This. Every single Atlassian product I have used has always been painfully slow garbage; and I have been forced to use them at various jobs over a decade.
I don't think it was ever a magically good Australian product that Indian hires from Microsoft suddenly ruined.
> Sitting in meetings where you were excluded from 30% of the conversation was wild.
I am curious, was this due to them speaking in a different language in actual professional meetings at Intel? I have often heard these reports, but in a social context.
I have never personally observed this in professional settings; but am curious to hear more so I can watch out for it if/when I do encounter it. It's odd because I would struggle to hold a professional conversation in any of the Indian languages that I speak (I have no idea how to say something like "thermal characteristics" or "power dissipation" in them); and would likely keep lapsing into English.
I have many Indian colleagues and they do tend not to speak English among them in the office. There needs to be someone else involved in the conversation for them to stick to English.
Another aspect is that I have found that they are quite hierarchical, probably a cultural trait. So how much they stick to English also depends on how senior the "non-Indian(s)" are compared to them. If you are their senior they are very nice.
> was this due to them speaking in a different language in actual professional meetings
This happened frequently at a WITCH I worked at out of college. The meeting would be in English then have segments change in the middle as certain speakers switched languages. Luckily, I often had a coworker stand up for me to mention to use English although I did miss many conversations.
As a fellow Indian immigrant, I actually share your discomfort, and always try to be inclusive and diverse in my social groups. Most of my Indian coworkers and friends behave this way — we came to the US to be a part of a mixed culture, so our social groups should be diverse.
What makes me uncomfortable is that this inclusivity is increasingly being taken for granted to the point where not having it starts conversations about how to "fight back".
Even though it's not my preference I don't think there is anything wrong with Indians cracking jokes in a non-English language, or going to a restaurant by themselves. You will find that Americans will mysteriously be far more tolerant of, say, a group of French people talking among themselves in French; and going to a French restaurant as a group.
In public, yeah people probably wouldn't care about french speakers, but in a shared environment I definitely would prefer they speak English. My brother use to have to tell his Dutch-Canadian in-laws to speak English when we were at his house. I'd feel the same way at work.
> Indians bringing Indian jokes to the table, with no outsider hoping to understand these. Indians bonding to go to Indian restaurants during lunch break, so now most of the colleagues follow suit, how to stop it all?
Are you seriously asking how to "fight back" on Indians going to restaurants and joking with each other?
As an Indian in a flyover state who has been routinely excluded from golfing events, and had my dietary needs totally ignored while organizing things like steakhouse lunches, this is sort of darkly funny to read.
I think that's an unfairly dismissive take and the "going to restaurants" bit is a mischaracterization at best.
There massive difference is WHERE the discrimination is taking place. Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world. I'm not saying it doesn't take place, and yes colonialism happened and was far worse, but we're talking about what SHOULD be.
> Most would not move to India or any other place and impose their culture and exclude locals in a fair and just world.
I'm trying to say that going to restaurants as a group of people and having in-jokes does not qualify as "imposing your culture" in any way. These things routinely happen at companies that have few to no Indians, they just take a different form.
Also, are you really claiming that if you moved to Bangalore, and had 2-3 coworkers from your hometown that you knew and shared cultural ties with; that you wouldn't tend to hang out together at lunch?
Sure, but Americans have been doing this for hundreds of years through exclusionary hobbies like golf, fantasy football, and a hundred other things. That's just how social groups work. They are often cliquey and exclusionary.
That's why I think it's weird to only target Indians in this regard. They are building an in-group just like everyone else; the difference is that OP seems to have little experience not being part of the in-group.
We should be working to decrease it in all exclusionary groups by working to make them more inclusionary. That means intentionally rotating comfort zones.
And it is a historically seductive siren call that once an immigrant community in any country attains some power, they use it to ramp up exclusion and cronyism.
In all fairness, to protect their tenuous grasp on that power from external racism, but it also succumbs to use for less noble, more human ends. E.g. getting ones friend hired.
Other groups doing this too doesn't make it okay. Nobody should be forming exclusionary groups where all the shots are called and business decisions are made.
The better question is: if you had a Bangalore company founded by Indians, then a management hire from the US or Britain started hiring immigrants from there too, and they excluded or sidelined Indians, especially ones who didn't speak English - you'd be annoyed too right?
Actually you'll find that this happens a lot. Search up expat communities, for example. They don't necessarily "impose their culture and exclude locals", but they are for and by the expats from a certain country.
Seeking "your" people when living/working abroad, or when working in a diverse workspace, is pretty normal and happens everywhere. It's usually harmless though.
i’m not sure that’s the point though. i think the point is lost in op layering restaurants and jokes and such into their narrative. i think the actual point and concern is how being “out-group” affects their employment due to what they perceive as deliberate exclusion.
Brits living anywhere outside of Britain is a classic example - exemplified by the clubs and societies formed around the world when the sun didn't set in/on their empire.
You seem to be fixating on the term "fight back," when the commenter you're replying to is asking for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours.
As someone who has experienced this, I encourage you to draw on that experience and have empathy, even if that experience is expressed in ways that don't immediately resonate with you. You have more in common with the commenter you're replying to than you appreciate.
> [looking] for ways to not feel excluded at his/her job, where s/he spends a majority of his/her waking hours.
And the people GP is talking about are trying to do the exact same thing, though obviously in highly detrimental ways. Part of professionalism entails not making your job into an identity that overwhelms every other aspect of your life. If you just focus on delivering good results to the best of your ability, there's no need to be dependent on constant social approval from 'insider' peers.
this is fascinating to me because it’s how i have handled my career and it’s had unexpected positive and negative effects. all-in-all i’m more satisfied than my friend group with my day to day work existence but am steps behind them in the traditional career path milestones. though i lack the titles they have, i’m squarely median when it comes to annual base income, which is comfortable and provides very well for my family. however, i’m beginning to age and realize that potential employers are beginning to balk at my title/“informal” leadership (read “experience”) with my age and salary and duration in the workforce.
And quadrifoliate (this comment's grandparent) showed that exclusionism against Indians similarly exists and is harmful. Very much on topic in my opinion.
I would hope any sensible person would look at two comments by two people saying that they are being excluded by each others groups and think "the issue is people being excluded because they are not part of the 'in' group in their workplace, and people should work to be more inclusive" rather than concluding that the problem lies with Indian or non-Indian people specifically
One is likely the majority, the other the minority.
It doesn’t negate any behaviour based on bias but would require an honest reflection on the unconscious biases existing in the workplace prior to this.
One way to look at it is minority groups who can’t turn off being visible minorities can be different than people who may be minorities in a a few areas of life but still have access to benefit from privilege in others.
I'm hopeful that some light will be shed on how ridiculously dystopian it is to force D.I.E. mandates with posters like "United Colours of Benetton" as if "All Men/Women/Etc Are Created In Test Tubes Equivalent And Interchangeable" and we Voters of American Progressive Enlightenment must lobby to crush out every aspect of culture that suggests otherwise.
Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture or else leave. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population?
(A group of people casually getting together is totally different to someone's work environment where they have to attend to bring a paycheck home - I'm talking exclusively about professional/work environments)
> Yeah, and I'd expect that treatment as a white person working/living in India, and I would adapt to fit in with local customs / culture. But they are in the US, working for a US company - why is it somehow acceptable when you are a foreigner to create these isolated professional enclaves that exclude the "native" population?
Non-Hispanic white Americans are not native to the US, and I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that non-Hispanic white culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US.
Sure, it might be the dominant culture — but there are other subcultures like Black or Hispanic cultures that are pretty strong here. Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria? If not, then why are you singling out Indians?
Hence the quotation marks: "native" - you're just derailing a legitimate line of reasoning.
> I don't see a reasonable basis for concluding that European-American culture should be the "native" or "default" culture in the US
Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments. If you want to have a conversation about why that is the case, what else it could be, etc. thats fine! But it's not the kind of conversation I'm looking to have here.
> Would you feel comfortable asking how to stop a group of Black coworkers from going to a restaurant that serves Black cuisine, or Hispanic coworkers from going to the local taqueria?
If they are doing it to the detriment of the overall business yes! - the line of reasoning follows for a predominantly Black business that is having a White enclave forming. Or a Hispanic cultured business with a Slavic enclave forming. Even more importantly a multicultural environment which is having 1 group overtake it. It's fundamentally a job of business leaders to set the tone and direction of company culture - and this is one aspect of it.
> Like it or not, it is the dominant culture especially in professional environments.
At least sometimes it's not, which is why the OP feels so excluded and is asking for tips on how to navigate the clearly unfamiliar feeling of not being able to just "fit in" as part of the dominant culture.
The reality is that the US is a melting pot with a lot of subcultures, and you should learn to navigate those subcultures instead of demanding that they conform to some mythical default.
Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times.
Shouldn't the members of the enclave proactively reach out themselves, then? As the host country has tried to make things more comfortable for them to start with.
That seem to be the major difference between Western and non-Western countries; we're more cognisant of things like racism/being excluded and have taken steps to try to resolve it - you do not get the same in many other countries at all.
It seems it's much more acceptable to be exclusionary and racist if you're non-white, sometimes.
> Maybe next time the OP should show some curiosity about what their coworkers are joking about, and shyly ask for a seat at the table. I have done it plenty of times.
Yep 100% this is the only decent solution OP has barring leaving the company. It leads to really interesting conversations and you get to learn a lot about a huge portion of the planet's population. Some people go out of their way for these experiences. But it also shouldn't be forced on someone who just wants to collect a paycheck.
A lot of arguments here are getting caught on the wrong details.
It's good to experience new cultures and stretch out of ones comfort zone!
But cultural similarity is also the strongest form of bias in office dynamics.
So, it's great if people go to Indian restaurants. It's not great if people only go to Indian restaurants. It's not great if people only go to steakhouses.
And it's especially not great if colleagues don't make efforts to include less culturally similar colleagues in events, whatever the cultures in question.
When an ethnic group makes a tacit decision to form an enclave and exclude others, there is no "learning to navigate the subculture". Either you are pushed out or you find the leverage to make them stop doing that.
I am aware of Hispania, etc. The thing you're perhaps missing is that 'minignape began their comment with "as a white person...".
That is usually a characterization used by non-Hispanic white people; hence my reply referenced non-Hispanic whites. I also wanted to highlight that they would probably be tolerant of an unfamiliar Hispanic white in-group at their company, but weren't tolerant of a South Asian one.
Hispanic was initially just a way to tag the white non-protestant. Currently is a loose box to include a mix of Mediterranean, African and American natives. Some of this people definitely have American natives on their family lines and other are not even related with Europeans or not much.
When Hispanic mix with Irish, or English, or French or North European, they are simply called "white". A lot of Spaniards are as much "white" in their aspect as one could ask for. They are just labeled as "non white" for outdated reasons but people always chuckle about it. Is just silly.
Actually Whites have as much if not more claims to North America than any other group; there’s multiple times that they came to NA, including the Solutreans of about 12000 years ago: https://insider.si.edu/2012/03/ice-age-mariners-from-europe-... ; plus the Viking settlement of 1021; plus the more recent fact of the USA being settled and turning wildernesses into the agricultural and technological powerhouse of today.
The dominant culture of Google and Microsoft when they were founded was [...]. Now they have Indian CEOs and companies like Cognizant bring in H1B visas from India.
There is nothing organic about that.
Personally I have no experience with Indian co-workers, but I do know that Black and Hispanic people do not exclude whites at all. I have only great experiences with them.
>> non-Hispanic white Americans are not native to the US
Then to where is it native? Don't deny a culture its existence just because it isn't the first culture to arise within a particular area. Example: Mormon culture and religion is "native" the US despite certainly not being the first culture in the area.
I am not the one throwing around the word "native" casually. To cite your example, Salt Lake City was founded less than 200 years ago whereas Puebloans have been living in the area for several thousands of years.
You can certainly make a claim that Mormon culture is "native" to Utah, but I think at 200 v/s 5000+ you can expect that claim to be contested.
Funny enough, the definition has nothing to do with ancestry. "Native: a person born in a specified place or associated with a place by birth, whether subsequently resident there or not."
Yeah, this is the exact sense in which I wrote it originally - but I sensed the screams of 1000 idiots and wrote "native" to try avoid that entire line of conversation. It seems though that my efforts went unnoticed - oh well!
People born in the US are native to the US -or are you arguing for de sanguinis citizenship? Chinese and Indians do follow de sanguinis, so maybe you’re making the case?
I am saying that neither is a problem. We all have to break into social groups at work and even before that (ever watch "Mean Girls"?). This is not a problem specific to any group of people; and OP's fixation is unnecessary in my opinion.
That's a good question. I suppose my point is that this is not something you have "fight back" against. Lots of people get excluded from social groups in professional settings due to some silly link that their coworkers have with each other.
Learning to overcome your lack of cultural commonality with coworkers and and breaking into social groups is something that all of us need to do at some point. In my case — I sucked it up, refused to learn golf but bonded with coworkers over board games; and ate the appetizers at the steakhouse.
A tip for OP would be to try doing the equivalent thing in their context. Go up to your Indian coworkers and ask if you can accompany them to the restaurant. I promise you it will be fine.
I can’t seem to say no to a bit of gulab jamun. And saag, with or without paneer. How healthy is saag? I tell myself it’s mostly spinach but I know there is milk and milk fat in there usually I think and maybe butter?
as a foreign/outsider working in a company, the expectation lies on the outsider to adapt to local/company culture.
it is interesting to observe how people react to being in such a position when they are in a foreign work culture in their own soil. neither parties are completely at the right, but the fact that it is completely fine in one side but unacceptable for the other is so fascinating to me.
i’m sorry for your experience(s) and how frustrating that must be. what you’ve experienced isn’t “right” and while it’s valid that you bring it up as a general concern and experience, it comes across as though you’re justifying how OP experiences their own work environment. as someone who has essentially experienced the same treatment, but from the opposite side, this is an opportunity you had to validate and confirm the presence of such behavior while expanding the scope of its presence. now we’re hung up on restaurants and golf courses and choosing sides instead of discussing the core problem
I am just using a signature American phrase[1]. If anything, this is a mark of how assimilated I am!
I mean no contempt; I am happy to live in a flyover state. Also, the state did not "allow me" to live here, the Federal Government did; as anyone with an elementary knowledge of American government principles should be able to discern.
Your response though, seems to show some anti-immigrant anger. I am sorry you feel that way, and hope you find happiness!
What do you think the word "Flyover" means? You live in it now, they let you in so you're not flying over it. It's obviously derogatory, and even your link says it's derogatory. That'd be like me going to India, and then complaining "As an American living next to untouchables..."
Here's the relevant quote from the wikipedia that you're misusing:
> The origins of the phrases and the attitudes of their supposed users are a source of debate in American culture; the terms are often regarded as pejoratives, but are sometimes "reclaimed" and used defensively.[1]
So no, it is not "obviously derogatory", and the link does not say that.
I'd identify it as self deprecation as a form of social ingratiation, just have to be careful with that as self deprecation can go beyond the boundary of self.
That's a possibility. Here are other possibilities - the US resident who originally commented may have been:
- unaware of the phrase's derogatory meaning
- aware, but relishing it, as they resent the state and don't like living there
- aware, but they think the word has a useful non-derogatory use
- aware, and has no strong opinion either way
All things which in reality would be legitimate in various circumstances. Speculating in the first place seems silly to me, and only started because one commenter apparently didn't like the idea of a non-US native having a negative opinion about the US so much that they are (pardon my bluntness) a bit overly sensitive on the issue.
American States have their own culture and identity. The ideals of America was never being an economic zone to house the entire third world, who think the only utility of a state should be to fly over it.
The founding of the American colonies was very much a gutter for economic classes. Warren Buffet wouldn’t exist today without European trash being indentured.
Are you aware that the US ranks below Romania, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba and Thailand on the UN's sustainable development report from 2024?
It might be appropriate to update your picture of the place to reflect the reality. Your views here seem to be predicated on some notion of the US as a place the entire "third world" wants to move to - perhaps you should consider the fact that it's not really top of everyone's list anymore?
With some notable exceptions where it may well be top of the list - the obvious example being some third-level institutions there who have prestige and networking opportunities which are hard to beat, if you can afford it.
> Are you aware that the US ranks below Romania, Belarus, Serbia, Cuba and Thailand on the UN's sustainable development report from 2024?
Are you aware of how shit of a metric that is? It's literally the %age of GDP spent on sustainable energy, so the US could still be spending more than all those countries combined and still have a lower %age.
Let's also not forget who gives out the loans for sustainable development, and who sets up the economic incentives.
This is also the equivalent of saying "You're much less likely to get robbed in Africa, they have a faster declining crime rate than Europe." As a baseline Europe is safer and it's therefore harder to decrease the crime rate further[0]. Going from 100 murders a day to 89 is not better than going from 10 to 9.
> From our position, it's amazing to read the sort of nonsense the learned men of the day supposed
What "our position" are you talking about? There was (and in some cases, currently is) widespread opposition to a basic safety measure like covering your nose and mouth during a pandemic of a respiratory disease. You will regularly see videos of our supposedly enlightened populace losing their shit when someone else wears these basic respiratory protections.
It's always easier in hindsight to laugh at earlier populations and their seeming stupidity. I'm sure people in the future will be doing the same at our inability to contain the Covid pandemic.
"Connected" car services are complete shit and I never opt in to them.
That being said, this also seems like the basic legal system needs to catch up in some of these cases.
For example, in the first one, the wife had been granted sole use of the car but the husband's name was on the title? That doesn't even seem legally consistent to me, leaving aside all technology matters.
On 2023 subaru even if you're not opted in it appears that they OTA update the firmware. The "driver steering assist" has gotten weaker and weaker since we got a 2023 crosstrek. It used to only completely shut off on 1 road near my house, now it shuts off on about 40% of roads, with no other changes. Car is about 6 months old.
Fortunately my (work provided) Dodge Ram allows me to turn steering assist on or off and have it stay that way until I change it.
I actually like it when rarely doing hours of highway driving, but for my normal use it’s absolutely unsuitable on the narrow and degraded backroads where I’m often squeezing by farm equipment. Definitely don’t like it trying to second guess me having to go over the line.
I can consistently and repeatedly make the Crosstrek attempt to murder me. Drive to the left of a semi truck, and begin to hug the left line on the road. The car will fight you to recenter in the lane. If you loosen your grip on the wheel at all, the car will immediately and violently swerve to the right, and without correction will wind up in the lane to the right. I can always catch it at exactly the right line of the lane i am in, but i imagine if you weren't expecting it you'd wind up underneath a semi.
I absolutely loathe driving the crosstrek.
edited to clarify: I can shut off steering assist, but sometimes i drive with it on because my wife does (normally) and i like to make sure it's still "safe" - so each time i get in and the steering assist is "slightly different" than the last time, i notice. She only sees the gentle curve, like maybe the cameras are dirty, or this road's lines aren't sufficient for steering assist, etc. Whereas i notice immediately that it's acting different.
Grew up in India. As the sibling commenter notes, this is likely an older British expression that has survived in Indian English.
It's hard to remember now, but I think the way I thought about it when I was taught is that "3 × 4" is combining 3 and 4 into a larger number 12. The "3 ÷ 4" was not special, and "by" there was just an abbreviation of "divided by" like you say.
For what it's worth, I think times usually should work in Indian English as well, as in "3 times 4" for 3 × 4.
Yes, it could be phrased like the above, but from what I have experienced in day to day school life, people usually ask "What's three into four?" or even more likely an incomplete fill in the blank question "Three fours are?"
> In reality they're capitalists who saw a way to make money off of a proof of concept, and (ridiculously) thought they could shame the target into not taking obvious actions to squash them.
The "target" here is also literally the largest company in the world, whose executives have been discussing since 2013 about how to lock families into an iPhone monopoly that costs thousands of dollars a year by restricting iMessage [1].
There are no white knights here (it's all a money game), but Beeper's stance isn't as one-sided and ridiculous as you're making it out to be.
I said that Beeper saw a business opportunity to make money. This is without question. You're posing a false dichotomy that therefore I'm somehow sainting Apple or something, which simply isn't true: Apple absolutely is out to make money (humorously a couple of days ago I called Apple one of the greediest companies -- in a bad way -- ever, and my comment was flagged which...rofl), and absolutely no one doubts that. No one is claiming that Apple are the white knights in this or any other situation.
I also love being a green bubble, and telling people to use one of the several other secure, cross-platform messengers. I would personally never use Beeper Mini, because anyone in my social circle who cares about "blue bubbles" would be mocked mercilessly.
But I also hear all these stories about kids being bullied for having Android phones, and see Apple executives talking about locking entire families into the iPhone ecosystem using iMessage [1] on that basis.
To me, this is pretty evil, monopolistic behavior which needs to be regulated out of existence. I'm glad Beeper is bringing it to light. The fact that it doesn't affect me personally is unimportant.
My kids are facing this now and it doesn't seem to even exist. Some of them have Android phones, and they're still friends. My daughter doesn't even want an iPhone because she figures I will have more parental control over it than I would an Android phone.
> In the absence of a strategy to become the primary messaging service...iMessage on Android would serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones
That's from Craig Federighi, who is now the SVP at Apple in charge of all operating systems. If it were a minor silly thing, you probably wouldn't expect it to be talked about at the highest levels at Apple, would you?
Yes, but it deserves to be taken more seriously when you are the SVP of the largest software company in the world.
The C-level of a random software company talking about US-wide market lock-in is unlikely to make it work in practice. Apple has a very real chance of doing it.
I don't think it was ever a magically good Australian product that Indian hires from Microsoft suddenly ruined.