Comment by ameshkov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ameshkov | Hacker News Reader

If I was a Chinese or a Russian engineer working for Gitlab, I'd consider quitting right now regardless of how this discussion ends. I am surprised that this initiative is not just considered by them, but basically approved by some of the senior staff:

> In e-group on Monday October 15, 2019 we took the decision to enable a "job family country-of-residence block" for team members who have access to customer data.

I don't think there's a need to explain what's wrong with this idea, there are a lot of sane comments on this thread explaining this just okay.

On a side note, I really like how company transparency saves them from making wrong decisions final. I think that this initiative will be dropped just like the recent third-party tracking issue, and I wish more companies were as transparent as this one.

>> If I was a Chinese or a Russian engineer working for Gitlab, I'd consider quitting right now regardless of how this discussion ends.

This is partially the goal of such moves and will accelerate the rise of discrimination. Thus, one should not quit despite the situation.

So you'd suggest staying and fighting against this inside the company? If they truly love the company and it deserves this, you might be right.

edit: what bothers me is that at least by some senior staff members these employees are already considered second-class citizens as otherwise this initiative wouldn't even be discussed, and I wonder how comfortable it will be to continue working with these people now.

by staying you fight it already, better be passive - not being insane is already a lot

I have to disagree. Passively staying does not change anything; the fact that they work for this company has not prevented this initiative.

When a wast majority thinks in a way against you, fighting them you will inevitably make mistakes and be triggered to do dumb stuff. Crowd think can make people believe that Chinese and Russians are some sort of zombies. If you stay around and show that you are not a zombie to be eliminated, this is already a lot. I know how it sounds, but don't underestimate crowd dynamics.

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