TIL about Github's Meritocracy rug which was removed because it was 'divisive'

AlexReynard · 2014-11-28T16:18:21+00:00

Anyone see this excellent comment?

Petunia on Jan 24, 1:01 PM said:

@therealgreg: I left the industry because I was tired of getting treated like **** by intimidated white guys.

*

Peter-Andrew: Nolan(c) on Jan 26, 7:13 PM said:

@Petunia: Much more likely you were just no good at your job.

Back in the late 80s the walkthrough was the standard process to progress a deliverable to the next stage. These were very often very robust affairs. We used to love to one-up each other with better ideas than the author had come up with....it demonstrated our skills to the people in the walk through. I worked at IBM at the time in an international development center in Sydney. These were the top 60 jobs in IT in Australia. I was blessed to find my way into it as a new starter.

Anyway....we had "quota women" foisted on to us. When we did walkthroughs of their work they would regularly burst into tears and run to the bathroom to cry. We treated them EXACTLY as we treated our peers. And by the way? Their work was garbage and we told them so in order that they might improve.

Soon we were asked to "go easy on the women". We protested most strenuously and said that the walkthrough process was the key quality control process and authors expected their work to be criticised, especially if others could see flaws in it the author could not see.

We were told to allow more leeway and "go easy on the women". We were incensed. Furious. These were OUR JOBS that were at stake if the women could not do their work properly.

It got so bad I decided to leave. By christmas 89 I had decided for myself that women were going to destroy the development lab and I moved to IBM Marketing, a place where women were few and far between because the measures were simple. Did you make your quota or not? The only women in IBM marketing belonged there. IBM was not about to "go easy" on women on quota like they went with women in development.

IBMs fall was primarily due to feminism. Before the late 80s IBM had three core principles that were carved in stone.

Respect for the individual
Pay for performance
THINK.

Once we had women quotas in the late 80s....these things went away and it became more important to "not upset women. I am absolutely convinced that if IBM did not pander to women, if it did not "embrace diversity", it is stuck to its three founding principles.....It would be the worlds greatest company today. There would be no Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Apple, SAP as we know them today. IBM would have owned all those businesses if they just observed those three principles.

Men like me would have stayed....But in the early 90s? All the best young men, all my peers, we all left IBM. The brain drain was phenomenal. Any man under 40 who was brilliant and gifted left. The older men stayed because of the retirement plan.

I can not recall one single man at IBM that I knew who was under 40 and brilliant who had not left by 1996. And I knew a LOT of brilliant young men at IBM at the time...they were my peers.

You people at Business Insider would do well to interview me about how feminism destroyed IBM and tech in general. You might learn something.

fia_bui · 2014-11-28T12:15:25+00:00

Meritocracies are sexist... wow. They're not even trying to pretend that silicon valley isn't a meritocracy any more, they're actually promoting diversity over competence.

rg57 · 2014-11-28T07:31:51+00:00

I would say "unbelievable", because it should be, but it isn't.

scottsouth · 2014-11-28T08:30:57+00:00

I agree with the decision to get rid of the rug. We should support people who do the shittiest work.

angry-neckbeard · 2014-11-28T05:19:29+00:00

I was reading this thread when I started Googling to understand what /u/eletheros was talking about.

Wow.

tacobacalao · 2014-11-28T15:08:45+00:00

Their money - their freedom to do whatever they want with it.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2014-11-28T18:18:20+00:00

They don't want meritocracy, because that would require considering one's own choices and shortcomings for not achieving X or Y.

Title	TIL about Github's Meritocracy rug which was removed because it was 'divisive'
Author	angry-neckbeard
Upvotes	30
Comments	13
Date	November 28, 2014 5:17 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/2nn4qc/til_about_githubs_meritocracy_rug_which_was/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/til-about-githubs-meritocracy-rug-which-was.992846 https://theredarchive.com/post/992846

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