I think you will agree a tyrannical workplace that stifles honest conversation and criticism is a pretty shitty place to work, and perpetuates the unhealthy power imbalance between employers and employees. A workplace shouldn't be a kingdom of the CEO where his word is law, at least not as it applies to your everyday behavior and speech. Exceptions of course to expecting widely accepted professional behavior.
No, I don't agree. Nobody should feel uncomfortable in their workplace, especially if the reason for discomfort has nothing to do with work. Comments about gender, sexual orientation, and race are almost never appropriate. College is a very different environment because people go there to learn holistically.
I poorly worded the parent comment. I agree with everything you said. It's when you take "nobody should feel uncomfortable in their workplace" to the absolute extremes that things become difficult, which is what a discussion about "micro-aggressions" becomes. At what point does someone's uncomfortableness with something become invalid? It's obviously not limitless.
No, but most companies filter out the most unreasonable people in their hiring process. I think you're making a caricature of these people's attempts to support their coworkers. "Microaggressions" in this context means that you should be careful about the little things you say, because you're in a multicultural workplace.
Startups are more like colleges than businesses. You drink a lot of beer, play ping pong, get no sleep, and after 4 years you're broke and moving back in with your parents.
No, most businesses will not in fact benefit from a venting of the open and honest feelings of people who strongly believe in prejudices against races, genders, religions, ages, ethnicities, and the like.
To be fair, I specified "civil." The thread started by referencing "micro aggressions," so I don't think strong beliefs in prejudices really apply here. I agree that most spaces (college or business) should be free of most types of aggression, but it seems to me that there is a subset of people who perceive aggression (or even go looking for it) when it is not in fact there. There is a cost to being too careful in what you say just as there is a cost in not being careful enough.
You know, now that I've had a chance to think about it, the fact that you would interpret what I wrote as in any way condoning racist or sexist behaviour is exactly the sort of reaction I was talking about.
He's saying politics has no place at work. you're there to make money, producing a quality product or service. Not to meditate on your philosophy of 21st century feminism.
Neither do they seem to appreciate my honest opinion that coworker X is a complete and total moron who shouldn't be allowed to tie his shoe laces unsupervised, much less be writing code.
I think that honestly is valued when we are talking about other people's ideas and efforts, but not so much when we just think the other person is an idiot/jerk/psychopath, etc.
No, most employers would not appreciate an employer's earnest report that their coworker is "a complete and total moron who shouldn't be allowed to tie his shoe laces unsupervised". I think your problems may have less to do with principles and more to do with communications.
No, they don't. Go to the Fortune 500, start at the top, and spot the first company where you can have "open, honest conversations" in the manner of a college dorm.
I don't think people are advocating for blatant sexism and harassment you see in dorms. They are advocating that a company shouldn't have an essay-length corporate policy on what their personal definition of a "micro-aggression" is and how you need to change your every day speech to remove vocabulary that 0.000001% of the population finds offensive and complains about on their tumblr page.
I am frankly disappointed with how obtuse you are being about this. I expected more from someone like you.
"Don't call team members names, and don't make jokes about their race, gender, religion, ethnicity, or age." doesn't require an essay-length policy. I think I just did it in one sentence.
I don't know what to do with your last sentence. What would disturb me is if someone here believed I was sanguine about gendered hostility in the workplace.
I think you are missing the original point of the comment that started this discussion. We are discussing "micro-aggressions". Examples of micro-aggressions:
I am not discussing harassment, or jokes about any of the groups you listed. I am not discussing verbal discrimination. I am discussing micro-aggressions, the range of which varies drastically from person to person. Having a workplace that has to narrowly define what their definition of a micro-aggression is, to the point of saying "You are not allowed to comment on the appearance of a coworker in any way, even the smallest comment about their haircut or liking their shoes" is what I am, and presumably other people in this comment thread, are against.
As you can see in the PDF I linked, it's two very dense pages of explanation. Having something like this included in a corporate policy is what I find to be a bad idea. Granted, there are very obvious things in the PDF that are just plain old harassment, but there are also plenty of things that are silly to expect to enforce in a workplace.
What company are we discussing that has entered this document into their company policy?
Don't comment on coworkers appearances. It's usually unwelcome and almost always creepy. You shouldn't need a policy document to tell you that. If you have a relationship with someone in your workplace that makes those comments kosher, you already know it.
If I see a coworker that has some cool new shoes or a new jacket, I don't see the problem telling them. How is a cool new haircut any different?
Asking someone where they are from doesn't mean I think they are not "a true American." I might just be interested to know where they are from. That could be Cleveland or Dubai. I'm from the Seattle area. Are we not allowed to know anything about our coworkers?
If I saw a coworker juggling in the break room and I asked them how they got so good at it (because I have tried for years to get it and still suck at it) then we have some good conversation about juggling. That question doesn't come loaded with a "because usually women suck at juggling" qualifier. The same is true about math.
Yeah it's almost like importing the lingua franca of a bunch of extremists into your organizational policy isn't necessary and that the actual sensible part of it can be easily summarised in simple and straight forward english. Hmmm...