Slashdot Mirror
Programmer Privilege
An anonymous reader writes "Philip Guo, an Asst. Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester, has written a thoughtful article on his education in programming. Guo explains that he was no particular coding wizard while growing up, but when he jumped into a CS major when he went to college at MIT, he received all sorts of passive and active encouragement — simply because he 'looked the part.' He says, 'Instead of facing implicit bias or stereotype threat, I had the privilege of implicit endorsement. For instance, whenever I attended technical meetings, people would assume that I knew what I was doing (regardless of whether I did or not) and treat me accordingly. If I stared at someone in silence and nodded as they were talking, they would usually assume that I understood, not that I was clueless. Nobody ever talked down to me, and I always got the benefit of the doubt in technical settings.' Guo compares this to the struggles faced by other minority groups and women to succeed in a field that is often more skeptical of their abilities. 'I want those people to experience what I was privileged enough to have gotten in college and beyond – unimpeded opportunities to develop expertise in something that they find beautiful, practical, and fulfilling.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, that depends on the organization. In better companies, bullshit artists get washed out almost immediately. At Microsoft, they can end up running the company.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well, you act as though you understand, look at them and nod intelligently. You act the part. Then people take you at the face value. Is that your complaint? What do you expect? Everyone to quiz everyone and test their knowledge and understanding? Do you realize how insulted you would have felt if someone asked you, "hey, do you understand what I am talking about? or you are just standing there nodding like a dimwitted sheriff from Mayberry?".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've been guilty of this too.
When I meet a programmer who is a woman, an attractive woman, a much older person or a non-Caucasian & non-Asian man my automatic thought is "really?" despite my conscious mind knowing better.
Back in the dot com era I went to work with my hair pulled back in a pony tail and it had a similar effect as the author of the article described. Having it was like wearing a power suit in a law office.
Well, that depends on the organization. In better companies, bullshit artists get washed out almost immediately. At Microsoft, they can end up running the company.
-jcr
The government is staffed by bullshit artists. They thrive and get ahead. The truly productive people wash-out due to the terrible co-workers and lack of support from management. I lived it and suffered the consequences.
"Privilege" is a term used by those who feel they didn't earn what they have, that really offends those who have earned what they have. Sure, no one earned their IQ, and in that sense any direct benefits you get from IQ are a sort of privilege, but you really can't get very far on IQ alone, any more than you can on natural good looks or physical strength.
You have to actually go do something useful and productive with you gifts to be rewarded once you leave school (and you'll discover there's far more to a programming job than abstract problem-solving) - at which point, if you're contributing more than the next guy, it's only just that you get more in return.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
... people think he knows what he is talking about.
Will the never ending garbage ever cease? The truth is he might have not felt qualified, but he was admitted to the CS program at MIT, one of the few elite CS departments that really means you are at least +1SD above average IQ, and quite likely +2SD or +3SD.
The entire article is just naked assertion:
[M]icro-inequities often had serious cumulative, harmful effects, resulting in hostile work environments and continued minority discrimination in public and private workplaces and organizations. What makes micro-inequities particularly problematic is that they consist in micro-messages that are hard to recognize for victims, bystanders and perpetrators alike. When victims of micro-inequities do recognize the micro-messages it is exceedingly hard to explain to others why these small behaviors can be a huge problem.
This is garbage. We are scientists. Quantify, describe, theorize and prove. If you can't explain it, and you can't define it, and you can't trace it back, perhaps it's not real.
If someone came across my office for an interview talking about this vague non-specific garbage I would sent them over to copywriting or HR.
As the 6'3" black guy with should length dreadlocs and a beard, I would respectfully disagree. I'm sitting here in a comfortable network engineer position that I worked hard to get. I started as an intern, worked at help desk, then desktop support, then finally beat 10 other applicants after working at the same company for 6 years, with an additonal 8 years experience outside the company to be where I am today. I've applied for the position multiple times over the course of 6 years, and finally got it. I have a Computer Science degree and relevant certs, but it does not matter. I sit here and see other people *start* out of school with no certs with the position I worked hard to get and cherish. I have friends (mostly black, or women) who applied for the same position year after year and do not get it. Why? They "look" the part; eg: white or asian. It does exist, but unless you are on the other side of it, you will never know.
Exactly! *nods head*
Sometimes it's getting tasked to do something that teaches you how to do it. If you appear incompetent to the eyes of the taskmaster, you won't get the chance to even try.
In an old retail job, a boss of mine told me he got where he was by saying "Yes, I know how to do that" to everything that was ever asked of him, and basically learning how to do it on the spot (driving a forklift, for example).
If you can do a passable job while learning, you can do it better next time.
I think he's trying to say that not everyone gets the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he was pretty much qualified, but a lot of people don't have the chance. He's not blaming anyone for his privilege, he's not saying he is wrong to have this privilege, he's saying it's wrong that so many other people don't.
Possibly. But the point is that because he looked the part he was able to more effectively utilize his intelligence than someone who did not look the part.
If his appearence had been different then there would be obstacles to overcome that he did not have to face.
Never underestimate the power of looking like you're supposed to be there, doing that.
You have no idea how many "secure" facilities I've been given full access to, just because I dressed and talked like I knew exactly what I was doing.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This has happened to me when I've talked in a 'stream of consciousness' about something I didn't know, but was guessing, and had people ask me questions later about the subject matter. When we sort things out that I'm not the expert they think, I've been told that I sounded very confident about what I was saying, which is why they thought I knew what I was talking about. I've since learned to interject comments like "I'm not sure" or "it might be something like this" to make sure people don't take things I say as facts when I'm only guessing.
I'm just an old, overweight white guy so it can't be an Asian thing for me.
I don't know where I heard it, but it seems to apply far too often: An expert is just someone who you think knows more than you do about something.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Though more commonly, it offends people who have their self image tied up in the idea that they fully earned what they have with no inherent advantages. Bring up the idea that some particular factor made things easier for them somehow invalidates everything else they have done in their minds.
Not very long.
Um...22 years next Tuesday.
Part of the beauty of a software development career is that you're constantly asked to do things that you don't necessarily know how to do. When has a customer ever contacted a developer and asked "Can you do this very common thing that everybody can do in their sleep?" - Never! The question is always "We have this incredibly technical thing we want done, and nobody here knows how to do it - can you figure it out?" (paraphrasing, of course)
It's always new and refreshing. I find the challenges invigorating - and often I find myself up until all hours because I've come to an understanding of something new and I want to see it to completion (or a good stopping point).
Every task, every day, every job is a triumph.
I even find it enjoyable to explain to my customers that I don't know how to do something. Part of the explanation includes my excitement to learn how to accomplish it. If I've explained it right, they're as excited for me to do the work as I am. They have a desire to see the job done - and so do I, but for entirely different reasons.
One of the greatest joys is learning how many developers before me declined to try, or tried and failed. For my last contract, my customer explained that I was the 5th developer they contacted - and the only one to submit a proposal.
The software went live Monday, and I couldn't be happier. My customer is in a pretty good mood too.
"Lame" - Galaxar
here's the important message of the whole thing:
academia is typically a very alienating place...in college/undergrad I saw many people discouraged form EE who would have been very good at the actual work of an EE in the real world, but couldn't/would not get past the insane 'weeding out' classes.
in my experience (I changed my major before I started classes but I attended a class just to see what it was like) these were classes all Engineers must take, usually taught by a prof that looked well qualified on paper but was horrible.
The only way to pass the class was to either a) know the material already or b) study all night with other Engineering students in the class
There really wasn't an option to 'have a life'...some tried but one or the other would win out. In order to get an EE degree you simply MUST become a dork. or at least 'dork' in the colloquial sense of looking neutral/unstylish at best, poor social skills, lacking manual skills, etc etc...which would inevitably remain under developed due to a lack of formative experiences, time spent instead in dark rooms eating breadsticks looking at computer screens. Yes alot of good work has gotten done this way, but that doesn't mean you use it as a way to 'weed out' students from the industry!
It was possible, but you had to fight against the grain all the time, and few did it.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Sure, in principle that's cool, but the idea of "inherent advantages" so oversimplifies people that it is itself an offensive stereotype IMO.
Almost everyone has a mix of some above-average qualities and some below-average qualities. Realizing that success lies in doing what you're good at, instead of what you enjoy, is the first of many sacrifices needed for earned success. If you happen to love what you happen to be good at, hey, nice for you: people should feel good about that sort of thing. Long term, I think most of us come around to enjoying what we're good at, eventually, in any case.
But saying that someone's success is unearned because of some "inherent advantages" is a very overused idea because of this. Take up a line of work where one's normal distribution of (dis)advantages gives a net benefit is normal, not privilege. And there are very few lines of work where you can get by merely on one thing that you were born with (like IQ, or very high natural testosterone levels, or whatever) without also needing a bunch of other qualities, which often are below normal.
Sure, there people with a very rare collection of "happened to be good at"s that all line up to give them a real advantage, but then by definition that's a very small pool of people, and not a useful stereotype.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Bullshit artists are the result of having people in charge who don't actually understand what their employees are doing. It's not unique to government, nor is it unique to programming. It's worse when you have larger organisations which have more separation between you and the decision makers and much better in small organisations where your actual job is part of the core business of the company. Basically it boils down to the fact that the bullshit artist has really good communication skills and you either don't possess or don't utilise those skills.
I know it's fun to hate on government, but large scale private enterprise is in nearly all respects actually worse than government. They are just as crippled by process, just as risk averse, just as hidebound, and just as likely to award mediocrity. The only real difference is that private enterprise will be profit motivated so they will make all of the above mistakes for even worse reasons than the government.