5 ms·

Maybe not your whole self, but I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or sub

by ksenzee 2mo ago

Maybe not your whole self, but I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing, whatever makes them human.

vkou 2mo ago
Their humanity does not serve the bottom line.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
joe_the_user 2mo ago
Employers who expect to know things about employee's personal lives are despicable. I expect to accomplish my tasks. I can be friendly, polite and humorous but you don't need to know anything about how I live. The main factor is a boss or supervisor can act on their judgement of an employee and employees do not have the same leverage.
- Plont 2mo ago
  [dead]
- Archer6621 2mo ago
  That is right. The hierarchical nature of this setting makes it impossible to be fully open, unless you truly are the most uninteresting person on the planet. If not, open and indiscriminate sharing is going to be a potential liability. Some things in life are very useful to know, and I believe being deliberate about what you share about yourself with whom is one of them.
- everfrustrated 2mo ago
  If you ask your employer to treat you like a robot - don't be surprised when you get replaced by a robot.
harvey9 2mo ago
As long as it's a subculture that is tacitly approved by the group and by management.
- ruszki 2mo ago
  For example? Because usually, people who say this have something in their mind about which they should rightfully be ashamed. Like people who want other people to have lesser rights.
  - GoodDreams 2mo ago
    Ethical non-monogamy is one example.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
  - 9x39 2mo ago
    Anything class, caste, race, gender, etc. clustered can draw fire if they aggravate group harmony and conformity enough to someone. For example, I currently deal with the knife and gun collector crowd, hunting fans, weed guys, even genz sneaker aficionados bring the ire of various classes or camps that are more dominant at workplaces.
    - ruszki 2mo ago
      What is the reason for that anger?
vintermann 2mo ago
Then I hope you have an extremely flat company structure, not just formally but in practice. Don't try to fast-talk people into opening up. They have a better idea than you what's safe to talk about, about their lives. If they think they can't open up, they're probably right.
- ksenzee 2mo ago
  I don't own a company, and nobody reports to me. I simply said I want my coworkers to feel safe being themselves. I've had jobs where that was true, and they were better places to work all around, probably because "I feel safe talking about my transition/mental health/divorce" also translates to "I feel safe telling my boss this release needs to be delayed" and "I feel safe admitting I need some help writing this code."
happymellon 2mo ago
I really don't want to hear about your religion, and I don't want to see your Jesus Loves You gifs posted to the all tech Slack channel.
- roryirvine 2mo ago
  Sure, but that sort of behaviour is plainly abusive unless you're actually working in an explicitly religious setting. But merely saying "I'm taking next Wednesday off to celebrate Eid" ought to be fine everywhere, as is "this weekend I'm singing in my church choir then going for a picnic". Similarly, wearing a wedding ring or mentioning that you have a partner should never be a problem, but issuing a company-wide invite to your next sex party likely will be. "Personal" isn't a synonym for "intimate". It's reasonable to assume that people are able to share the former without forcing their colleagues to deal unnecessarily with the latter.
  - chucksta 2mo ago
    Both Merriam-webster and thesaurus.com have intimate as a synonym for persaonl. Thesaurus.com says its one of the strongest.
  - happymellon 2mo ago
    I get that. One persons level of comfort is not the same as others, so just saying I want people to be comfortable having their religious opinions respected is not a simple request. Some religious opinions are basically oppression of others. I refuse to allow people to be bigots in my presence regardless of their reasoning.
    - ksenzee 2mo ago
      Having previously been a member of such a religion, and having left it specifically over human rights issues, I am delighted to inform you that there are many individuals who identify as members of such religions but who are not personally bigoted, and who in fact may privately be uncomfortable about that aspect of their religious belief. If you already know someone, and you have reason to believe they're not bigoted, but then they out themselves as a member of some such group, you don't have to assume the worst.
finnthehuman 2mo ago
>I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture Yes, you want to feel like the people around you feel safe to share it. Everyone with things that are uncomfortable to hear have learned that they're not. They know the polite fiction to talk around it and make you feel like they're open. They're not.
- ksenzee 2mo ago
  Of course people know how to hide things that aren't safe to tell everyone. I do, however, genuinely mean what I'm saying. I worked somewhere once where the nature of the work meant almost everyone was of a particular political persuasion. I was of the opposite political persuasion. I was also one of the most junior employees there. It was a good enough bunch of people that I felt safe mentioning it in passing one day, and it led to a really great conversation. I was not afraid of being fired for it, but more importantly, I was not afraid of being ostracized for it.
  - finnthehuman 2mo ago
    Oh. I see the disconnect between us. To me, either the culture bubble is extremely strong in your area, or being able to admit alignment with ideas shared by a major political party in an area where another party is more popular is an very low bar. On the scale of topics that I conceal about myself, politics is as easy as talking about the weather.
    - ksenzee 2mo ago
      This was Washington, D.C. during the Bush years. I could more easily have admitted to an ongoing affair or a cocaine habit.
icepush 2mo ago
Why are there people that want this in the office? Don't want this.
- rkangel 2mo ago
  I'm not saying that people should talk about this all the time, but are you saying you don't want people to feel able to mention key details of their personal life?
  - Mountain_Skies 2mo ago
    I want to be free from being burdened with your unmet social needs and I want to feel safe when rejecting that burden you wish to push onto me. Make some friends or pay for a therapist, your coworkers aren't there to be your social support.
  - icepush 2mo ago
    It's fine if people feel like discussing certain details of their personal lives. What the gp specifically urged people to discuss (In particular - disability and religion) are topics that have been considered not good ideas for the office for a very long time. Apparently some people want to change that - as I said, don't want this.
- arw0n 2mo ago
  I'm spending almost a third of my life at work, no shade to the people having to work to pay the bills, but I'd like to get a bit more than just that out of that time: Learn new skills, meet interesting people, have good conversations, have fun. Having something akin to friendship with long-term coworkers and collaborators makes all of that much easier.
dmos62 2mo ago
Isn't this just an attitude you get when working in a bad environment or with people you don't like?
djeastm 2mo ago
It's the difference between allowing something and encouraging something.
bluecheese452 2mo ago
Does your religion proscribe death to those who leave it? They may feel safe talking about it but I don’t feel safe hearing about it.
- iwontberude 2mo ago
  My religion uses hallucinogens in ceremony and if I got fired for speaking about my religious practice I would certainly sue the shit out of them.
lelanthran 2mo ago
> Maybe not your whole self, but I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing, whatever makes them human. Work is not a safe space. The people who say they want everyone to feel safe in their speech usually (actually, almost always) want people who agree with them on > family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing,
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 2mo ago
  Pretty much this. For those of us who had to live through the Great Awokening in places like San Francisco, the workplace became a place to be questioned and re-educated in your political and moral beliefs, unless you already had the correct opinion. Except, even if you did, you could always be just a little purer. You could show off to your coworkers how you were a better ally than them, maybe they would be as good as you if only they “did the work" harder. https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/memory-hole-archive-workplace-revolutionaries https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/memory-hole-archive-... captures the experience pretty well The answer for years was to just keep your mouth shut while the hysteria subsides. It still is likely the right answer. In theory bringing everything to work would be great in a perfectly liberal environment, but we just don't live in that world. The illiberal and the intolerant will just gain leverage over you in a competitive environment such as the workplace.
  - AlexeyBelov 2mo ago
    What a load of bollocks.
Ekaros 2mo ago
Some religions and cultures are more accepted than others. I don't think that works for less accepted groups. People are very intolerant in general. And they are especially not intolerant of those who are intolerant... Silence is always the preferable choice in those matters.

by ksenzee 2mo ago

vkou 2mo ago

Their humanity does not serve the bottom line.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

joe_the_user 2mo ago

Employers who expect to know things about employee's personal lives are despicable. I expect to accomplish my tasks. I can be friendly, polite and humorous but you don't need to know anything about how I live. The main factor is a boss or supervisor can act on their judgement of an employee and employees do not have the same leverage.

Plont 2mo ago
[dead]
Archer6621 2mo ago
That is right. The hierarchical nature of this setting makes it impossible to be fully open, unless you truly are the most uninteresting person on the planet. If not, open and indiscriminate sharing is going to be a potential liability. Some things in life are very useful to know, and I believe being deliberate about what you share about yourself with whom is one of them.
everfrustrated 2mo ago
If you ask your employer to treat you like a robot - don't be surprised when you get replaced by a robot.

harvey9 2mo ago

As long as it's a subculture that is tacitly approved by the group and by management.

ruszki 2mo ago
For example? Because usually, people who say this have something in their mind about which they should rightfully be ashamed. Like people who want other people to have lesser rights.
- GoodDreams 2mo ago
  Ethical non-monogamy is one example.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- 9x39 2mo ago
  Anything class, caste, race, gender, etc. clustered can draw fire if they aggravate group harmony and conformity enough to someone. For example, I currently deal with the knife and gun collector crowd, hunting fans, weed guys, even genz sneaker aficionados bring the ire of various classes or camps that are more dominant at workplaces.
  - ruszki 2mo ago
    What is the reason for that anger?

vintermann 2mo ago

Then I hope you have an extremely flat company structure, not just formally but in practice. Don't try to fast-talk people into opening up. They have a better idea than you what's safe to talk about, about their lives. If they think they can't open up, they're probably right.

ksenzee 2mo ago
I don't own a company, and nobody reports to me. I simply said I want my coworkers to feel safe being themselves. I've had jobs where that was true, and they were better places to work all around, probably because "I feel safe talking about my transition/mental health/divorce" also translates to "I feel safe telling my boss this release needs to be delayed" and "I feel safe admitting I need some help writing this code."

happymellon 2mo ago

I really don't want to hear about your religion, and I don't want to see your Jesus Loves You gifs posted to the all tech Slack channel.

roryirvine 2mo ago
Sure, but that sort of behaviour is plainly abusive unless you're actually working in an explicitly religious setting. But merely saying "I'm taking next Wednesday off to celebrate Eid" ought to be fine everywhere, as is "this weekend I'm singing in my church choir then going for a picnic". Similarly, wearing a wedding ring or mentioning that you have a partner should never be a problem, but issuing a company-wide invite to your next sex party likely will be. "Personal" isn't a synonym for "intimate". It's reasonable to assume that people are able to share the former without forcing their colleagues to deal unnecessarily with the latter.
- chucksta 2mo ago
  Both Merriam-webster and thesaurus.com have intimate as a synonym for persaonl. Thesaurus.com says its one of the strongest.
- happymellon 2mo ago
  I get that. One persons level of comfort is not the same as others, so just saying I want people to be comfortable having their religious opinions respected is not a simple request. Some religious opinions are basically oppression of others. I refuse to allow people to be bigots in my presence regardless of their reasoning.
  - ksenzee 2mo ago
    Having previously been a member of such a religion, and having left it specifically over human rights issues, I am delighted to inform you that there are many individuals who identify as members of such religions but who are not personally bigoted, and who in fact may privately be uncomfortable about that aspect of their religious belief. If you already know someone, and you have reason to believe they're not bigoted, but then they out themselves as a member of some such group, you don't have to assume the worst.

finnthehuman 2mo ago

>I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture Yes, you want to feel like the people around you feel safe to share it. Everyone with things that are uncomfortable to hear have learned that they're not. They know the polite fiction to talk around it and make you feel like they're open. They're not.

ksenzee 2mo ago
Of course people know how to hide things that aren't safe to tell everyone. I do, however, genuinely mean what I'm saying. I worked somewhere once where the nature of the work meant almost everyone was of a particular political persuasion. I was of the opposite political persuasion. I was also one of the most junior employees there. It was a good enough bunch of people that I felt safe mentioning it in passing one day, and it led to a really great conversation. I was not afraid of being fired for it, but more importantly, I was not afraid of being ostracized for it.
- finnthehuman 2mo ago
  Oh. I see the disconnect between us. To me, either the culture bubble is extremely strong in your area, or being able to admit alignment with ideas shared by a major political party in an area where another party is more popular is an very low bar. On the scale of topics that I conceal about myself, politics is as easy as talking about the weather.
  - ksenzee 2mo ago
    This was Washington, D.C. during the Bush years. I could more easily have admitted to an ongoing affair or a cocaine habit.

icepush 2mo ago

Why are there people that want this in the office? Don't want this.

rkangel 2mo ago
I'm not saying that people should talk about this all the time, but are you saying you don't want people to feel able to mention key details of their personal life?
- Mountain_Skies 2mo ago
  I want to be free from being burdened with your unmet social needs and I want to feel safe when rejecting that burden you wish to push onto me. Make some friends or pay for a therapist, your coworkers aren't there to be your social support.
- icepush 2mo ago
  It's fine if people feel like discussing certain details of their personal lives. What the gp specifically urged people to discuss (In particular - disability and religion) are topics that have been considered not good ideas for the office for a very long time. Apparently some people want to change that - as I said, don't want this.
arw0n 2mo ago
I'm spending almost a third of my life at work, no shade to the people having to work to pay the bills, but I'd like to get a bit more than just that out of that time: Learn new skills, meet interesting people, have good conversations, have fun. Having something akin to friendship with long-term coworkers and collaborators makes all of that much easier.

dmos62 2mo ago

Isn't this just an attitude you get when working in a bad environment or with people you don't like?

djeastm 2mo ago

It's the difference between allowing something and encouraging something.

bluecheese452 2mo ago

Does your religion proscribe death to those who leave it? They may feel safe talking about it but I don’t feel safe hearing about it.

iwontberude 2mo ago
My religion uses hallucinogens in ceremony and if I got fired for speaking about my religious practice I would certainly sue the shit out of them.

lelanthran 2mo ago

> Maybe not your whole self, but I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing, whatever makes them human. Work is not a safe space. The people who say they want everyone to feel safe in their speech usually (actually, almost always) want people who agree with them on > family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing,

8f2ab37a-ed6c 2mo ago
Pretty much this. For those of us who had to live through the Great Awokening in places like San Francisco, the workplace became a place to be questioned and re-educated in your political and moral beliefs, unless you already had the correct opinion. Except, even if you did, you could always be just a little purer. You could show off to your coworkers how you were a better ally than them, maybe they would be as good as you if only they “did the work" harder. https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/memory-hole-archive-workplace-revolutionaries https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/memory-hole-archive-... captures the experience pretty well The answer for years was to just keep your mouth shut while the hysteria subsides. It still is likely the right answer. In theory bringing everything to work would be great in a perfectly liberal environment, but we just don't live in that world. The illiberal and the intolerant will just gain leverage over you in a competitive environment such as the workplace.
- AlexeyBelov 2mo ago
  What a load of bollocks.

Ekaros 2mo ago

Some religions and cultures are more accepted than others. I don't think that works for less accepted groups. People are very intolerant in general. And they are especially not intolerant of those who are intolerant... Silence is always the preferable choice in those matters.