The Old Boys Club
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In IT opportunities go to unqualified men than women and minorities because when Congress investigated Defense contract malfeasance one woman was asked what was your track record her answer what do you mean by track record I am just trying to get on track.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Boy this is hard to talk about. And I don't think anyone expressing a contrary viewpoint is wrong, it's a different frame of reference.
I'm kind of in a weird place. I'm partially middle eastern, brown skinned, and I've been discriminated against. On the other hand I've been born in the US, have essentially no accent, speak well (I think?
), and have a track record of success, so I tend to do well in job interviews. In other words, not to be too racist, but I fit in the white man's world. Or the traditional male dominated, primarily caucasian, world of business.I'm trying to give you a sense of how I see things, not pick on anyone. This is just a senstive area and one that's hard to discuss.
OK, so the way I tend to see things is that often the companies I've worked for are overwhelmingly dominated by men, and caucasian at that. Whether it's overt or unintentional, I see hiring managers giving weight to hiring people that look like them. Meaning primarily men and cascasian. Even when there are woman or minorities that are equally qualified. It's just what I've seen in dozens of positions being filled. In most cases I don't think it was blatant discrimination, more just an unintentional leaning. In a few cases I know it was intentional and admitted and I feel bad I didn't stand up for people. I was too young and intimidated. In some I suspected discrimination, but wasn't sure.
In any case, from my point of view, more often than not women and minorities are already discriminated against when they walk in the door. So having a policy that somehow gives them a bit more weight in making an offer balances the scales.
I don't think that unqualified candidates should be hired. That's not what this is about. That happens, but it happens because of nepotism, friendship, favors, corruption, as well as affirmative action. And I'd prefer that slightly underqualified candidates weren't hired above qualified, but if you have 30 men and no women, maybe the next hire should be a woman.
Now qualified is a subjective thing, so I couldn't tell you whether a lawyer, doctor, bulldozer operator, etc. is qualified, but in the IT world I've seen women who were qualified and not chosen. And for most jobs I think there's a range of what qualified is.
So, while I don't think it's fair in any particular job for a caucasian man to walk into the interview and be discriminated against, I do think that it needs to happen in places where the past has shown too much discrimination the other way.
Is there a way to do this without quotas? I hope so, but I know I'm not smart enough to come up with a way. I can see the problem, and I can see the anger or anguish from both sides. I'm not sure what to do about it, but I think affirmative action is a good start.
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I saw this situation once because of affirmative action. There was an opening for a supervisor. The obvious leading candidate was an extremely well qualified black man who had five years of experience in the department and was an outstanding worker. However, he did not get the job because hiring him would not increase the number of minorities in the department. Instead, he was passed over in favor of another black man who applied for the job from outside. The new supervisor turned out to be a horrible choice with terrible technical skills, and bad people skills. He was fired about a year later.
That is the trouble with any arbitrary scheme, like affirmative action, that is meant to impose justice. It is still implemented by fallible people, and becomes just another way to deny people an equal opportunity.
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Steve,
I got the best new year gift from Microsoft this year I am the second female Asp.net MVP in the US the Asp.net team cut the choose only my kind road block and nominated me and approved the nomination so things are changing. What I am saying is if one company will replace one the clueless with one qualified female or minority I have made a difference. One more thing the new head of Harvard is a woman from the fallout of the women cannot do math crap.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Congrats!!
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Thanks a team at Microsoft decided to make changes.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Off-Topic: " ... using english [sic] correctly ..." "English" should be capitalized when used as a proper noun.
"I think if everyone took the tact ..." The correct word is "tack" - it has a nautical origin.
" ... we could actually get a littel more work done and wouldn't be stimied ..." "Littel" is probably just a typo. "Stimied" is spelled "stymied".
" ... shear numbers of people ..." The correct word is "sheer" (adjective). "Shear" (verb) is correct in describing the process of removing fleece from sheep, or the tool (noun) used in that activity.
The point? "People who live in glass houses ..."
I'll make considerable allowances for someone who is challenged by English - it's a terrible language to learn, as witness the number of native-speakers who can't put together a coherent sentence. I'm less forgiving of one who makes frequent errors in the process of complaining about the errors made by others.
Grumpy and bored on a rainy holiday,
John
Regards,John Hopkins
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