On 37 Signals and Employee activism

Looks like this is going to be a think we’re doing in tech companies now, instead of guiding and shaping what is natural for us as people. So I have some thoughts condensed from this Tweet:

Tech world blowing up about 37 Signal’s new no causes at work policy. Look I get it — storied marquee company (ok quirky, so?) staking out an unpopular position on the surface, but is actually deeply popular (judging by the reactions). They blame it on the young ‘uns. And lost productivity.
“Keep work at work”, they say and “personal at home and everywhere else”, they say.

As if. The very technology we’re building is making injustice (that has been around for all time in the US anyway and way more intense at every second before now) easier to see and examine. It’s bringing marginalized peoples into the light and giving them a voice. Something to be proud of? I would think so.
People are ‘political’. It comes from our social species. When we congregate and associate at any reasonable scale, politics is an immediate by-product. Work will not stop this. This only serves the status quo if founders and managers succeed. Work is in service of the human endeavor not the other way around. What you can do is channel it, nudge it into healthiness. Suppression is a loosing tactic. Just ask South Africa’s apartheid govt.

Ironically, most black people (and I speak as a bona fide one of those) have suppressed themselves and their causes at work. Duh. How do you think it feels to have people that look like my son shot everyday (made more obvious by technology) by policemen, when unarmed and easily de-escalated? Tickles my funny bone? Makes we want to be the most productive? Add an awareness of global situations for blackness, which is depressing and complicated….

It’s actually ‘fun’ to see the outrage here. Yeah, that’s how we’ve felt forever. Even now as a black leader, I can barely unburden myself because I have both woke and unwoke employees and my first duty is to their personal and career growth, no matter what. Primal screams not welcome at work unfortunately.

‘Welcome to the suck’, party people.

BTW, it’s not just social justice’ advocacy @ work that is the ‘issue’. Income inequality will ALSO make workplaces more political over time as it expands. Go read my first take on this kind of thing here — https://t.co/me7xsYxaW9 I’m sure it won’t be the last.