The Water Cooler - 2017-03-29

« first day (1813 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2596 days later) »

1:11 AM

People's threshold for what offends them keeps going lower and lower every minute. It is now taken as a matter of great pride to get offended over trivial issues, and a great achievement to "win" such battles.

Or as @RichardU would say, getting fake-offended on behalf of others.

2 hours later…

3:20 AM

0

Q: Was delete of obvious extention really justified

Question #87906 has a backlinked deleted question #87921 I do not like the fact that all of the answers fail to consider what might have prompted said employee to ask for such a thing in the first place. I suspect there's a really good reason as I can't imagine doing such a thing and being let g...

5 hours later…

8:26 AM

Interesting ... the "over the manager's head" spinoff set has triggered a spinoff of meta questions as well.

2 hours later…

10:00 AM

Well that was a rollercoaster of emotions. Was suddenly very happy to find out that the GitS movie was released today only to then find out that it's apparently only in theaters in 3D here. Well, back to work I guess... :|

1 hour later…

11:05 AM

@MonicaCellio I don't think many atheists would be so bothered that they'd make a big stink over having to sit and wait before eating. Beyond the waste of time there is nothing about it that should bother them about the act of prayer. Unless they follow some other philosophy that makes it problematic for the.

11:44 AM

@Erik For sidetopics like religion, I follow the principle of WTFPL. (Look it up, those who don't know it.) It simplifies my life a lot, I am sure I have added at least 5 years to my life by doing this.

12:25 PM

@MaskedMan Yep. I am not a fan of the oppression Olympics. I think that the most accurate expression in the English language is "take offence". Offence has to be taken.

12:37 PM

Are there general questions along the lines of "What do I do when my IT department is unhelpful"? Couldn't find any, and I'm on the verge of asking one.

@Erik I don't understand offence at religion either. Atheists I have encountered fall into one of two categories: People who simply have no beliefs and people who's belief is disbelief. Those who disbelieve tend to proselytize more than Jehova's witnesses

@svavil I think I answered one like that. I'll look for it and post it here if I find it

105

A: How to deal with IT help desk that does not acknowledge requests for help?

As always, document everything. If you can get other employees to collaborate, do so. Ask your manager if he can do the same with other managers and have them escalate. What you need to do is make a case to the higher ups that this is costing them money. THAT always gets their attention. "X hour...

@Svavil see if this helps ^^^^^^

@RichardU thanks

Yeah, I had even commented in one of the answers there. Must be the last time I got annoyed by out IT dept.

12:59 PM

@svavil Yeah, I'm amazed at who's in IT these days.

1 hour later…

2:25 PM

@Erik since I'm not an atheist I don't want to speak for them. I did mean the "firmly believe no" ones as opposed to the "don't care" ones, which I think of as "apatheists" more than "atheists". Anyway, yeah, there's variation within any group.

@MaskedMan the important word in WTFPL for this application is "you". I don't care if somebody else says prayers or otherwise practices his religion; after all, I want to be free to practice mine so how on earth could I hinder someone else practicing his? The issue is if he implicates me, speaks on my behalf, or presumes. "I give thanks to you oh FSM"? Great, go for it. "We give thanks..."? No, we don't.

I think it's more about the ones that have been hurt by religion. Where I live, religion doesn't mean much and the people who firmly don't believe and the people who don't care about the whole subject aren't going to be bothered by it

It's personal versus collective religious observance. The public-school teacher should be free to wear a cross but not to put one on the classroom wall. People should be able to put whatever decorations they want on their own property but not at city hall. That sort of thing.

There's little difference between thanking Jesus and thanking the fairy godmother to an atheist. Unless you've been personally hurt by the followers of one of those two in the past

So if I were the employee in that situation, I'd take the CEO aside for a quiet word and ask him to modify how he does his prayer. Not stop doing it; he might have a religious obligation. But rather to do it in a way that leaves me out of it.

@Erik a lot of people have been persecuted by followers of some religions, though. (I used FSM there to avoid offending, not to trivialize the issue.)

Sure, but then a lot of people have been persecuted by followers of a lot of things, and mostly that doesn't bother us much unless we've somehow made it personal. I'm sure somewhere in history, some of my family members have been killed by royalists, that doesn't mean I have a problem with them now.

2:33 PM

Christians like to invoke "Jesus Christ our lord" and to this Jew Jesus was neither "christ" (messiah)" nor lord (and certainly not present tense). Public events that have nothing to do with religion, like city council meetings, routinely open with such prayers. And it's pretty offensive, as they're supposed to be our public events too, not just theirs.

I agree completely when it comes to government meetings. Those should be completely free of religion because they are for everyone.

@Erik if it hasn't affected you, your family, or your people, then you probably don't care (and congratulations on your good fortune). I'm not trying to make broad sweeping statements here; I'm trying to explain how individuals can feel extremely uncomfortable in these kinds of situations and where some of the boundaries around them are.

@MonicaCellio In a very religious community, I can't imagine pulling aside the CEO and asking him/her to change or stop their prayers would work - they'd probably view it as evidence of them being religiously oppressed

@Erik and (public) schools, and the public square.

@Erik Government meetings and public schools are an entirely different matter, due to the first amendment.

2:36 PM

@BradC it depends on how you approach it. First off, I'd use phrases like "I feel" a lot, and seek a compromise. "Don't do that" isn't going to fly; asking that he not speak for the group could.

@BradC should be, and yet we have fundamentalist Christians pushing organized prayer and religious monuments and stuff. I live in a northern blue state and it happens here; it must be pretty stifling to be a non-Christian religious person in other parts of the country.

Private businesses are still subject to some laws that restrict religious behavior (they can't discriminate in hiring/firing by religion, they must allow individual employees to practice their own faith), but even these are subject to wide interpretation, and other restrictions (like company size and US state)

Yup, lots of variation for private companies.

@MonicaCellio yes, I should have said "government funded events". Schools count. Public square is iffy; you can organise your own meeting in those if you like.

@Erik I didn't mean meetings but monuments, creches, that sort of thing.

And I agree that inviduals can feel uncomfortable; that's what I meant with "personally hurt by religion".

2:39 PM

Yep, I'm an atheist in the midwest, Christianity is basically assumed here

Also agree there; those should also be free of it

"You can put up your own thing" isn't a convincing response.

the Satanic Church (which is actually a non-religious political organization) has had luck stepping into those situations and proposing their "monument to Bal-a-Poteht" or whatever it is

Scares people half to death and shuts the whole thing down.

Yeah. Their articles always amuse me. They basically just do the same thing everyone else does and then suddenly it's ridiculous.

Same with Pastafarians and their Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Yep, they also have a "satanic coloring book" they use when Christian organizations want to hand out their Bible-related stuff. "Ok, sure!"

2:43 PM

The pastafarians are still arguing with the courts here an okay to have their passport pictures taken with a colander on their heads

And the funny thing is the coloring book is actually very tastefully done, cute exercizes, good values, etc.

@Erik eh, the pastafarians and their driver's license colanders seem to be more of a "what can we get away with that makes people chuckle" situation. More amusing than making a serious (or useful) point.

Their useful point is that we still allow a lot of baseless religious exemptions to laws. The passport is just a fairly harmless example of it.

Perhaps, I just don't see "make a baseless exemption for me, too!" as all that meaningful

I don't think they neccesarily want an exemption. They just want the law to be equal for everyone. "No more exceptions for anyone" would be perfectly okay with the pastafarians.

Right now, claiming to be religious gets you special benefits that the non-religious don't get. That's sort of their point. This is just one of the ways they're showing it

Sure, but again, the "special benefit" of being able to wear something on your head in a photo for an official document doesn't seem like a worthwhile place to draw that line in the sand, at least to me. And I can definitely see the usefulness of the (general) requirement that people remove their ball caps/10-gallon cowboy hats/hoodie hoods/sombreros/etc for the photo.

2:56 PM

I think they just use it as an easy and harmless example, not because that thing SPECIFICALLY is such a big issue.

The problem is that it's kind of a dick-move to go around removing your kids earlobes for religious to point out that it's equally crazy to remove their foreskin for the same. What they're doing now doesn't hurt anyone and still is an easy example of religious benefits and unfair application of rules.

3:19 PM

@Erik Lokeans have a nasty habit of throwing a spanner in the works as well.

I'm still wondering why people just can't leave each other alone though.

Haven't heard of those before.

And I don't know why people can't leave each other alone. They have some kind of need to bother each other because they think they know better and don't trust others to do their own thing or something.

3:47 PM

@MonicaCellio Why do you care? Just let them do what they want. Somewhere in the world at this moment, someone said, "I thank the Almighty on behalf of all the humans of the present, past and future ..." Yeah, who cares about his prayer?

People, like software, should strive to be conservative in what they send and generous in what they accept. If you need to pray before eating (I do, by the way), you don't have to drag everybody in the room into it. If somebody is praying quietly, you don't need to be part of it.

@MaskedMan I don't care about anything that's between other people or between other people and God (or any other being they might be praying to). I only care if they drag me into it.

@MonicaCellio But who is getting affected by getting upset about it? Yes, people should do this and do that, but that they don't is the reality.

You don't get "dragged" into someone's prayer just because he says so, but only if you allow yourself to be dragged.

@MaskedMan I'm not getting upset. I'm saying that if I were in a workplace where the higher-ups routinely began non-optional group events with a prayer, I would quietly ask for a change in how we did that. That's all.

@MaskedMan if everybody is sitting around the table, perhaps instructed to take hands or bow their heads or whatever, and the leader proceeds to invoke Jesus or Muhammad or Ba'al or Satan or whomever, I've been dragged into either consenting or having to visibly object. I just want to be left alone -- you pray your way, I'll pray mine, and neither of us forces it on the other. What's so hard about that?

"I would walk out of a room" does sound like getting upset though. Anyway, my point here is, life is imperfect, people are imperfect, and trying to force perfection upon them will not make them perfect. It will only hurt you.

@MaskedMan not "storm out in a huff" -- simply withdraw.

This shouldn't be about force; it should be about reasonable people trying to negotiate a shared social or professional context in a way that doesn't make people uncomfortable.

3:52 PM

Alright, I concede the point about you not being upset.

You get only one short life, enjoy it as much as you can. Don't waste it on stupid things. Pick your battles, or to put it more bluntly, "just ignore those idiots".

@MonicaCellio I understand your desire to be left alone, and if you can achieve that, it is great.

However, things don't always work the way we want to, it is up to us how much we want to let that affect us.

@MaskedMan there have been a couple cases where I've achieved it. A quiet word to the person who just assumed everybody was christian took care of it. The cost of having that private word was much lower than the cost of an ongoing irritation, so it was worth it. A polite request can often work.

Not always, of course. You have to gauge the individual situation.

Yes, of course, you should always consider the risk versus reward.

I've also been driven out of a community because of belligerent Christian presumption. That can happen too, unfortunately. The cost of leaving was lower than the cost of enduring it, so I left.

It reminds me of some advice one of my seniors gave me early in my career. I was once upset at the rather low appraisal I got, and asked this senior if I should consider escalating it to the next level manager.

He replied briefly and bluntly, "What good do you expect to come out of it? You will have to spend 4 months documenting evidence of your performance and multiple meetings, and then nothing is likely to come out of it. You might as well put that effort in updating your resume, and attending interviews. That is more likely to get you something good."

and even if you convince the upper level manager and he changes your rating, they will constantly monitor you from now on, and pounce on any mistake (which they would have normally excused). So always think 10 steps in advance, this is the workplace, it is a brutal game, not a picnic.

4:17 PM

Yes, "is it worth fighting" is certainly a question that must be asked, but that doesn't mean it is any less an injustice.

it's a question that someone facing (mild or severe) sexual harassment faces

Or racial discrimination

It's always a calculation

But that doesn't mean that we can't call it what it is (especially since we're sitting here in the comfort of the workplace.SE chat room)

@BradC Certainly, I don't say, "don't fight any battles", but "pick your battles". A battle that is important to me may not be important to you. But what is important is you know your battle is important to you.

There's certainly nothing wrong with a coworker or manger being religious, but if there are expectations that others in the company will participate/go along, that's (probably) inappropriate, and (in some cases) could be a violation of religious discrimination laws

Other (common) examples: "optional" (but not really) charity events/donation drives that benefit only religious organizations

@BradC and you could either keep fighting that in court for the rest of your life, or ignore it and move on. Neither is "wrong", it depends on each person what he wants to do.

My personal rule for this kind of fights is, look at what you expect to improve if you "win". If that improvement is important, then go ahead.

Sure, and that's why in addition to civil rights lawyers there are organizations like the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) that can also help fight that fight

(in many cases leaving the plaintiff anonymous)

Example, manager does a handstand facing the direction of North Pole at the start of every meeting because of his ahemreligious obligationsahem. He doesn't force anyone else to join, but the meeting does carry a lot of religious undertones because of the "inauguration". Now if I fight against it, what changes? At the most, that one department in that one company will improve its policies. That's not such a big victory (to me), so I don't bother.

4:28 PM

But the choices don't have to be "ugly fight" and "ignore it". There's a middle ground where you try to diplomatically and politely change things. Maybe you propose a different charity for the next "optional but not really" thing, or (here's one I've done) ask if the company party could be on a Saturday night instead of a Friday night (Shabbat), or what I said about praying for yourself without praying for the group.

Sometimes people are evangelists who are going to make it a fight (sometimes they're hoping you will), but sometimes they're just oblivious and don't realize what they're doing.

@MonicaCellio Uhm, yeah, but I wasn't considering situations which get resolved through talking, but only those scenarios where there is some sort of conflict and needs some "fighting" (ugly or otherwise).

Once upon a time, I worked at a company where excrement hit the fan with alarming regularity. Some employees considered "fighting" it out and considered ways to "form an unofficial union", sending anonymous complaints to the company's ethics hotline, and such. I joined in for a bit, and realized that nothing is going to change here.

@MaskedMan But if everyone in the company is a self-professed North-Facing-Handstander, and every meeting starts with group N-F-Handstand while reciting the North-Only-Pledge, and you come in as a hardcore South-Facing-Handstander (or a blasphemous East-Facing-FootStander) that's quite a different situation (and closer to the reality of what we're talking about here)

So I left that job about 3 years ago, and now I spend zero time thinking about that company and their strange policies, but many of them stayed on, and they are still fighting. I meet them once in a while, and for about 90% of the time we meet, they are still whining about the "latest policy update".

Fighting crappy corporate policy is not at all the same, other than it being an entirely different category of "things I'd like to change"

So you can notice the difference there. Imagine if their social interactions are so polluted, how much time they must be spending worrying inside their mind all the time? And they have been doing this for the past 3 years. It is sad really, but they just don't listen, they want to win the fight no matter what the cost.

@BradC It may be close to the reality of what you were talking about, but what I was talking about is spending undue amount of time and energy over stupid things. For example, if the corporate policy suggests a prayer at 9am facing North Pole, but nobody really cares if you do it or not, then I don't see the point of wasting your time telling them to strike down that policy.

and believe it or not, I have seen people fighting for ages over such silly things.

4:40 PM

@MaskedMan oh, I thought we were still back at uncomfortable situations, not escalated already. Yes, if it's something you have to either fight out or suck up, you have to decide how important it is. No argument there.

The main difference is that crappy corporate policy, culture, standards aren't against the law. Religious discrimination and sexual harassment are. So yes, you certainly have to ask "is this fight winnable? Am I up for this fight? Is this that big of a deal?"

It has been a little over a millennium since some people started fighting over who would be the "true successor" to someone. All those people involved in that fight as well as their next 30 generations are gone, but we still keep fighting, and dragging the whole world into that fight. Those are the kinds of silly fights I was talking about, where "just ignore it and move on" is almost certainly a better idea than "I must teach them who is right, no matter what."

I think Brad and I (I won't speak for him but this is true of me) were talking about things that matter, not nonsense policy stuff, and where it hadn't yet escalated.

And yes, depending on the details, having a corporate prayer at a non-optional event could (in some states) be interpreted as religious descrimination

I know people of all faiths from Hindu to Shinto to Buddhist to Wiccan, to Asatru to Jewish to Muslim to various flavors of Christianity to atheists. My own opinion is that if someone wants to invoke a higher power, especially in my favor (a blessing, etc) I'll take it.

4:42 PM

I think it is fair to say that we are in agreement here, just that we were looking at different things.

I just don't understand how any of it is a big deal to anyone.

I mean that literally. It does not reach my ability to comprehend

@Erik Lokeans are followers of the Norse god Loki. Very mischevious bunch, but usually not malicious.

@RichardU Honestly, as a nihilist, I don't care who does what. Everything in this world is worthless garbage anyway.

Sometimes it is helpful to flip the situation, and see if people's reactions might change. Back when I was a conservative Christian, I would have been extremely bothered if someone had attempted to invoke a (Jewish/Hindu/Muslim) prayer that I couldn't opt out of.

But frankly (because of the Christian majority in this country) I never faced that situation.

@MaskedMan tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/TheAntiNihilist

<====

And yet Christians so often insist that people from other faiths just "should put up with it" when Christian prayers are invoked.

4:47 PM

@BradC In my case it would not have offended me at all. Then again I've been to religious cerimonies of all stripes

And no, not everyone is bothered (Like @RichardU), but how many others are, but don't feel comfortable expressing so?

@BradC serious question. Why do people get bothered. I cannot figure that one out.

or, if anyone can explain that to me, I'd like to know

So while I agree with some what you are saying, I soundly disagree with the "it doesn't bother me, therefore it shouldn't bother you" claim

@RichardU Well, as a Christian, I believed that evil spirits were real, and the Christianity was the only religion that worshiped the real God.

Other religions were fake, or (worse) actually worshiped (literal) demons.

Participating in their worship (in any form), was "opening myself up to the enemy" (Satan)

This isn't an uncommon view, this is what (most) all "Evangelical" Christians believe, and that's probably 20-30% of the US population

So it wasn't just a neutral anthropological observation, it was playing with evil spirits

@BradC My mother was of that opinion, but also very live and let live. That others were entitled to their beliefs and that it was ultimately between them and the almighty.

@BradC thank you. I think I get it a little better now.

So obviously not all Christians hold that belief, and as an atheist (now) I think it is entirely hogwash

(the existence of any Gods or spirits at all)

Here in the Midwest (and even moreso in smaller towns), such a high percentage of people are, in fact, church-going Christians that it is common to find a workplace where literally everyone has a similar religious belief.

In that case they may not even realize how much they use that language, or make those assumptions, until someone else comes into the office who doesn't share it. And as @MonicaCellio mentioned above, sometimes a small mention is sufficient, but other times it results in a "you can't tell me to hide my faith!" pushback.

4:58 PM

@BradC No that was not what I said. In fact WTFPL covers that too. "You just do what the f you want to do." The purpose of the discussion was to try to explain my viewpoint on the matter, and hope that people would find that convincing. If it doesn't convince you, that is fine too. There is nothing "wrong" about it.

So yes, you have to gauge the expected reaction, maybe demur a bit on "where do you go to church?" questions, etc

As I said, I have added at least 5 years to my life by getting out of useless fights.

One of the fantastic things about Hinduism (and I mean the "real" thing, not the fake crap that people teach) is it is extremely "customizable". As a matter of fact, I am an atheist and a nihilist, but I can still consider myself Hindu.

7

A: Having lunch at home

There is an important piece of career advise which you hear over and over again: Never eat alone! Eating lunch together is an important opportunity to network and bond together. Not only do you miss out on forming personal connections with your coworkers, you will also miss out on a lot of unoff...

This answer triggers a question that I have had in mind for a while. If I ask it now, would that be considered a "spinoff" and deleted?

5:21 PM

@MaskedMan LOL! People like you frustrated the HELL out of the Christian missionaries. When told about the Trinity and Jesus as the spirit made flesh, it was welcomed into many sects of Hinduism, but it was still Hinduism. The missionaries didn't know whether to score that as a victory or not.

@RichardU People like to mock Hinduism for "33 crore gods" (which by itself is a stupid statement, there aren't that many), but they shut up when I ask them, "Ok, how many do you have? Just one? And you are stuck with him for life even if you don't like him? That's so sad."

@MaskedMan that is actually pretty darned funny.

There, done!

0

Q: How can I avoid the negatives of "never eat alone", when I do not have lunch at all?

This answer advises to "never eat alone" at the workplace if you want to go ahead in your career. That sounds like good advice, but a major problem I have with following that is I do not have lunch at work at all. I do not have lunch alone, I do not have lunch at my desk, I do not go home to ha...

communication politics team-building

It is not a troll, I have this genuine question. I just did not consider posting it here until now because I didn't think it was any more important than "I wear shoes that have no laces to work. Will that affect my career?"

5:58 PM

@MaskedMan I never eat lunch with anyone in the office, yet, I'm well liked by my peers. Then again, I rarely take lunch lol. I feel the only time this would be an applicable situation is when you're doing lunch with your superiors. This is something you really should attend, even if you're there eating crackers.

Random question, does rep decay?

6:23 PM

No, reputation does not decay. If yours is going down randomly, that means some question you've scored rep on has been deleted or something like that.

I like the customizable religions. Especially the ones that combine well with being an atheist. They tend to get the idea of "if it works, steal and adapt it. If it doesn't, ditch it." As far as rules to live by go, that's a pretty decent one to follow.

@Erik thanks!

@Erik or the user account that upvoted you got deleted or someone who serial-upvoted you got those votes reversed ... I have had both of those cause a drop in my reputation a couple of times.

Yes, those are also things that could happen. I tried to come up with more random events that would cause rep-loss, but it's late and I'm tired so I ran a blank :)

6:41 PM

Vote reversals and user deletions leave entries in your reputation history. (No details like which posts had votes removed, but you get the event.) I can't remember if you see an event for a deletion. (Moderators do, which is why I can't just check my own.)

@Erik Oh I wasn't trying to show that your "answer" was insufficient. Just adding on ...

Yeah, you filled in the "something like that" very nicely :)

7:13 PM

I don't really know how this is a workplace issue. You make it sound like it's a problem related to stress management rather than actual interactions with colleagues - can you clarify what you are trying to ask here? It really reads like a rant against coworkers more than anything else. — enderland ♦ 5 secs ago

@MaskedMan I think the main thing where not eating with people matters is people feel you are less a part of the team

I've a colleague on my team who never eats with us and I think he feels alienated some because of that, both from me as well as others on our team

« first day (1813 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2596 days later) »

Transcript for

Mar '1729

The Water Cooler

General chit-chat for workplace.stackexchange.com. Feel free t...

ask-your-manager use-headphones

join this room
about this room

00:00

06:00

12:00

18:00

all times are UTC

site design / logo © 2024 Stack Exchange Inc; legal

mobile