loving rear end then or work at Walmart forever. I don’t get it but I liked programming so I can’t really compare myself to them.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:37
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Bob Morales posted:I e actually had a few non white people apply for hire positions but they are almost always older. Like 45-55. We usually don’t have a use for them because they don’t have experience in anything relative, or they worked for a big company for 25 years and got laid off and want huge salaries. Case in point. The helpdesk, the most entry level an IT job can get and people are still being judged for being "too old" and not having "relevant experience". Its already an uphill battle if you aren't a minority. Imagine being one. Bob Morales posted:Just don’t blame tech. Our industry is part of the problem. it definitely deserves some blame. Sickening fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Aug 14, 2020 |
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Aug 14, 2020 17:41
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Sickening posted:Case in point. The helpdesk, the most entry level an IT job can get and people are still being judged for being "too old" and not having "relevant experience". Its already an uphill battle if you aren't a minority. They aren’t applying for helpdesk. I never said they’re too old. You didn’t understand what I’m saying so you’re putting words in my mouth. Why would we hire someone who doesn’t have any experience with what we are using?
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Aug 14, 2020 17:43
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Sickening posted:Case in point. The helpdesk, the most entry level an IT job can get and people are still being judged for being "too old" and not having "relevant experience". Its already an uphill battle if you aren't a minority. Imagine being one. I think the judgement was more on the "want huge salaries" thing..
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Aug 14, 2020 17:43
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Sickening posted:You are completely missing some big points that hopefully someone else is going to have the patience to explain because GOD drat. I'm not sure you're getting it either. The mantra of the day is "better to pass on 19 qualified applicants than to hire one bad one." I was a vet that became a non-traditional student. I didn't fit the fresh-faced grad mold and had many companies pass on me, one recruiter telling me to my face why they weren't interested. That doesn't make me an honorary black dude by any means, but I've been on the outside looking in, and it loving sucks. If you want more disadvantaged people to succeed, you need a lot more than "let's hire us some minorities" which is a shallow C-level initiative. You need to address the core reasons why companies can't afford to allow people to catch up experience wise or learn to write professional emails (most enlisted personnel). Short of that is window dressing and a revolving door of candidates.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:45
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originalnickname posted:I think the judgement was more on the "want huge salaries" thing.. It’s a combination of having 25 years of experience plus coming from downstate
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Aug 14, 2020 17:45
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Bob Morales posted:They aren’t applying for helpdesk. Last time I put out a posting for a lower-level desktop support role, I had 50% of the resumes contain zero relevant experience whatsoever. Janitors, mechanics, truck drivers, retail workers. Didn't even have relevant training. It was 100% bizarre and not typical for postings in previous years. I'm probably a bigot or something for not hiring them, I guess?
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Aug 14, 2020 17:45
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Bob Morales posted:Aren’t they called Bablyonians in dilbert? It’s just a generic term for not white people To anyone in this thread, please do not ever quote/refer to Scott Adams/Dilbert. He's a fragile racist lovely dumbass: https://www.themarysue.com/scott-adams-white-male-fragility/
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Aug 14, 2020 17:46
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originalnickname posted:By that measure, they aren't going about it at all. I think Contingency has it right as far as strategy goes. Again, acknowledging a problem and raising awareness of a problem is not a solution. It is what you need to do to move towards a solution. If no one is aware or agrees on a problem, no solution is ever going to be found. We see this problem with management in our industry all of the time. Part of managing management is making them aware of a problem and educating them that a problem exists so that a solution can be implemented. The solution to this problem is incredibly complex. And a big part of it is caused by what you are describing - resources. To me, this is where I would normally go into a spiel about how capitalism and racism are intertwined. I'm not going to do that. I am going to acknowledge that companies are not the best equipped for solving this problem. With that being said, here is where it is important as a manager to have the same difficult conversations with your management as you would when they ask you to do anything without the resources. Thank them for bringing the problem up and acknowledging it and ask them for help solving it. Happy to talk about what that looks like, but this is getting long winded already. And once you're done talking to management and figuring out how to solve the problem within your work? Take a look at the privilege that being a white dude in tech affords you. I'm not saying it's not hard and we don't have our problems and that you didn't work hard to get to where you are. But there's still a ton of privilege. And think about what you can do to help bring others up to your level in your personal life. Mentorships, networking help for others, worthwhile volunteer work around the topic. Lastly, look - all of that was said without challenging the assumption that minority groups are somehow actually less qualified. And while that may be true on an aggregate level due to systematic racism and patriarchy, there are still many qualified candidates that are members of minority groups and it's important to make sure we are not overlooking them due to implicit bias. There are lots of studies out there that show significant implicit bias when hiring and we are not immune to it.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:46
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Contingency posted:I'm not sure you're getting it either. The mantra of the day is "better to pass on 19 qualified applicants than to hire one bad one." I was a vet that became a non-traditional student. I didn't fit the fresh-faced grad mold and had many companies pass on me, one recruiter telling me to my face why they weren't interested. That doesn't make me an honorary black dude by any means, but I've been on the outside looking in, and it loving sucks. If you want more disadvantaged people to succeed, you need a lot more than "let's hire us some minorities" which is a shallow C-level initiative. You need to address the core reasons why companies can't afford to allow people to catch up experience wise or learn to write professional emails (most enlisted personnel). Short of that is window dressing and a revolving door of candidates. 100% what I was trying to say, except you did it much more eloquently.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:48
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Internet Explorer posted:Take a look at the privilege that being a white dude in tech affords you. I'm not saying it's not hard and we don't have our problems and that you didn't work hard to get to where you are. But there's still a ton of privilege. And think about what you can do to help bring others up to your level in your personal life. Mentorships, networking help for others, worthwhile volunteer work around the topic. I wish I could make this the thread title. Thank you for this.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:48
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There are so many goddamned good trans devops/programmers/ops people it's insane (in a good way). Ian Coldwater is especially awesome on twitter. I think it's actually awesome and cool and good to be more aware/accommodating to them and Hashicorp sounds like it's a good place to work. But I'm not reading bougie liberal bullshit like White Fragility which is just empty platitudes 
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Aug 14, 2020 17:49
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AlternateAccount posted:Last time I put out a posting for a lower-level desktop support role, I had 50% of the resumes contain zero relevant experience whatsoever. Janitors, mechanics, truck drivers, retail workers. Didn't even have relevant training. It was 100% bizarre and not typical for postings in previous years. I think they just apply because they can, or have to We had a government somebody or another try to get us to hire some vets. They gave us all these people with experience in food service and other crap like you said...nobody that was useful to us Sure we can train someone but we don’t have the time or resources. Maybe if someone showed interest in tech which nobody expressed in a cover letter. HR was pissed because they can get a ton in WOTC credits and stuff
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Aug 14, 2020 17:50
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My stint at big law had minorities disproportionately c2h and at the bottom tier jobs. They were also more degraded with mistakes being attributed to stupidity rather then experience or familiarity with heavily customized software. My manager pushed out all but one woman in his team of 20+ after a reorg and passed up the last for promotion to the least qualified asssucker. The misogyny he had for his peers and non reports sure was something too. In the trenches working with them was a hell of a lot better then the majority personel. Big surprise that there were multiple gender discrimination suits brought against them in my last year there. Unfortunately out of the pan into the fire with my new gig and a libertarian boss who believes white men are the most persecuted class. He degrades a lbgtq client employee to her face too!
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Aug 14, 2020 17:50
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CLAM DOWN posted:To anyone in this thread, please do not ever quote/refer to Scott Adams/Dilbert. He's a fragile racist lovely dumbass: https://www.themarysue.com/scott-adams-white-male-fragility/  I can still relate to his tech oriented comic strips... Also it was ELBONIANS but I won’t refer to elbonians because hitler
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Aug 14, 2020 17:52
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Sickening posted:You are completely missing some big points that hopefully someone else is going to have the patience to explain because GOD drat. You immediately went in on this conversation full throttle aggressive. You've obviously got some strong opinions but its not persuasive to immediately go on a crusade. Immediately villifying somebody doesn't actually change their mind, it just galvanizes them they're talking to somebody unreasonable. I stated that I thought pushing a book with an obvious clickbait and controversial title was unappropriate. I don't intend on apologizing for disapproving of unprofessional communications from executive leadership. There isn't really an amount of stupid-calling that's going to change my mind on that.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:52
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Contingency posted:I'm not sure you're getting it either. The mantra of the day is "better to pass on 19 qualified applicants than to hire one bad one." I was a vet that became a non-traditional student. I didn't fit the fresh-faced grad mold and had many companies pass on me, one recruiter telling me to my face why they weren't interested. That doesn't make me an honorary black dude by any means, but I've been on the outside looking in, and it loving sucks. If you want more disadvantaged people to succeed, you need a lot more than "let's hire us some minorities" which is a shallow C-level initiative. You need to address the core reasons why companies can't afford to allow people to catch up experience wise or learn to write professional emails (most enlisted personnel). Short of that is window dressing and a revolving door of candidates. It's difficult. "Training someone up" is the biggest gamble you can make, because it can absolutely bear amazing fruit, but often goes completely off the rails. More often than it succeeds in my anecdotal experience. It's hard to get a really positive success rate even when you're working with people internally. FWIW(in this thread, probably nothing), we do try to recognize passion for the related work skills that's pursued on a personal level and similar indicators beyond "relevant experience." I will often ask questions about what they pursue and learn on their own beyond job responsibilities. Ask what their home lab is like, or ask what they would build for a home lab and why and what they would learn, etc. There are flags and indicators that can give you SOME idea of the person's potential and how they'll take to the "training up" process, but you are always taking a tremendous risk vs. someone right off the shelf who can do the work immediately.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:53
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I'm disheartened by how many people can't separate an artist from their work either. Okay you don't like what Scott Adams said last year. Artist output from 20 years prior is still good on its own merit.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:54
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Methanar posted:There isn't really an amount of stupid-calling that's going to change my mind on that. Better be sure, because the supply is unlimited and there's a long line of people who clearly are hot to mash on the gas as hard as they can.
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Aug 14, 2020 17:56
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