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Chinese Tech Companies Hire 'Cheerleaders' To Motivate Programmers
HughPickens.com writes: Lauren O'Neil writes at CBC News that internet companies "across China" are hiring "pretty, talented girls that help create a fun work environment." Dubbed "programming cheerleaders," these young women serve to chit-chat, play Ping-Pong with employees as part of their role, and sometimes smile and clap for male employees who play guitar in the office, as indicated by photos posted to the news service's verified "Trending in China" Facebook page. "According to the HR manager of an Internet company that hired three such cheerleaders, its programmers are mostly male and terrible at socializing," reads China.org.cn's Facebook post. "The presence of these girls have greatly improved their job efficiency and motivation."
However people from all over the world have weighed in to decry the reported role. "This is degrading — both to the 'cheerleaders' and the programmers," wrote one commenter on the original post. "Look at the face of the poor woman programmer in the second picture. Stereotypical 'bro' culture only now with Chinese subtitles." Others suggest that the company pictured should simply hire more female programmers. "What a ridiculous job, why reduce women to only be valued by their looks and to assist males. Let them have a job at the desk using their minds!" wrote one woman.
However people from all over the world have weighed in to decry the reported role. "This is degrading — both to the 'cheerleaders' and the programmers," wrote one commenter on the original post. "Look at the face of the poor woman programmer in the second picture. Stereotypical 'bro' culture only now with Chinese subtitles." Others suggest that the company pictured should simply hire more female programmers. "What a ridiculous job, why reduce women to only be valued by their looks and to assist males. Let them have a job at the desk using their minds!" wrote one woman.
In all seriousness though, how does such a massive distraction *not* interfere with a job where you have to, you know, focus?
(...not that I'd complain or anything, but seriously...)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Camaraderie and a relaxed atmosphere are a perfect fit for tech, which can be especially stressful around crunch-time, what with long hours and whatnot. This, however, strikes me as contrived.
The female programmer mentioned in the summary doesn't seem upset at all, just focusing on her work. But the cheerleader playing ping-pong in those high heels is asking for a broken ankle.
... just not the execution of it.
Having a dedicated staff to driving the culture of your company can have a huge impact and pay massive dividends in retention, employee satisfaction, and willingness to go the extra mile.
One of my previous employers had an employee that started out as a receptionist. She always decorated for the holidays, and she was super social, so she organized extra circular activities. Bowling leagues, wine tastings, etc... She was also tasked with organizing our holiday party, summer picnic, office Olympics, city scour scavenger hunt, and tons of other ideas she helped build in the company.
Eventually, it became clear that these tasks took too much time for her to also be the receptionist, so the CEO created a new position for her to focus on the corporate culture, events, and social media.
Best decision he made. She wasn't a cheer leader running around in a short skirt, but her efforts to make the company a fun place to work were way more impactful than any executive direction.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
and they will remove the clocks as well.
Now they just need some blackjack.
TFA quotes a critic who said: "it's like bringing Hooters to [the] workplace."
The reporter omitted the rest of the quote, which might have provided some balance by explaining how there's also some kind of downside.
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
So basically they are real life chat bots. How long do you talk to them before they refer you to a website so that you can see their extra special photos?
They've basically hired secretaries. They handle the tedious tasks and generally enable the others to get their work done with fewer distractions. Is it sexist? Sure, but that's just an implementation detail. It could be done in a non-sexist way.
This is why American companies have been flailing around for decades. They cut the unskilled, tedious office labor positions and forced the skilled (or "skilled") office workers to do that tedium themselves. Secretaries have been reserved for upper management only, because Upper Management Is Important or somesuch. (This is the same justification for why their special brand of incompetence gets a larger paycheck, too.) I also noticed that there was a single "cheerleader" for a group of 5 or 6 programmers. It doesn't have to be 1-to-1. In fact, 1-to-1 secretaries can become a problem, since people working that closely together without anyone else around will often begin frantically mashing their genitals together on company time, usually to the embarrassment of themselves, their families, the company, and possibly the company's clients.
The simple point is: If you want your skilled workers to be productive, take the unskilled bullshit off of their backs and give it to someone whose job description is to handle that part. Do not provide personal sex slaves. It's frowned upon.
Let them have a job at the desk using their minds!" wrote one woman.
Perhaps because those people aren't qualified for a desk job using their minds? Not all people are cut out for that kind of work.
If an employer hires somebody and discovers that they'll contribute more to the company by transitioning to a desk, the employer will make the transfer.
A brilliant but strong male who can't find work in any other industry may take a job at a construction site to make money (and many other strong but not so brilliant ones may do the same). People can jobs based on their talents. Its all about improving efficiency.
If hiring attractive females to basically make the workplace more exciting serves to increase productivity, then so be it. It's a lot less degrading to everyone than just saying "Work harder or you're fired.".
People are just too quick to be offended these days. We're supposed to be the most "tolerant" society ever in modern times yet you can't turn a corner without offending someone.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Picture from the article: https://www.facebook.com/trend...
Wonder what she thinks of this.
First, it is wrong, as it reduced women to toys to play with, as they are ordered to, e.g., play with the guys. Second, it is sexist, because female hetero programmers do not get the same "treatment". Same applies to any non "straight" programmer. Third, is will only increase sexual and emotional frustration, as these women are not there to be partner surrogates. Fourth, it the programmers are already engaged, these girls could even hamper these relationships.
However, in a society where there is a surplus in men, for many men it is impossible to form a family. And we all know who is not at the top of the food chain in that matter.
Treat them like humans and give them interesting work to do.
I wonder if part of this is due to China starting to feel the impact of their sex ratio starting to shift due to many families aborting female fetuses so that they can have a male child. Unavailability of potential mates makes younger males depressive and some have theorized that the reason we see a lot of suicide bombers and the like form the Middle East is due to a culture that permits men to have up to four wives which makes it impossible for many people to find a mate and a lot more willing to end their own life to attain some form of purpose.
Long hours and the average computer type skewing towards being introverted or social awkward probably don't help either, but if the sex balance of the local population is disproportionately male, it likely exacerbates the problem even more.
Here's an INSANE idea, I know, I'm a crazy Canadian with 'Western Ideas'... but why don't you train women to be programmers, and have them work in the same offices as the men? I know, I know... crazy.. then they could have camaraderie with the people that actually share the same interests as them, and maybe... just maybe... they would hook-up and make little baby programmers that in the future would be interested in the same profession.
What I get from this is that the Chinese are saying what? Female workers in tech are uninteresting and unattractive? We are talking about a country that has a massive imbalance in the number of Men and Women, so instead of bringing the woman up to do meaningful, intelligent work, lets repress them some more, and make them eye candy, because you assume they can't do the same work as the men?
Look for the documentary on Atari's beginnings...
Each new programmer had a "Secretary", there were games, pool side programming you name it. It was an environment where performance was key but reward was instant.
So having cheerleader's at work is not a new concept. It certainly is a good male recruitment incentive.
What happens to morale when these socially backward male programmers fall in love with and then get turned down by the programming cheerleaders?
It's western feminists trying to impose western cultural standards on a culture not their own! Shocking! Though most telling:
"Let them have a job"
Yes, just give people jobs. It doesn't matter that they are not qualified for the position, or have any experience in the field at all. Just give it too them. And what about the personal agency of these women? Nobody is forcing them to take these cheerleader positions. Maybe, just maybe, they actually want them, and like the work they do.
Putting all gender equality issues aside for a moment, I can't see how this would be anything but a distraction and counter-productive.
The last thing I would want in my office to aid productivity would be a ton of attractive females who have no job but to fawn over the males who are supposed to be working.... its total nonsense.
Sure, it might help them attract employees, but they will have to hire 2x to 3x the number of them to counteract the productivity hit.
Cheerleaders for gootball matches are great and acceptable and cheerleaders for programmers are the abonomination? Why the double standard?
these women are not there to be partner surrogates
Why not? Short skirts and verbal encouragement is about all I get from my wife these days, and it is apparently enough to keep me going to work every day.
We can't criticize this. Having cheerleaders at NBA, NFL etc... is very similar. Women cheering on men. Although now it's more just entertaining fans. Although I'm sure some cheerleaders here are giving athletes many free 'breakfasts'.
Remind me again who's holding a gun to the head of these girls forcing them to do the job. Oh, wait...that's nobody. These girls are taking the job voluntarily, choosing to use their skills -- in this case, their physical appearance and ability to socialize -- to make money. If they felt the job was beneath them, they wouldn't do it. If you ban this behavior, you put them out of a job.
This reminds me of the same SJW furor over booth babes at Las Vegas conventions. There were plenty of young, attractive girls who made a career out of working these events. Then came the political correctness police, and they were out of a job. None of them were bitching about being exploited before the ban on booth babes, but plenty were bitching later about being out of work. And, let's face it, many of these girls had banked on being able to make a living off their looks and thus had very few "traditional" job prospects lined up. In the end, only a few noisy protesters felt better, the girls were out of job, and attendees didn't get to enjoy the booth babes the conventions were famous for. Everybody lost except those shrill perenially-offended extremists.
Admittedly, I'm neither 1.) a programmer, nor 2.) well-versed in Chinese culture, so those factors may raise issues with my thinking in this regard.
Having said that, I'm wondering if the abstract concept has merit. Programming (and, in my case, IT/Sysadmin work) is generally thankless, generally involves odd hours, and can very easily become a high-stress situation. While hiring beautiful women to galavant around the office seems contrived and a bit degrading, I'd argue that perhaps what could be a positive thing is the concept of "having humans on staff to give the programming folk another human with whom to interact from time to time".
I remember reading around here somewhere that a number of programmers have some inanimate object to which they describe the situation that they're in, and that the process of explaining the problem frequently yields a solution. I've got friends to whom I do my best to explain technical things in less-technical terms, and who have a propensity toward asking for further explanation. I find this helpful, and it's entirely possible that such an environment at work could assist in the same manner. An approachable person could help distill technical things so that a situation could be more quickly and effectively explained to management/marketing. Someone who genuinely feels listened to is more effective as a worker. It is in this capacity that I think having a "Counselor Troi" on staff could be advantageous to both prouctivity and morale.
Hiring hotties to play ping-pong with programmers sounds like an HR nightmare waiting to happen. Even if we put aside the "socially unskilled" stereotype, allowing "person X" to speak in confidence to "paid listener Y" is going to, at some point, yield a situation where a misunderstanding is going to escalate quickly. The general solutions to this would heavily favor one side or the other - "programmer says something wrong, assume it's a misunderstanding" becomes "programmer intentionally says something unacceptable, cries 'misunderstanding' when they get to HR". Alternatively, "Cheerleader hears something she doesn't like, we want her to keep her job, so there's no such thing as a misunderstanding that will be hand-waved away" becomes "programmer says something genuinely intended to be innocent, is misunderstood, ends up getting reprimanded", leaving us with "your call may be recorded for quality purposes", thus making it an environment where everything is being recorded, removing the possibility of truly free expression of thought...And this is why we can't have nice things.
Thus, I stand by my logic - there is merit in the abstract concept, and although I don't know if "programmer cheerleaders" is the correct implementation, I do think that "treating programmers like people, rather than caffeine-to-code conversion organisms" is something positive for the industry.
they do work hard and motivate.
I like how people are outraged by this idea, but somehow it's perfectly okay for cheerleaders on other places like football teams. When put into the "nerdy guys place" suddenly there is a whole sexual air to it, I see comments like: "they are like hookers", "poor girls how they suffer surrounded by nerds", "this is sexual abuse".
I think is valid to question western society (specially in the US) why it's acceptable to have "cheerleaders" showing their asses on public television before a football/basketball match but it's so outrageous have girls are hired motivate workers on one of the most profitable and stressful industries in the world.
To be honest programming is a stressful environment, and it's way better if you have motivation, somebody telling you you rock, you can do it, makes you work happier and better, doesn't even have to be a woman. I don't see it more outrageous than a cheerleader show before an NBA game in my opinion, which is in fact directed more at the public than the actual players so it's even more questionable in is necessity or usefullness.
Sorry for my crappy english.
coding with a boner is always more fun.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If it's stupid (sexist, degrading etc).. But works.
It's not stupid.
Hint. whining about sexism isn't productive.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm surprised we haven't seen this in America yet.
Hell yea it'd boost my productivity and you better believe I'd be at work on time, for longer hours.
I agree with idea that these are glorified secretaries and that there is nothing wrong with it. Bosses are wasting money any time an engineer has to perform an office task, such as main coffee or ordering lunch for the team. Likewise, if one developer needs to decompress over a game of ping pong they may pull in another dev who is still busy.
Two Bits!
Four Bits!
Six Bits!
A byte!
All for the coders, stand up and unite!
with great apologies to Mr Two Bits - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Recognizing that is not necessarily degrading. What's degrading is treating someone as less than a total human being, which includes both the animal behavior and the advanced cognitive stuff.
Most people recognize of course that reducing someone to nothing more than an object of animal behaviors is degrading. But there is something degrading in a lot of high pressure employment too, which is reducing someone to their intellectual capacity to transform information inputs to into product outputs. But we're also animals who evolved to live in medium-sized social groups, and need family and social interactions centered around feeding, grooming and (yes) reproduction to be healthy. We need family, friends, and social novelty. We need to have a personal story that extends beyond our economic outputs.
Now as to whether this particular corporate arrangement is degrading, it could well be. However I doubt that in the current Chinese context that it is. There's a lot to this situation that doesn't necessarily fit into Western assumptions, and one of the biggest factors is the unexpected ways China's one-child policy has altered the status of women. As you'd obviously expect given the Chinese cultural value of extending the male bloodline this has skewed Chinese population male -- 1.18 :: 1 at birth. And paradoxically this has actually raised the status of Chinese girls as individuals, upending thousands of years of cultural tradition.
Young, attractive, talented women have immense opportunities in modern China; they don't have to accept any treatment they find degrading. This is a good thing, but the fact that it is ultimately rooted in the messy biological imperative to propagate the species is something that many people will be deeply ambivalent about. I think we'd be a lot better off if we just accepted our animal nature and use it to make everyone's lives better; or at least developed the ability to have a good laugh at ourselves. The kind of earnest, priggish, knee-jerk reaction something like this immediately evokes is rooted in deep discomfort with human nature, as well as cultural parochialism.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I work for an asian company that has tried something like this, they hired a pretty girl to try to raise morale and come up with ideas and cheer up staff. She is the most hated staff member in the whole company, she is seen as a drain on resources (rightfully so) and does nothing productive, everything she plans, organises or does no-one wants to be involved in because we're all overworked with no energy and these silly events and programs are reduce performance on metrics and sap our already waning reserves of energy and well being.
Interesting enough though, most of the staff are westerners, the asian staff are fine with her activities but dislike her personally so maybe this is a cultural thing?
I'm going to the strip club...why the fuck not? I won't be degrading women by any means.
In reality, I'm going to take my girlfriend out, but seriously, I do know a lot of socially inept techies here in the U.S. that I could see this helping.
And, there's nothing sexual about it. It just nice to have new, young, enthusiastic faces in the office, and actually does boost morale quite a bit.
What about the female employees?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
The issue here is not tolerant meaning not trying to offend anyone, because that is an impossible task. (ex: I wear a red tie today, and the women in the elevator says the red tie OFFENDS her.. (its a freaking colour).. but rather trying to be more understanding of the other side that is expressing their individuality (ex: rather than taking offense at again, my colour tie, especially where no offense was given, or even implied, instead choosing to recognize it is in fact, just a TIE, part of any normal apparel by any human, and not look for offense where none in given. If I personally knew the person, or red was culturally insensitive (again, known) then perhaps a slight offense could be claimed.
The issue with this situation is people are getting offended by a cultural difference that does not subject these people to any degradation or offense. (other than what we, the outsiders) want to attach. I think many people said it here already, in most work places (even those outside of china), the mindset is "I don't care about your life, I wand productivity.. work harder or you are fired".. but what some people fail to recognize is programming is an art, and you can write junk code (functional but non elegant which requires more work down the line (QA, bug fixes, etc..) or elegant code.. and yes.. mood and life does enter into it by being inspired).
Simply (as some have suggested).. hire more females to program doesn't turn anyone instantly from shy to outgoing, especially if there is no assistance on HOW to interact. (and the same is true for females as well).. I've worked in programming shops in Japan (some where the ratios have been 60/40 (yes, still higher men than women).. but in ALL cases, both groups were afraid to talk with each other for fear of one, making an faux pas, or worse, an embarrassing mistake which might cost them their job.
The purpose of these "cheerleaders" is to one, break the cycle of monotony.. (yes, it can get dull hacking out code, especially if you are a grunt), two, allow these people (some of who spend 80 - 90% of their lives at work) a chance at a break, and allow them to incorporate some social norms back into their lives without fear of retribution and education. Or to put it another way.. the socially awkward geek(s) gets connected with the socially adept socialite in order to learn how to be cool (ie: almost every teen flick in the past 30 years). Virtually EVERY study indicates a happy employee is a productive employee. (why do you think Google, or Microsoft, etc... all spend so much on employee perks (food, social gatherings, etc..) these are all to bring some normality back into their lives, to forge better team bonding, and for those that are shy a chance to interact in a socially prescribed way that does not require them to use skills they may not have or suck at.
And for those that are arguing these women are being hired SOLELY on their looks, that is not always the case.. yes, their looks are part of the equation.. but their ability to help these folks out of their shells, and in effect become a "Cheerleader" is also a factor.. (not every "hot girl" off the street is going to qualify because they lack the temperament and skills to help others.
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain Look for http://Thebar.steelbeachca
Such a business-minded solution - Our workforce is male dominated and the lack of co-gender interaction is leaving them socially stunted - Let's hire models to stand around and flatter them all day, without any of the sort of genuine human connection that you get from working on something with someone, because It's easier to commodify a person than to look past outdated gender norms and workers aren't real people with real social needs.
Of course, I'm married to her. But, yeah, helps keep morale up at the cost of a little distraction here and there.
Do you have ESP?
Well?
"What a ridiculous job, why reduce women to only be valued by their looks and to assist males"
Are they only hiring female cheerleaders, and only to help straight male programmers, and by "cheering" they mean flaunting their body? I guess China doesn't have any laws that deal with sexuality or discrimination in the workplace...
Twinstiq, game news
Have you seen female pharmacy reps or female HR tech headhunters? They're impeccably dressed, and they flirt to get want they want. Nothing wrong with it. Make a living using your talents, for some it's brains and for some it's looks and a pleasant personality.
The girls can also blackmail the programmers and say pay me or it's rape just like Patrick Kane
Would a female programmer clap for your shitty guitar solo? OK then.
"Bro" has become a derogatory term. The continued usage of it by the media and women when referring to men and what mean do is demeaning and usually a direct attack on masculinity, as if to imply that a masculine way of doing things is somehow wrong and deserving of mockery.
yes, real human societies are sexist. in general and as 90%+ true statement, men are different than women, and need different motivation than women. in asia they don't BS themselves about this. but you can imagine whatever you want, your society is losing to asia, and once it sinks low enough the BS known as feminism evaporates into thin air, and women will be FAR worse off here than if they were in asia where they could have a career
We have women in short skirts working in an office to motivate programmers - how degrading! I mean we have to make sure it's trumpeted everywhere as a massive set-back for women. Never mind the ISIS rape squads, or the selling or female children throughout ISIS-controlled lands. No, let's only focus on evil technology and programmers and people making money...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Maybe they'd be more productive if they lived under a government that didn't oppress them at every turn, squashing their creativity and their joy of life in general?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The best part of this story is a room full of socially awkward nerds being described as "stereotypical 'bro' culture."
This may have a short term benefit, but by and large happy workers aren't productive, productive workers are happy. At the end of the day, we all like to feel like we succeeded somehow. SOME distraction and downtime that is work sponsored is beneficial, but there is a definite limit, more effective is finding ways to make the needed tasks satisfying to perform has a better long term result.
This would irk me so much. First i'd be pissed that the company was paying people to decorate the office. taking that money and just boosting the salaries of the engineers tends to make us happier. Second, i'd be insulted that they think i'm so shallow.
Finally, I'd be pissed at myself. Id suffer from cognitive dissonance knowing it was a cheap trick, but feeling giddy excitement with some pretty girl hanging around at my desk.
If so, no distraction... ; ) - hey where did the post as anonymous option go?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
that nobody had said so far to RTFA or "I didn't RTFA but..".
Are Chinese tech companies hiring Americans?
Because that would mean the men are kind of stupid, don't you think?
That would be like making a dating site and having practically all the women on it be chat bots. Certainly men aren't stupid enough to fall for that!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...QA analysts and BAs...just kidding! just kidding! *ducking staplers and mice flying at me*
In the recent hisotry of the modern office called Cubed there was a section on post-WWII where intra-office affairs were common. Men looking variety from their families. Women looking for husbands. I think the women lib types in the 70s dampened this.
http://www.amazon.com/Cubed-A-...
Anyone have an idea of why submitting the same story yesterday morning (http://slashdot.org/submission/4917489/chinese-tech-startups-hiring-cheerleaders-for-programmers) doesn't seem to show even in the firehose and shows as still pending to me, but "HughPickens.com" (nothing promotional there...) with the same primary link and who seems to submit stories daily has already been included and posted?
Granted, you can certainly make an argument that he quoted more from the article in his post and say that's superior... I'm mostly trying to figure out why the story submission I made never even seemed to appear on the firehose and is still pending, while this duplicate of it seems to have passed it by. Is there a submission process glitch?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
for tittie = 1 to MAX_TITTIE set woman.objectify = true int $69 \n push WANG aH next tittie
This is just an evil plot by project managers to get these young geeks to squander even more of their short lives at the office. Who do you think would get a better response for statement "I really need you to come in to the office this weekend and work on this for me"? A pretty young gal in a mini skirt or some PM that reminds you of Bill Lumbergh?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
If Women can choose to be Army Rangers and the world isn't going to end why not Programmer cheerleaders? Are free independent and liberated women only supposed to take jobs Western liberals say they can take?
Those programmers know what's going on, it's like they're at the KTV (karaoke TV), but
the KTV is at work. Those women are for the most part untouchable, one: the boss owns
them, two: both the men and women know that the woman can sell her pussy for a much
higher price than the men at the workplace can offer. Both the men and women
understand this relationship. If the men in that office feel any sexual frustration from
the women at work, they can just pay for sex for the night from some other woman.
Both the men and the women don't feel bad at all about this working relationship, as
it sure as hell beats working in some god awful factory.
To you white people, try going to China. However, I warn you, bring a bat because
you'll have to use it to keep off all the pussy that gets thrown you. You could be 5'9"
and 320lbs. and still have trouble with how much pussy gets thrown at you. Why,
because you represent MONEY, and that's all those Chinese biatches care about.
They're not just some peaty gold diggers, but gold MINERS. Those biatches know
how to mine for gold. Forewarned is foretold...
It is interesting how our society apparently concludes that if you are an attractive woman who is engaged in some sort of paid position as a social or support (cheerleader) role then you must clearly be a victim. Or is it that any context in which men benefit from the presence or attention of a woman automatically lumps them in to a predatory category? Is this actually the only way to categorize any situation in which both sexes are engaging on some level based on attraction/interest?
Or it could be taken the opposite way - that management is trying to lead the entire staff of men around by their penises.
I think it's a combination of both, and both are pretty disgusting, tbh.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
(Or perhaps my usual mistake.) As far as I can tell, despite the summary and the sloppy linked article, this was one company, not "companies across China". So a lot of kerfuffle over three young women at one company.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Ah, penetrating humor. This is why I come to slashdot, to observe the thrust of jokes erected to pin their targets down, again and again and again. Turgid prose? Oh, yes! Yes!
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm going to guess that it has something to do with the weird US attitudes towards sex workers, and for that matter sex.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Before everyone had a desktop computer almost all companies had these but they called them secretaries. Now days only the highest level executives have this perk.
...in an office with such tiny desks all elbow to elbow, back to back. I've worked in call centers that were much roomier than that, those pictures makes my current cubicle seem downright luxurious in comparison.
A lot of people are outraged about cheerleaders in sports teams, too. It's been complained about so much that it doesn't generate page hits anymore, so that's why we have this story and not that one.
Also the story isn't very well sourced, it could be the pictures are from something completely different. There's no reason to do fact-checking before getting outraged, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The developers should take is upon themselves to teach the cheerleaders how to code. A good method for this is pair programming. And in fact I'm certain the developers would like to take this to the next level with spooning programming.
Prostitutes call that the "dry hustle".
The men are being manipulated. Their companies are extremely hostile toward them.
You to be in the office nearly every waking moment, then it is nice that they provide a little social interaction. The company I work for is 100% male and I go weeks at a time without talking to a female. I wish my company would do like Microsoft does and hire a bunch of cute admins.
Should have just gotten them prostitutes
From China, right off the boat. She was here to study, I married her. OMG difficult life. OMG poor. Away from family. No friends. Aging, without a husband (bad in China).
Never, ever, showed an unhappy face. Never complained, or broke down.
All that matters is happiness and success, family. That's it. Period. Succeed at your job and be happy.
NO drama. Even if there is, put on a happy face. NEVER show it to anyone.
Totally and utterly different than every single woman I've ever been with.
Piss her off though and she will destroy you.
It's other women. If there's a topless woman on the beach and it's not a topless beach, it's the other women that complain. Woman in the mens room because the women's room is way backed up - other women complain, bitch and moan.
The real victims are the men. We're unfairly seen as dumb, brutes. Hardly capable of doing the right thing. We're also never right.
Used to work for a woman and there was a hooters just down the street. She used to get upset when we'd bring leftovers back. Couldn't we spend our money someplace else? She'd ask. - Why? Food is good, scenery is great. A couple of the girls from that store were in the calendar that year. They wanted $35 for it. We turned it down. I think $15 would be the limit. Besides, I have a picture of them with me on my birthday!
Most of the developers in my team would pay money not to get distracted. This would be annoying to me.
My company introduced more females by going 'Agile' and 'Reinventing'
Broadly speaking rather than recruiting qualified programmer to actually code, they promoted a bunch of PA's and administrative clerks to team leaders, added some tame Japanese Magma characters to personalize the team with a 'Catchy Name' . No one observed the increase in good looking bossy women with can do attitudes - who know how to drive a spreadsheet and micromanage with a vengeance. The outcome was an immediate increase in contract programmers. Net result: Greater cost, mixed bag. The rise of Jen's.
The Chinese are doing it better - have a non threatening (and cheap) novel presence on the shop floor. They also read about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect. It will WORK, at least for a short while, then you need to find a new stimulus.
Sometimes just talking clears a programmers head, talking to a cat, dog, or girlfriend sometimes works. Breakout areas lost their effectiveness when stand up meetings intruded and distracted the productive ones.
The fact that intolerant people want to sharpen sticks on perceived moral incorrectness is plain wrong. I hope the same company ends up employing some as 'freshers' = those identified with interest and an attitude to code. After a stint, cycle some 'mathematicians' through the place.
I always said, if we would treat engineers like rock stars (men or women) we'd be on Jupiter by now.
I can see how this could work brilliantly.
You're all assuming that the 'cheerleaders' are largely unskilled and just there to provide a fairly passive entertainment role. But why shouldn't a 'cheerleader' decide to be good at her job instead?
Picture this. You're about to start banging your head on your desk because there's a bug you can't find or some other problem you can't solve. Suddenly there's someone sitting next to you saying "how's it going? What seems to be the problem? Talk me through it".
So now you're 'rubber-ducking'. You're explaining what you're trying to achieve in a way that a layperson (or a rubber duck) could understand. Now you're explaining the possible reasons why it wouldn't be working, in ways a layperson could understand. Now you're eliminating the possibilities. Now you've realised what was wrong and you know how to fix it.
"Yay!" says the cheerleader. "Let's play ping-pong!"
So now you've just solved a problem that would've taken hours to solve by yourself, just by talking it over with someone who knows nothing about it. It took ten minutes for the 'cheerleader' to notice you weren't getting anywhere, it took ten minutes to talk through the possibilities, and then you spent ten minutes playing ping-pong. So the problem is solved early, and you feel better, and the 'cheerleader' learned something general about programming.
After a few months of this, the 'cheerleaders' will be fluent in pseudocode. Half of them will have enrolled in actual coding classes, because it makes them better at their jobs. They'll all be experts in time management.
A year later, you're re-hiring female 'cheerleaders' as junior programmers and you're hiring male cheerleaders to motivate them.
This is basically a weirdly formalised version of the universal practice of bringing in perky interns and keeping them around (because they're fun to have around) until they either move on to something different, or settle in as useful full-time staff.
me program you longtime
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Why do they have to motivate their programmers so badly? Bad projects? Bad programming language?