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Judge Dismisses Lawsuit That Claims Google Paid Female Employees Less Than Male Colleagues (cnn.com)
A California judge has rejected a class action claim against Google for alleged gender inequity. In September, three female Google employees filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the search giant "engaged in systemic and pervasive pay and promotion discrimination." They sought class action status on behalf of women who have worked at Google in California for the past four years. CNN reports: This week, a judge rejected their request to make the suit a class action. A judge ruled that the class was "overbroad," stating that it "does not purport to distinguish between female employees who may have valid claims against Google based upon its alleged conduct from those who do not." Jim Finberg, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said his clients plan to file an amended complaint seeking class action certification. He said it will address the court's ruling and make "clear that Google violates the California Equal Pay Act throughout California and throughout the class period by paying women less than men for substantially equal work in nearly every job classification."
it find a liberal judge.
It's been said before, companies do not systematically pay women less, if they did, they would only hire women.
The women will claim they were sexual assaulted in order to get even with Google. Anything and everything seems to constitute sexual assault these days. There are egregious examples like Harvey Weinstein, but much of this is about punishing men so women can take their places without having to earn it.
Seems like the new normal is cover the accusation as a scandal and don't cover the follow-up result. Good on Slashdot for keeping up. I hope this happens with the rest of the 'scandal' stories.
This may be interesting to watch. Individual cases of discrimination are often like any other case there is direct evidence, or not. Class actions tend to rely on statistics and that always reminds me of a certain university case.
In the university case, the primary evidence brought by the plaintiffs was that the school accepted a significantly higher percentage of male applicants than female applicants. That seemed pretty clear-cut. If the school admits 60% of male applicants and 45% of females, that looks a lot like there may be systematic discrimination against women.
The school pointed out that EVERY department admitted a higher percentage of women than men, however. When every department admits 60% of female applicants and 45% of men that looks a lot like systematically favoring women - discrimination against men.
Here's what had happened. The school had one department that was highly regarded, with competitive admissions. I don't recall offhand what the department was, so for the sake of this discussion let's call it the nursing school. It just so happened that the best department, the department with the most competitive admissions, was a department with mostly women applying. Most people who applied to the nursing school we're not accepted, and most people who applied to the nursing program were women.
Most male applicants applied to other, less competitive programs at the school.
Women had a BETTER chance of getting into the nursing program than men did. Every department admitted women at a higher rate, but the school as a whole rejected more females because their nursing program was that good - they rejected more nursing applicants than other majors.
The sad lesson for university administrators - if you don't want to be accused of discrimination, make sure the programs that women enjoy aren't your best programs, which will make admissions more competitive.
Anonymous Coward is genderless, and will remain that way no matter how many hormones you inject.
This wasn't a decision that the facts didn't agree with the employees, only that it didn't merit a class action lawsuit.
They sought class action status on behalf of women... A judge ruled that the class was overbroad,"
Ohhhhhh, I get it!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox#UC_Berkeley_gender_bias
Plus women just work fewer hours. I pulled our door badge logs a few months ago, and even with the report screwing-up and not counting men that worked more than 24 hours straight, men still worked about 106% longer hours than the women. IIRC, the average for women was 36 hours a week and 74 hours a week for the male engineers. Of course the women are going to make less.
public -signed: not google
Substantially similar jobs often arenâ(TM)t.
My organization had a dispute when jobs were being re-profiled and positions redefined. For the vast majority of us our actual tasks did not change. A small group decided to challenge their job profiles, instead of taking the two profiles and figuring out how the differences applied, they said they do the same general tasks as me and my coworker. They donâ(TM)t actually know what we do, or how much responsibility we have. They assumed the jobs were similar because we have a higher pay scale and they wanted that.
Doesnâ(TM)t work that way.
Thanks. I couldn't remember which school it was. I bet the same thing applies to Texas A&M with it's highly competitive veterinary school, but I was thinking that's not the famous instance.
It's interesting that even multiple peer-reviewed papers mention the lawsuit - the lawsuit that apparently never was. According to Peter Bickel, one of the statisticians who authored the original study, the graduate school dean was for some reason *afraid* they'd be sued, and asked Bickel to look into the statistic, which looked bad on prima facia. I don't know if there was a threat of a law suit or a rumor or whatever, but it seems you're right - whatever reason the associate dean had for worrying about a law suit, no suit ever went to trial that I can find.
Thanks again. Hopefully you'll be around next time I forget the name of the school, since I always forget, but I think I'll remember that there wasn't an actual law suit, or at least not one that was publicized.
... of reading the OP and concluding that the presiding Judge is in any way biased against the plaintiffs (the three female Google employees).
If anything, the exact opposite could be true.
The Judge will know that this case is going to be ferociously defended by Google, that it will garner a very great deal of public interest and scrutiny and that, if it gets as far as substantive rulings, could very well set a precedent and become case law that is cited in future disputes. In other words, the Judge simply can't afford to allow even a small chink or gap or flaw in the prosecution's argument, because to do so would be to invite the defendants to demand that the case be tossed.
Nor should you read the above statement and conclude that I believe the Judge to be inclined towards the plaintiffs in this case. The Judge will equally demand that the defendants are thorough and reasoned in their arguments.
This case has all the hallmarks of something that will be super-significant. The Court is simply making sure that both parties put their best legal foot forward.
If you want to adjust for whatever you think the value of diversity is, fine - if you're the boss and you think it'll help your team be more effective, cool.
ALSO recognize there are other effects, if you want to the best performance. At my last job, my department shared a wing of the building with the accounting department. The accounting department was mostly women, including the CFO. My department was mostly men. In my department, we socialized by "giving each shit" - basically insulting each other, as male friends and co-workers do. We enjoyed some competition and it helped us do a better job. My boss, who was female, got along well in the culture of our department too - a culture that followed traditionally masculine norms.
The accounting department, mostly females, functioned differently. They didn't "give each shit" to socialize, rather they complimented each other, including "where did you get those great shoes?" That worked for them. The department of women had a way of working together based on how women normally interact, and it worked well.
My current job was similar. We had a good team, who helped each other a lot. We were learning a lot from each other. Then our team was combined with a team from another country, with a different culture. That has made daily Scrums, code reviews, and generally getting things done MUCH harder because in their culture you don't criticize someone's work and you definitely don't ever ask for help. We have to be very careful about learning from each other now because if you point out a different way to do something, somebody is going to get offended - it's insulting, in their culture. Don't offer to help when you have free time and relevant expertise - that means you're implying they are stupid or incompetent. The other team may have been doing great work using whatever social norms they used, but forced diversity has a real cost to our team. Just before combining with the other team, we also hired a guy from another country, with another set of norms about how team members should interact. It makes things tricky. Part of my job is training my team mates on some things. It's really hard to train the one guy who comes from another culture, because I don't understand how to relate to him, how to approach him.
Diversity has some benefits, and it has some costs. My boss at the last job wasn't a girlie girl. She enjoyed "hanging out with the guys", so it was a natural fit. The soft, sensitive guy who worked in accounting with the ladies my have been a natural fit too. Forcing "diversity", especially one man on a team of women or one woman in a team of men has some costs. I never thought about gender when I hired but if I'm ever in a position where I *have* to think about, I'd much rather have a fully balanced team of four women and four men than have only one "odd man out" in a team where everyone else is the opposite gender or culture, leading to one person not fitting in with how the team works.
Just FYI, thinking back over who I've hired, I've hired probably 65% women, 35% men, mostly because I hired for people working under my direct daily supervision and I'm an alpha, dominate personality. In other words, there was no question I was the boss and the leader. A nice, caring boss maybe, but very much the boss. I generally want things to be done my way. At least, learn my way and start by doing it my way,
then make changes only after you fully understand how I do it and why I do it that way. On average, more women are comfortable working in that type of than men. Men *generally tend* to want roles with more autonomy than what I hired for. The men generally didn't stick around as long as the women.
Two bosses each have a budget of $1 million to hire people.
If it's true that their $1 million budget will hire either 8 men or 10 equally effective women*, any smart boss would hire the ten women. His department will be more productive and he'll get bonuses and promotions.
So it *is* his money, in the sense that it's his budget to spend on his team, and he'll be judged on the results.
There are some misogynistic manager, for sure. Maybe not many, but there are some. There are also other managers in the company, though, and other companies in the industry. Assuming the guy who mostly hires men is wrong, his department or company won't do as well as the other boss who hired those great women. The manager who hires the beer team will get the best results and will tend to get promoted, so high-ranking managers would tend to be people who selected the best employees.
* With the same salary, women cost a bit more. Women on average require more health care and that's why their insurance rates were 50% higher, on average. That was a direct cost to employers untill few years ago the law required insurers to ignore that fact and charge men and women the same. Maternity coverage is still optional in practice, though it's not supposed to be, as is mental health. That's a cost difference. The difference in medical issues also affects average time off, which is a cost to employers. Despite this, I've hired mostly women because more women are comfortable with the way I work. Men *typically* want more autonomy.
You have to badge out where I work, too. First our office, then the entrance to the elevator hall, -- arguably you could crowd-surf through one or more of these -- but then the main turnstile which allows only 1 person per swipe. Admittedly these are banks but it's been like this everywhere I've worked in the last 15+ years.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
You claim that discrimination is self-correcting, but there is plenty of evidence that it is not. Racial segregation persisted for more than a century in America despite being against the economic interests of its practitioners.
Another example is sexual discrimination in Japan. Men are usually promoted based on seniority rather than competence, while women are generally excluded from the hierarchy. So it is common for a "super secretary" to be actually running the company, while her incompetent boss sits in his office and drinks tea. Some multi-nationals from America and Europe are able to take advantage of the situation by opening branches in Japan and hiring very competent women at bargain salaries. But there is little sign that Japanese companies are willing to change.
If they scream loudly enough and often enough about a non-existent problem - remember in almost all US megacorps, there is codified systemic employment bias against men - then we will forget about the real problems in the workplace.
Workers upset that wages are stagnant while cost of living is skyrocketing? "He looked at me the wrong way! Reeeeeeeeeee!"
Workers angry that their jobs are being offshored while executives sit back and collect handsome bonuses? "He said 'hi' to me, I feel harassed. Burn the witch! Reeeeeeeeeee!"
Workers demoralized because the entire management of the company went to the same three elitist private schools, and public school grads don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting promoted? "Misogyny! Microaggressions! Literally Hitler! Reeeeeeeeeee!"
From day one. Duck Duck Go is an obvious honeypot.
No women get hired. Period. Can't pay them less if they don't get hired at all. But then I suppose that would be discrimination too. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Then what the fuck do we do?
or not. Remember gay marriage thing in California from ten years ago? When population voted several times to instate marriage as it is, and Californian Supreme Court striking it down?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Sounds more like incompetent lawyers. I certainly had no problem getting class-action status over EA's Spore almost a decade ago.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yes they make you badge out. This is a basic security practice and has been in most big businesses for a good while.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
That is a dismissal. Otherwise an appeal would have to be filed. Basic fucking civics, go back to school.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Just FYI, thinking back over who I've hired, I've hired probably 65% women, 35% men, mostly because I hired for people working under my direct daily supervision and I'm an alpha, dominate personality. In other words, there was no question I was the boss and the leader. A nice, caring boss maybe, but very much the boss. I generally want things to be done my way. At least, learn my way and start by doing it my way,
then make changes only after you fully understand how I do it and why I do it that way. On average, more women are comfortable working in that type of than men. Men *generally tend* to want roles with more autonomy than what I hired for. The men generally didn't stick around as long as the women.
Sounds like you wanted cogs, not professionals, treating the latter badly in the name of "alphaness."
However, your experience is similar to what military leaders have said. Women train more easily. They follow instruction. They conform. But when novelty is needed, a "stepping-up", or in a high-stress environment, squads with women under perform in nearly every category tested.
They sound like 1337 moron snowflakes to me.
If you're walking on eggshells it is because you are a disgusting asshole, and you should have already been keeping to yourself whatever disgusting thing you really "think."
Yes, the above described group of 5 men a probably a bunch of nerds with absolutely zero social skill. (In fact, so few social awareness that they can't even understand what they are going wrong, and how they should handle the communication to avoid devolving into this kind of situations).
Except that, despite being huge unbearable ass-holes, they can manage to get shit done if their all work as a thigh unit.
To me it seems that, although the characters of the guys in that group is problematic, the over all isn't as much a problem of "men vs. women", as problem of HR failing to understand which new team member with which character can be added to the team.
The extra new member would as likely to not fit in if it was also a guy, but one with a more "artist/sensitive/etc." character rather than the "throw shit at each other college bros" (I know that, despite being born with Y chromosome, don't like working on team constantly yelling at each other).
The extra new member could very well fit in the team despite happening to be born with the other set of sex chromosome, if she had the same kind of bad character and throw abuse around as the rest of the team (have actually seen such teams). It's not the extra Y chromosome that make new member fit in, it's the "don't give a shit about anything" attitude that does.
It just happens that for various socio-cultural reasons, these behavious are considered more appropriate for boys and society ends up producing a little bit less women fitting the
Now the fundamental question is : does keeping this kind of teams make sens for the company ? is it worth ?
And it all depends on the kind of company setting.
Small start-up ? Yeah, why not. After all, these guys/gals get shit done despite yelling at each other constantly and getting fucking drunk at the end of each other work day.
Big corporation ? Hum... these team become problematic, because they don't scale up easily. It's hard to find new team members that can actually fit in. And there's only that many new member that you can add in before the constant squabling ecalates to really abusive setting.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Woooosh.
The point was that the judge dismissed the class action status of the lawsuit because it was too broad, i.e. it included some people that did have a claim, but also lots of others that did not have a claim.
This is the same as the #metoo movement, which includes some women with a serious claim (sexual assault, actual harassment etc), but also lots of women that do not have claims (unwanted advances, discomfort etc).
That is the only aspect where the parallell is drawn, and other than that no similiarity between the cases is drawn.
Some multi-nationals from America and Europe are able to take advantage of the situation by opening branches in Japan and hiring very competent women at bargain salaries
So it is self-correcting. Just not always in the most predictable ways.
You were downmodded for your sexist bullshit at "The men here will expose themselves as sexist" and "wallowing in locker room talk", as well as "you filthy misogynistic pigs" and "male chauvinist pigs". Same way you'd be downmodded if you said "Women engineers only engage in bitching and gossiping, snivelling, and sticking their tits in people's faces to get their way".
You did nothing but manufacture a scenario where you would be told off, you made yourself a victim. You are MENTALLY ILL and ADDICTED to being offended, and you are addicted to playing the victim. You will never have a job, you contribute to a toxic environment, and you are sucking up tax money with your constant drawing of welfare while you lie on your back, living in squalor, with your eyes closed and a smile on your face just like the "dreamers".
Is it diversity, or is that other team just really shit?
Could this be the issue?
Drink! Classic AmiMojo gaslighting, asking questions that implying the other person has something wrong with them!
I'm glad some judges aren't idiots and won't drink the Kool Aid. Guessing he's heard of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... and realized he needed proof, not feels.
Just FYI, thinking back over who I've hired, I've hired probably 65% women, 35% men, mostly because I hired for people working under my direct daily supervision and I'm an alpha, dominate personality. In other words, there was no question I was the boss and the leader. A nice, caring boss maybe, but very much the boss. I generally want things to be done my way. At least, learn my way and start by doing it my way, then make changes only after you fully understand how I do it and why I do it that way. On average, more women are comfortable working in that type of than men. Men *generally tend* to want roles with more autonomy than what I hired for. The men generally didn't stick around as long as the women.
Sounds like you wanted cogs, not professionals, treating the latter badly in the name of "alphaness."
However, your experience is similar to what military leaders have said. Women train more easily. They follow instruction. They conform. But when novelty is needed, a "stepping-up", or in a high-stress environment, squads with women under perform in nearly every category tested.
Being a professional also involves following directions and patterns from above (within reason). It's part of professional discipline (which many people confuse with being cogs.)
I can see exactly where the op is coming from. I've seen my share of fools who simply can't follow directions. My way-or-the-highway. I actually had to work with one like that just recently (a woman mind you). And a few years before, with another one, a man. In both cases, they were both utterly destructive to productivity.
Ask a person to implement you a tree backed by several hash indexes, and you get all types of variations (even though the concept is simple.) And many of them will be wrong. So as the number of team members increase, you need to start having some patterns of coding, testing, and collaboration.
That is, you need processes. And processes do not need to be perfect, and sometimes not even 100% correct. But you need them to know what the hell people are doing under your command (you can't improve you cannot measure, and you cannot measure what you cannot track.) Have several dozen programmers under your wing working in multiple projects, and you begin to see the need for standardization.
People confuse creativity (professional creativity) with individuality. Furthermore (and specially in the MaleNerdVerse), people confuse individuality with being an obstinate monkey wrench blocking the gears. Hell, people confuse the dynamics of working in isolated 5-dude teams and working in engineering/enterprise projects requiring dozens, if not hundreds of collaborators.
Professionals (grown up people who care about the craft behind their work), they recognize the need to balance creativity, individuality and being part of a team that follows particular directions and processes (the things that makes them "cogs".)
You need help. Or you need to work with different people or something. What you are describing, that shit is not normal. That people actually vote this shit "insightful", holy crap, you guys need to grow the hell up and become men (real men, not boys with a need to thump your chest like capuchin monkeys pretending to be gorillas.)
The fact you had to resort to name calling to belittle his point shows he's right and you're wrong. It's why he's voted up, and you're not.
Males and Females interact differently. "Bro culture" is not bad, "Bros" are not a negative. Trying to paint it as so, and trying to paint people who are more upfront and frank about their positions and who aren't afraid of a little conflict to get stuff done quicker are not bad, as much as your ilk tries to make them out to be.
The more PC society gets, the less stuff actually gets done, the more processes are put in place, and the more people argue about people instead of ideas. The less PC society is, the more actual ideas are discussed, based on the idea's merits, rather than who put them forth, and whether they are "Acceptable" or not.
Try it sometimes, discuss an idea you think is "unacceptable" based on its sole merit. You might find that it's your perceived societal norm that's flawed, not the "unacceptable" idea.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Protip: You don't have to press each letter separately on your phone; you can swipe across the keyboard and the phone will figure it out. Every once in a while it makes an error, tough. In business correspondence you may want to check for such errors. On Slashdot, I don't care.
> Sounds like you wanted cogs, not professionals, treating the latter badly in the name of "alphaness."
Some tasks, such as handling explosives, require carefully following well-defined procedures. Other jobs require taking initiative. I supervised a couple people handling explosives and I don't think I was "treating them badly" by asking them to do it properly so they don't get blown up. Aircraft maintenance is another "do it this way" job, composing music is a "do your own thing" job. Taking initiative and trying possibly ways to do it is good in some jobs, it can be deadly in other jobs. The same day I last oversaw newer guys handling pyro and needed to tell them repeatedly "don't do it that way, do it this way", at another location two people doing the same job died because they didn't follow the rules I was enforcing. They blew up their truck full of professional-sized pyro.
Individuals vary greatly, of course, but *on average*, women will be more comfortable than men in jobs where taking initiative is a bad thing. If you hired strictly on who will be safest, following the procedure and pick up the boxes of e-match, not slide them, people will use use anvil cutters, not scissors, etc. without getting pissed that they are being told how things need to be done, you'll end up with maybe 70% women and 30% men on your crew.
> Is it diversity, or is that other team just really shit?
That's a fair question. I charitably assume they don't suck, they just work *differently*.
> I don't think the Agile development methodology is related to any particular ... or cultural group
The Agile Manifesto, which basically defines Agile, is short and easy to read:
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.
http://agilemanifesto.org/
The first and second sentences say it's about values (social / cultural.values) including helping others develop software. Agile is about "Individuals and interactions over processes". Everyone I've ever worked with from other cultures has said that the emphasis on individuality and de-emphasis on process is the #1 striking difference about US work culture. Other cultures don't put "individuals over processes" like that, the #1 characteristic of Agile is a very American characteristic. (Also a bit feminine - on average, females value "interactions" and "collaboration" than men typically do).
"Working software over comprehensive documentation"
"Whatever works" isn't a cultural thing?
"Customer collaboration over contract negotiation"
Collaboration vs negotiation is very much a cultural thing. Also, surveys show women in the US tend to very much dislike negotiation and prefer collaboration. Men tend to be much more comfortable with negotiation. This came up on Slashdot a few months ago.
"Responding to change over following a plan"
Again, being flexible versus following a plan is very much a cultural thing.
It seems to me Agile isn't just "related" to a culture, Agile IS a culture. California culture. It's not even a great fit for Texas culture, not to mention Pakistan or Colombia.
In these jobs, following directions IS merit. It's important that things be done right; more important than trying out new ideas on live systems that can do real damage.
Speaking as an Economics professor . . .
It is easy to explain why someone would pay a woman less than a man.
It is, at best, difficult to explain why anyone would hire a man that has to be paid more than a woman . . .
doc hawk
> They seem to be saying that they value people interacting rather than following a process or using a tool, but doesn't say anything about social or cultural values.
If you don't think that an emphasis on individuals and people interacting, as opposed to following the process, is a cultural thing, read up on some other cultures. One good example would be Japan. Read a bit about how people do their jobs in Japan, what corporate culture is like. China too. It's VERY different from the US.
Sounds more like incompetent lawyers. I certainly had no problem getting class-action status over EA's Spore almost a decade ago.
So you're were a lawyer on the case then? So there were no dismissals in that case? Before you answer, you do know we have Google and can look these things up, right?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Okay, let's agree to disagree, but how does it relate to the original point? First team were a bunch of guys being "jocks" or want of a better word, and the second team was more about communication and interaction yet somehow was also terrible at communication and interaction.
How is this related to diversity? Do you mean cultural diversity, as in trying to integrate the "jocks" and the agile team somehow created a hostile environment? I'm not seeing how diversity is the cause of the effect.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I think your sexist theories are being supported by pretty shoddy data.
and even with the report screwing-up and not counting men that worked more than 24 hours straight......the average was 74 hours a week for the male engineers.
You do realize that that's more than six 12hr shifts per week, which is illegal in many states regardless of job classification. Regardless, who the fuck is working 74 hrs per week, and what is wrong with them? That's an absolutely abusive working schedule, and I can't fathom why someone would volunteer for that for any length of time. And unless those men are getting paid 106% more, and most of the wage-gap data shows far less than this, they are fucking dumbasses for working that much for so little extra pay.
Of course, more than likely what you're doing is not controlling for job type as well as using crappy data, to which you've already admitted.
If you want to use data to be sexist, at least use somewhat quality data and analysis methods.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You need help. Or you need to work with different people or something. What you are describing, that shit is not normal. That people actually vote this shit "insightful", holy crap, you guys need to grow the hell up and become men (real men, not boys with a need to thump your chest like capuchin monkeys pretending to be gorillas.)
The fact you had to resort to name calling to belittle his point shows he's right and you're wrong. It's why he's voted up, and you're not.
Males and Females interact differently. "Bro culture" is not bad, "Bros" are not a negative. Trying to paint it as so, and trying to paint people who are more upfront and frank about their positions and who aren't afraid of a little conflict to get stuff done quicker are not bad, as much as your ilk tries to make them out to be.
The more PC society gets, the less stuff actually gets done, the more processes are put in place, and the more people argue about people instead of ideas. The less PC society is, the more actual ideas are discussed, based on the idea's merits, rather than who put them forth, and whether they are "Acceptable" or not.
Try it sometimes, discuss an idea you think is "unacceptable" based on its sole merit. You might find that it's your perceived societal norm that's flawed, not the "unacceptable" idea.
I belittle the point because the point deserves belittling. There is no goddamned way that normal people who know how to communicate with other members of the human race in a professional manner need to do any of the bullshit that he purports. And yes, the bro-culture (as depicted in his post) is bad because it purports a level of aggressiveness as if it were a logical necessity to productivity.
That people vote him up (or me down) it's damned irrelevant and does not make his point right. People that truly believes this crap need to get to work in different circles to see how grown-ups, men and women in collaboration, actually get it done without the vulgarian histrionics.
>. ? First team were a bunch of guys being "jocks"
Like most computer programmers, my team of developers isn't jocks. They do try to follow cultural norms about how you interact with people.
> Okay, let's agree to disagree, but how does it relate to the original point?
If you don't think social norms, how people are expected to interact, are part of culture, I'm not sure we can advance much here. I guess I can quote Merriam Webster for you:
Culture:
: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization a corporate culture focused on the bottom line
: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic studying the effect of computers on print culture
Agile, as explained in the Agile Manifesto and the Agile Principles, is a "set of attitudes, goals, and practices" - the very definition of culture.
> communication and interaction. How is this related to diversity?
US culture, how US people communicate amd interact with each other, is different from Japanese culture, which is different from Colombian culture, which is different from Pakistani culture. Pakistani people communicate and interact in very different ways than Americans. If you think Japan is exactly like the US, just further East, they do the same things in the same ways and value the same things, that simply isn't so. The rules are different in different places. A team generally works most effectively when all the team members are playing by the same set of rules. In a game, having one guy playing basketball rules, three guys playing American football rules, and two women playing according to rugby rules just makes a mess. Your team wouldn't be able to score any points, or even be able to agree on whether they had scored points or not.
A good portion of your communication here on Slashdot would be considered extremely rude in most cultures, because you're operating under the rules of US culture.
Is it me or did I read that before? Is that always the same three women?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
See similar: “The Things We Think and Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business”.
There is a good bet that I will erase all of this from my laptop, and you will never read it. But if you are reading it, and you’re reading it right now, it is only because I was unable to stop. I was unable to forget the quiet questions in the hallways, when some of you, usually the younger agents, or interns, asked me on the side...
Chances are, I didn’t say much. I might have told you “it’s easy” or “you’re not working hard enough.” Chances are, I said something that you expected, maybe even wanted to hear. But it wasn’t the truth, and it wasn’t what I felt. And if you ever wondered about the drawbacks of being quiet about important things, talk to yourself in the mirror some time, say the truth. Yell the truth to yourself, when no one is listening. See how good it feels?
We are now at a point of transformation with this company. But this is not something to fear, it is something to celebrate. Because I come to you tonight, looking out at the dark Miami skyline, not only with a challenge. I come to you with answers too.
The two examples I gave from my original post were showing each other better ways to do things, and offering / getting help when someone has time available to help or someone is having a hard time with something.
In Texas, if you're broken down on the side of the road, most likely someone will stop to help within just a few minutes. If a native Texan is painting the inside of their house, there is a good chance friends are helping. That's Texas culture. Our team at work, in the Dallas office, had the same culture. In every morning scrum I say at least once "let me know how I can help". Whenever one person is done with "their" tasks, they then help with tasks others are working on. (Really all tasks are team tasks.) That's ALSO Agile culture, so we had a double portion of it.
Then we hired a guy from another country, with another culture, and soon after combined with a team from a third country. The guy who isn't from Texas was pretty mad when I offered to help. "Ray treats me like I'm an idiot and can't do anything", he thought. That's how his culture views things. What we Texans call "helpfully pointing out a more effective way of doing a certain thing" is called "criticism" in his culture, it's insulting and it's rude.
The team that joined us had cultural norms about "criticism" and asking for help similar to the new guy, but not the same. Very different from Texas norms of how you communicate and work together. What a diverse set of viewpoints on how teams are supposed to work together!
It's slightly frustrating for the whole team but I'm the designated trainer for several things. My *job* is to teach them better ways of doing things, and to help them. That's tricky when offering to show them something is considered insulting.
I notice that you and I have some diverse viewpoints, and it's making communication difficult and frustrating.
There are advantages to having people with different viewpoints discuss things, and when you're trying to get shit done there are some disadvantages too. Can you imagine you and I trying to architect a system together? We might get the overall basic design done within two years.
> this individual hasn't made any effort to understand the culture they work in.
They work where they are from. I work where I am from. We videoconference every morning.
No it isn't a dismissal of the suit. Just a denial of the request to turn it into a class action. The lawyers plan to refile in order in an attempt to make it suitable for a class action, but that's their choice. They could just continue the suit on behalf of the named plaintiffs if they wanted to. And don't be an asshole.