
Diversity and Feedback at GitHub - akerl_
https://github.com/blog/1843-diversity-and-feedback-at-github
======
YABguy
There is an interesting race/gender intersectional aspect of the "not enough
women in the pipeline" problem that gets thrown around on HN so often. They're
discounting thousands of Indian and Asian women who are entering the industry
every year, especially at the graduate level. Where do they end up working?
Mostly in big cos. Why? You guessed it - startup "culture". As an anecdote, a
few weeks ago, a very good Indian friend of mine started work at a hot SF
startup (their backend is in Go!). In her second week, she was asked not to
heat up her food in the microwave because her food 'smelled'. If that wasn't
enough, her teammates pressured her to drink a Vodka shot after a major deploy
(which is apparently, customary). Never mind she's never tasted alcohol in her
life. She quit in her 3rd week. This is not a single anecdote. As an Indian
person currently working at a startup, I can tell you first hand that the big
cos I've worked at are far more culturally sensitive and accomodating to POC.

~~~
Pacabel
I find your attitude confusing.

Yes, America has its own culture. Yes, it's often different in many ways from
what's typically found in India. But none of this is a secret.

Anyone who travels, whether for a short term or for much longer, to a country
with distinctly different culture and customs should be prepared to adapt
somewhat. Or at the very least, they should not be offended when the culture
conflicts with what they're accustomed to.

I don't think it's unreasonable to request that one staff member not cook food
that others in the office may find to smell bad. Such a request isn't about
race or gender or anything like that, obviously. I don't doubt that the same
request would be made to an American who chose to cook the same food.

The same goes for celebratory alcohol consumption after big events. It's just
part of American culture in general. It happens when celebrating
accomplishments of all sorts.

It's one thing to avoid overt, unjustified discrimination. But I don't think
that American companies should have to bend over backward to accommodate
people who don't want to accept, or at least tolerate, the basic aspects of
American culture, either.

I say this as somebody who isn't even an American, by the way. This should
hold true regardless of the company, where it's located, and where the foreign
employees are from.

If you want to work in a foreign country, you should be willing to adapt to
their established cultural norms. If you don't like American culture and
customs, for whatever reason, maybe you shouldn't live there.

~~~
jhonovich
"bend over backward to accommodate people who don't want to accept, or at
least tolerate, the basic aspects of American culture"

Drinking shots at work is not a 'basic aspect' of American culture.

~~~
Pacabel
No, it's not something that happens every day. But celebratory drinking after
a significant event is a very common American custom.

Based on what the earlier commenter wrote ("her teammates pressured her to
drink a Vodka shot after a major deploy"), it apparently happened after a
major software deployment. For small startups with close-knit teams who've
just put in a lot of effort, this can be a big event, and cause for such
celebration.

This may not have even happened at the work place, mind you. The original
comment isn't totally clear, but it's not at all unusual for an American
software development team to go out for a few drinks at a nearby bar,
especially after completing some important work.

To most of the Americans there, it was probably a very insignificant thing. I
don't see how they should be at fault for encouraging somebody else to engage
in a pretty typical, and generally harmless, American social activity.

------
allochthon
I'm sympathetic to Github's aims of addressing women's issues and increasing
diversity. But as a general rule, in direct proportion to the extent that HR
are permitted to step in and formalize something at a place, I am less likely
to want to work at that place. I understand the need for processes for
handling certain situations or deeply-ingrained challenges. But the more
structured things are allowed to become, the more constraining a company
feels.

~~~
dandroid1
I agree. In particular, the following line really turned me off GitHub's
upcoming culture:

>We’re in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication
training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and external
experts. Topics will include diversity training, effective communication,
giving and receiving peer feedback, and conflict resolution.

~~~
samstokes
I'm not sure if you're objecting to the topics they're planning to train for,
or the perceived formality of the training, but I don't think either needs to
hurt the culture if done well.

Communication is incredibly important at any company, but startups often fail
to treat it as such, saying "we don't need meetings to get shit done" or "we
hire great people so things will just work out".

Some people, through work or life experience, will have no problem giving
constructive feedback at appropriate times, and working through differences of
opinion. Others will suck at these things. The latter may otherwise be strong
contributors - especially if you were hiring for ninja rockstar coding ability
and not explicitly for communication skills - so it's worth helping them
acquire those skills, both for their own career and for the company.

In particular, some people with conflict-avoiding personalities may have
_never_ experienced productive conflict resolution, unless you consider always
backing down and feeling increasingly disempowered to be productive.

Now sure, if GitHub HR (or employees) treat this training as a box-ticking
exercise, or use it to encourage bland, conflict-free discussion, the culture
will nosedive. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

~~~
amirmc
Well said. Let's not forget _why_ GitHub is putting such things in place. Had
they existed before, they might have avoided all the unpleasantness they (and
their former employee) went through (which also led to the CEO's resignation).

------
westi
Some interesting things here.

It is interesting to see how many of the failings they admit now are not
really gender based but more job role based (although gender undoubtedly plays
a part too)

------
Dewie
> We’re in the planning stages of designing a diversity and communication
> training curriculum for GitHub employees with input from Hubbers and
> external experts.

Anyone have any experience with attending these kinds of things?

------
emocakes
fuck github

------
owenwil
I'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, it acknowledges that the
company truly believes there's something to fix. On the other hand, it ignores
the fact of what really happened with Julie and doesn't acknowledge (still)
that it went down badly/was their fault.

~~~
matthewmacleod
_it ignores the fact of what really happened with Julie_

I would just point out that while there were obvious issues at Github, it's
not clear to the public (and never will be) exactly what happened there.

------
hadoukenio
After the whole Horvath incident, I take what they say with a grain of salt.
It's hard changing company culture, especially one that's Bro Code heavy. You
can probably make big changes within a small company, but there are currently
239 employees.

~~~
krlee
[https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-
investiga...](https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-
investigation)

"The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his
wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or
hostile work environment.

...

As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of
gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse."

~~~
grmarcil
To fill in your ellipsis: "However, while there may have been no legal
wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of
judgment. In light of these findings, Tom has submitted his resignation, which
the company has accepted."

Although they found no evidence of legal wrongdoing, they found enough general
dirt to force a founding CEO to resign. Obviously the public will never know
exactly what happened, but an explosive, highly publicized employee departure
followed by a CEO's resignation makes you wonder how the company allowed
things to go so wrong.

