has there been any factory floor, farm, private or government office where things have been different? Except may be for a situation like a tenured professor at Stanford. Or a 4 star general who after having been a cog for like 30 years finally gets to be the one burning and replacing the cogs at his will/choice.
If anything, i think tech is among the most progressive places, if only for the fact that one can easily switch jobs instead of suffering for years for example under harassing boss like it was before and still is in the other industries where job market is worse. With employees having such freedom, the tech companies and management are forced to treat the employees better than at the other industries. I wonder how many of the people complaining about toxic tech culture did actually work at non-tech places.
Yes. It's the 1930's anymore. Especially in the last 20 years even grubby industries have come around to treating their labor with dignity. At least in part because of legal liability.
As in: what every corporation is, by law, required to do. If it doesn't, lawsuits follow.
Also, stories on tech (maybe because of the above?) are trendier. No one cares if a factory or finance firm have toxic cultures (because we all expect them to?).
No, a very few Silicon Valley businesses pose themselves as new and its leaders talk about "making the world/people better". These aren't representative of the whole worldwide IT sector, which is no more "feminist" than the coal industry.
> Also, stories on tech (maybe because of the above?) are trendier. No one cares if a factory or finance firm have toxic cultures (because we all expect them to?).
Many of the people here are too young to remember how Wall street used to be seen as a "left wing" sector in the 90's the same way "big tech" is now. Ironically shun by leftist activists today as the "personification of the devil".
Wall St finance used to be called the "new money" sector as opposition to the "old money" which was the core of the republican elite. And the same way, some financial companies and CEO claimed to be something new and make the world better. So the irony of your statement...
First thing I thought also. The problem is we have a society where people are dependent on their jobs to keep from being homeless and to maintain their lives. If people had an option to walkaway, the amount of toxic workplaces in any occupation would drop drastically. Any place where people are forced to submit just to keep their lifestyle is an opportunity for someone above them to take advantage.
If anything, then the concern would be "out of the frying pan and into the fire", i.e., leaving tech because of real problems in the industry, but then finding it just as bad or worse in other fields.
Does anyone know of anecdotes where someone says "I left tech because of discrimination, but it was way worse in this other industry, so I returned?"
And yes - I agree that parts of the tech industry are quite progressive. It sounds like (not just from this article) that other parts are quite not.
Office Space ?
Hard to believe that movie is almost two decades old now.
I live in a 2nd tier city (not NY, SF, LA, etc) and these depictions of the "tech industry" are unfamiliar to me. Sure, there's the odd asshole, but those are everywhere. I feel like people around SV and other high competition big cities are generalizing about the industry in a way that doesn't reflect my day to day life.
And yeah, it’s hard to believe it’s been that long. And it’s an awesome movie
Funky anecdote coming up.
We went to see Office Space when it was in the cinemas, after having heard a number of good things about it. There were 8 of us. 7, myself included, kept bursting into laughter throughout the film. The last one didn't really register.
When we walked out, the silent one quipped: "I don't get how that was supposed to be funny. I see that same stuff at work every day."