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> You can call it the paradox of the old white guy: Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws t

> You can call it the paradox of the old white guy: Employees who have historically been entrenched in the majority are also entitled to protection under laws that were intended to assure equal treatment for women and racial minorities. These laws are still protecting the equal treatment, since the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't white/male/cis. (The classic counterargument here is that because of historical marginalization equal treatment is actually unequal and therefore we must pursue "equity".)

giraffe_lady 4y ago
striking 4y ago
> the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't white/male/cis It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  Where is this the case? I haven't witnessed it at any of my previous jobs, especially when I worked at a tech giant (Lyft). One of the higher ups in "DEI" at my local office said to me in an elevator, while it was just the two of us, "white guys are just the worst, aren't they?" Given the bizarre state of American racial politics, it was actually unclear if she was flexing on me, or if she genuinely expected me, a white male, to laugh and nod in agreement sincerely. Maybe I was simply being tested for ideological and cultural fealty. Pretty sure I failed.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    No doubt you were considered one of the good ones.
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      What a consolation that will be next time a job application is rejected due to "culture fit".
  - FredPret 4y ago
    I'd uninstall Lyft again right now if I could. Removed it years ago fortunately
  - striking 4y ago
    I'm sorry you had an experience like that, and I understand that it can be really tough to take concepts like these seriously when your personal experience clearly demonstrates the opposite effect. There's nothing I can say or do to counteract what you've experienced, but I will note that successful DEI work is often like successful SRE work: you generally only notice it if you're watching the statistics carefully or if things start going wrong. What might convince you this isn't totally baseless is if I give some suggestions for simple enough policies that an organization can implement without falling afoul of either the law or ethical considerations. Here are a few: * Ensure a diverse slate. If you start hiring as soon as you have just a couple of people in the pipeline, the likelihood that someone not in the majority is hired goes way down; correct that by ensuring at least N applicants in the pool are not in the majority before you kick things off. * Update your job descriptions. A lot of job descriptions have some really extreme and fairly specific demands of skills or experience gained but end up with hiring people who don't strictly meet every one. People not in the majority are pretty especially prone to impostor syndrome (for reasons whose explanation goes beyond the scope of this comment), so don't provide an unnecessarily high bar to entry if it isn't actually there. Include only skills that are actually necessary. * Take a closer look at your hiring pipeline. Is your pipeline fed from sources that are homogeneous themselves? If so, look for sources that aren't. If you offer a referral program, ensure that that isn't defeating your efforts and encourage those who refer others to share with more diverse groups if they can. * Ask everyone the same questions. Don't let someone bring their pet problem to an interview or crank up the difficulty unnecessarily. Standardize your questions and ensure interviewers are interviewing the same way by having folks shadow each other. There are lots of things you can do beyond hiring, but it's what I'm more familiar with. I can say as a quick aside that ensuring everyone gets the same opportunity to level up in their career and making sure they feel welcome goes a long way towards mitigating diversity attrition, but it's not something I'm as comfortable giving suggestions for. Hopefully this helps you feel like not everyone who advocates for DEI is out to get you or make your life worse for the sake of making others' lives better.
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      Hiring is zero sum. The reality is that DEI departments at many tech companies work diligently to make life harder for white and Asian men. It's even explicitly stated some places.
  - ryan_lane 4y ago
    Ah, yes, this is a totally real and true story. For those reading this: Lyft's local offices don't have DEI people. Lyft hardly has a DEI team, and they're centrally located.
    - chitowneats 4y ago
      Lyft Bikes & Scooters in NYC absolutely did have DEI staff. That office was partially the result of an acquisition, so you may not be aware of the unique circumstances if you or someone you know worked elsewhere in the org. The office was two floors, with hundreds of employees, in the middle of Manhattan. It would have been conspicuous (and quickly remedied) if there wasn't anyone representing DEI there. The story is true. If you want to accuse me of lying so be it. In that case it would be my word against your disinclination to believe me. That being said, you are totally incorrect about DEI staff at LBS NYC. I politely ask that you verify this (or admit you don't have the necessary context) and retract that part of your statement.
      - ryan_lane 4y ago
        I worked out of that office for three months as one of the landing team members (second landing team), and periodically over the course of the next two years or so. After numerous complaints of rampant racism and sexism in that office (especially related to hiring), they brought over some recruiters who were focused on DEI. A number of people were fired for sexual harassment. There was not a DEI team member in the office though. That team consists of 3 people, only in SF headquarters. Maybe you're mixing up recruiters and DEI team members?
        chitowneats 4y ago
        My tenure wasn't long enough to witness any of this. It didn't take long to determine it wasn't the right fit for me. Unless these recruiters were there early on, it couldn't have been them. You mentioned you were a frequent visitor to the office. Did anyone from the DEI team ever make the trip? I know I met this person at lunch at least twice but I suppose I never saw their desk. What happened at that office is awful. Clearly it needed to be cleaned up. Including any DEI staff acting unprofessionally.
- prepend 4y ago
  I think equal consideration should be given regardless of race and think DEI departments can be forces of good and improve organizations. However, my limited experience with them is I can’t figure out their data driven decisions. For example, my org is 25% African American and 70% female and DEI gave a presentation on underrepresentation in the workplace and how we need to shift hiring to increase African American and female new hires. When asked to square this goal with our current employment demographics they made some hand waving about “looking into the data” and when the questioner refined their question to say the data already is gathered and seems clear the DEI head didn’t answer and just moved on. Not sure what their goal is.
  - CincinnatiMan 4y ago
    Their goal may just be to keep their job as head of the DEI department. Seeking out a solution to a problem that doesn't exist keeps them employed. EDIT: this can also apply to various other functions within a company. Doesn’t have to be DEI.
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  > it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment In absolute terms, it should be equal. In relative terms, the treatment is ostensibly better than it would be without any DEI efforts.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- __blockcipher__ 4y ago
  > It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field. It's a lot more than just "not every case" though. Every place I've ever worked, we have explicitly hired inferior candidates due to their racial/gender/etc characteristics. I know this not just from intuition but also because of the many times that "adding diversity" has been given as a justification for extending an offer to person X who was clearly not qualified. I will agree that DEI initiatives are not all bad all the time. The ones that are based around improving communication, and not in the "fire this person because they used the wrong pronoun" sense but the "actually put down a set of principles for what effective communication looks like" sense, have been pretty positive IME. Also at my current company there was some drama several months back where blatant power plays by one of the execs (they fired someone who was beloved by the department presumably so that they could climb the ladder more) got reamed by the head of DEI (happily, for entirely non-racial/etc reasons). So it is nice when the ring is held by someone who's on your side ;)
  - striking 4y ago
    > Every place I've ever worked, we have explicitly hired inferior candidates due to their racial/gender/etc characteristics. In another comment downthread, I explicitly say " Don't hire bad candidates. " I'm well aware that there are lots of folks who do DEI wrong or justify bad decisions with it. Moreover, I get why this happens. Lots of people want or need the needle to move, and culturally speaking a company might not be ready yet to actually move that needle. It's growth hacking as applied to DEI, and it sucks. Rest assured that there are people working on fixing this, some in their roles at individual workplaces and others as an industry-wide effort. > I will agree that DEI initiatives are not all bad all the time. That's really what I'm going for here. I'm hoping we can all agree that we could do more to make hiring and promotion and such fair, and just in general that things could be improved in a way that benefits us all. Once we're all in agreement and understand the value prop, we can start holding each other accountable and making sure that we're being fair to everyone.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

striking 4y ago

> the whole "diversity and inclusion" thing is explicitly about giving unequal (more favorable) treatment to people who aren't white/male/cis It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field.

chitowneats 4y ago
Where is this the case? I haven't witnessed it at any of my previous jobs, especially when I worked at a tech giant (Lyft). One of the higher ups in "DEI" at my local office said to me in an elevator, while it was just the two of us, "white guys are just the worst, aren't they?" Given the bizarre state of American racial politics, it was actually unclear if she was flexing on me, or if she genuinely expected me, a white male, to laugh and nod in agreement sincerely. Maybe I was simply being tested for ideological and cultural fealty. Pretty sure I failed.
- bombcar 4y ago
  No doubt you were considered one of the good ones.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    What a consolation that will be next time a job application is rejected due to "culture fit".
- FredPret 4y ago
  I'd uninstall Lyft again right now if I could. Removed it years ago fortunately
- striking 4y ago
  I'm sorry you had an experience like that, and I understand that it can be really tough to take concepts like these seriously when your personal experience clearly demonstrates the opposite effect. There's nothing I can say or do to counteract what you've experienced, but I will note that successful DEI work is often like successful SRE work: you generally only notice it if you're watching the statistics carefully or if things start going wrong. What might convince you this isn't totally baseless is if I give some suggestions for simple enough policies that an organization can implement without falling afoul of either the law or ethical considerations. Here are a few: * Ensure a diverse slate. If you start hiring as soon as you have just a couple of people in the pipeline, the likelihood that someone not in the majority is hired goes way down; correct that by ensuring at least N applicants in the pool are not in the majority before you kick things off. * Update your job descriptions. A lot of job descriptions have some really extreme and fairly specific demands of skills or experience gained but end up with hiring people who don't strictly meet every one. People not in the majority are pretty especially prone to impostor syndrome (for reasons whose explanation goes beyond the scope of this comment), so don't provide an unnecessarily high bar to entry if it isn't actually there. Include only skills that are actually necessary. * Take a closer look at your hiring pipeline. Is your pipeline fed from sources that are homogeneous themselves? If so, look for sources that aren't. If you offer a referral program, ensure that that isn't defeating your efforts and encourage those who refer others to share with more diverse groups if they can. * Ask everyone the same questions. Don't let someone bring their pet problem to an interview or crank up the difficulty unnecessarily. Standardize your questions and ensure interviewers are interviewing the same way by having folks shadow each other. There are lots of things you can do beyond hiring, but it's what I'm more familiar with. I can say as a quick aside that ensuring everyone gets the same opportunity to level up in their career and making sure they feel welcome goes a long way towards mitigating diversity attrition, but it's not something I'm as comfortable giving suggestions for. Hopefully this helps you feel like not everyone who advocates for DEI is out to get you or make your life worse for the sake of making others' lives better.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    Hiring is zero sum. The reality is that DEI departments at many tech companies work diligently to make life harder for white and Asian men. It's even explicitly stated some places.
- ryan_lane 4y ago
  Ah, yes, this is a totally real and true story. For those reading this: Lyft's local offices don't have DEI people. Lyft hardly has a DEI team, and they're centrally located.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    Lyft Bikes & Scooters in NYC absolutely did have DEI staff. That office was partially the result of an acquisition, so you may not be aware of the unique circumstances if you or someone you know worked elsewhere in the org. The office was two floors, with hundreds of employees, in the middle of Manhattan. It would have been conspicuous (and quickly remedied) if there wasn't anyone representing DEI there. The story is true. If you want to accuse me of lying so be it. In that case it would be my word against your disinclination to believe me. That being said, you are totally incorrect about DEI staff at LBS NYC. I politely ask that you verify this (or admit you don't have the necessary context) and retract that part of your statement.
    - ryan_lane 4y ago
      I worked out of that office for three months as one of the landing team members (second landing team), and periodically over the course of the next two years or so. After numerous complaints of rampant racism and sexism in that office (especially related to hiring), they brought over some recruiters who were focused on DEI. A number of people were fired for sexual harassment. There was not a DEI team member in the office though. That team consists of 3 people, only in SF headquarters. Maybe you're mixing up recruiters and DEI team members?
      - chitowneats 4y ago
        My tenure wasn't long enough to witness any of this. It didn't take long to determine it wasn't the right fit for me. Unless these recruiters were there early on, it couldn't have been them. You mentioned you were a frequent visitor to the office. Did anyone from the DEI team ever make the trip? I know I met this person at lunch at least twice but I suppose I never saw their desk. What happened at that office is awful. Clearly it needed to be cleaned up. Including any DEI staff acting unprofessionally.
prepend 4y ago
I think equal consideration should be given regardless of race and think DEI departments can be forces of good and improve organizations. However, my limited experience with them is I can’t figure out their data driven decisions. For example, my org is 25% African American and 70% female and DEI gave a presentation on underrepresentation in the workplace and how we need to shift hiring to increase African American and female new hires. When asked to square this goal with our current employment demographics they made some hand waving about “looking into the data” and when the questioner refined their question to say the data already is gathered and seems clear the DEI head didn’t answer and just moved on. Not sure what their goal is.
- CincinnatiMan 4y ago
  Their goal may just be to keep their job as head of the DEI department. Seeking out a solution to a problem that doesn't exist keeps them employed. EDIT: this can also apply to various other functions within a company. Doesn’t have to be DEI.
hunter2_ 4y ago
> it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment In absolute terms, it should be equal. In relative terms, the treatment is ostensibly better than it would be without any DEI efforts.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
__blockcipher__ 4y ago
> It's too bad you see it that way when in a lot of cases it's explicitly about giving equal consideration to everyone rather than giving anyone more favorable treatment. Not every case, obviously, but that shouldn't invalidate attempting to level the playing field. It's a lot more than just "not every case" though. Every place I've ever worked, we have explicitly hired inferior candidates due to their racial/gender/etc characteristics. I know this not just from intuition but also because of the many times that "adding diversity" has been given as a justification for extending an offer to person X who was clearly not qualified. I will agree that DEI initiatives are not all bad all the time. The ones that are based around improving communication, and not in the "fire this person because they used the wrong pronoun" sense but the "actually put down a set of principles for what effective communication looks like" sense, have been pretty positive IME. Also at my current company there was some drama several months back where blatant power plays by one of the execs (they fired someone who was beloved by the department presumably so that they could climb the ladder more) got reamed by the head of DEI (happily, for entirely non-racial/etc reasons). So it is nice when the ring is held by someone who's on your side ;)
- striking 4y ago
  > Every place I've ever worked, we have explicitly hired inferior candidates due to their racial/gender/etc characteristics. In another comment downthread, I explicitly say " Don't hire bad candidates. " I'm well aware that there are lots of folks who do DEI wrong or justify bad decisions with it. Moreover, I get why this happens. Lots of people want or need the needle to move, and culturally speaking a company might not be ready yet to actually move that needle. It's growth hacking as applied to DEI, and it sucks. Rest assured that there are people working on fixing this, some in their roles at individual workplaces and others as an industry-wide effort. > I will agree that DEI initiatives are not all bad all the time. That's really what I'm going for here. I'm hoping we can all agree that we could do more to make hiring and promotion and such fair, and just in general that things could be improved in a way that benefits us all. Once we're all in agreement and understand the value prop, we can start holding each other accountable and making sure that we're being fair to everyone.