Slashdot Mirror
Tech Jobs and Apple: Every Bit As "Fun" As Pleasure Island?
theodp writes: On the eve of Apple's big Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the lack of diversity in tech is 'our fault' — 'our' meaning the whole tech community. "I think in general we haven't done enough to reach out and show young women that it's cool to do it [tech] and how much fun it can be," Cook explained. Indeed, the WWDC scholarship winners shooting selfies with Cook at the San Francisco Four Seasons to celebrate their iPhone apps and other WWDC attendees looked to be having as much fun as, well, Pinocchio at Pleasure Island. But, as the NY Times recently pointed out, Cook can be guilty of overlooking inconvenient truths. Which here is that most young women (and men) wouldn't find it 'cool' or 'fun' to live with 8,000 co-workers in factory dormitories where they can be roused out of bed in the middle of the night by Apple for an emergency 12-hour shift to fit glass screens into beveled iPhone frames, although that too conjures up a scene from Pleasure Island.
OK, I've worked in the industry for a very long time now, and it can be 'fun' for the few bits where you actually get to prototype or work on the bulk of the features. That takes 10 percent of the time. The rest of the time you are going to be trying to find obscure bugs, introduced by crappy programmers rushing to get features out. Meanwhile you will be micro-managed through the 'agile' process asking you to account for every hour of your time. Then we will throw ill defined features at you, and expect them to be done within this two week time period, and be shocked when you reach the end of two weeks, and they are not done. This is usually due to the fact that meanwhile 16 support tickets were also thrown at you that are all critical in nature. Then you have those late night calls with your Indian counter parts that you can barely understand or stay awake for. But it is fun!
I don't know what planet these people live on. It is a tough career with crazy deadlines and weird policies. You have to constantly keep up on the latest trends, or you will be viewed as 'too old' for the job. Meanwhile, computers never sleep, nor do they expect you to. You have to push back constantly to maintain your personal time.
That said, I love computers. I love programming. I just don't love the industry as it is now. There is a reason that most women don't want in. They may in fact be much smarter than men in this regards.
Why is Tim Cook even wading into this discussion? Mainly because the SJWs are shaming companies such as Apple and Intel to do something about what they perceive to be an epidemic of gender skew in technology professions. Funny how they're nowhere to be found when it comes to nursing or other female-dominated professions, nor all the factory positions in China where men are worked to the death. Yet all the idiot CEOs take the bait and run with it.
What they all fail to realize is that equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome. Nobody gets me out of bed in the morning, brushes my teeth, forces me to do a particular job or anything else, so it's up to me to do that. Same with careers. If you have a specific problem, there are LOTS of legal protections to prevent this kind of thing - lawsuits, DoL complaints, and so on.
Ask any person of any identifiable group whether they feel good about being hired not because they were the best candidate, but because of some identifiable characteristic. You'll get two groups of answers - the majority who would feel awful about it, and the minority who would feel proud and entitled because of it. As long as that difference exists, this nonsense will continue.
Its "our" fault that we don't magically undo a hundred thousand years of evolution and make every woman think being in tech is cool and make them want to do all the same things as men.
Its "our" fault that women and men are different.
Can someone please explain to me WHY WE HAVE TO HAVE EQUAL REPRESENTATION WHEN WOMEN AREN'T FRAKING INTERESTED IN THE JOB.
Oh wait ... you know why? Because they can treat women to lower pay thanks to the required time off for most who want to have children not being able to dedicate every hour of the day to working their fingers to the bone like males can in most cases.
Yes, as a white male you are automatically a racist sexist homophobe on the verge of a hate crime. Its in our DNA apparently ...
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Diversity for the sake of diversity is NOT a good thing. Granted, if a company has a thousand employees, and the only black face in the crowd belongs to the janitor, then there is a problem. But - if the company's demographics perfectly reflect community demographics, then we all know that the company is more absorbed in public relations and catering to special interest groups, than it is in BUSINESS.
I work for a woman. I work with women. Women work for me. I prefer the company of women, truth be told. But - I'm sure as HELL not going to hire a female because she's female. Or black. Or Asian. Or gay. Or whatever. I'm going to hire the MOST QUALIFIED PERSON FOR THE JOB! If that happens to be a straight white male - so be it. If it happens to be a gay Chinese woman, again, so be it.
Screw diversity. It's a waste of my time, waste of your time, and a HUGE waste of company resources.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br