Comment by paperwasp42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paperwasp42 | Hacker News Reader

A good friend of mine works a logistical analysis job that involves dealing with a lot of warehouses and warehouse workers. There is a saying in the offices of his company that goes: "Get your head out of the warehouse!" This is a play on the popular "Get your head out of the gutter" and is jokingly used in the offices when people say something considered lewd/offensive.

This company brags about its major focus on "diversity" and "helping the underprivileged", but no one bats an eye when "warehouse worker" is used synonymously with "gutter trash".

This company is also shocked--just shocked!--that so few warehouse workers sign up for their "career transformation" program that promises to help educate warehouse staff for office jobs. Because why wouldn't they want to get away from their dirty, dirty warehouse? /s

This is such a huge issue in America, and I feel there's far too little conversation about it. I'm happy to see these kinds of studies shed a bit of light on it.

This hits really hard for people that are 20y +, Dir or VP level people... but they really get along mostly with the oilfield guys on the weekend. You almost just have to turn off your personality.

My friend falls into this category, which is why the snobby culture hits him so hard. Those ladies and gents in the warehouse are his people, and he loves his community deeply, despite its economic issues. But he also has a family to support, so waging a war against the office culture really just isn't a choice.

I think you and your friend first should start work at the warehouse. Then, possibly we should make everyone rotate timeshares in factories, warehouses and fields, and then maybe we'll have our utopia when everyone understand each other and lost all humour.

It worked in China, clearly, so why not in the US ?

Joke aside, fixing people joking about each other is a lost battle. Listen to them speak about diversity behind closed door (I'm a minority in the country I work in, I hate these things so much making me feel different when I try to integration and assimilate), it won't be utopian paradise-style speech either.

Let the warehouse worker mock the headquarter, let the headquarter mock the warehouse, it's not the problem and will happen within the border of whichever gradient. Parisians mock Normandy, Europeans mock Americans, Aliens mock the Earth, your friend's office mock the field workers...

I think the issue is that companies like this pump millions of dollars into "diversity programs" and strictly police any language that could be considered racist. But they often seem completely blind to the fact that many minorities identify strongly with their lower-class communities, and that office culture that mocks and denigrates those communities actively drives away minorities (and all lower-class individuals) from applying for those jobs. Which kind of defeats the purpose of pledging millions toward "diversity".

A lot of American leftists seem to have labeled any political rhetoric about "the elites" as alt-right talking points. But as someone who works frequently with lower class individuals across the political spectrum, this is a deep-seated frustration I hear from people of all races and political parties.

Regardless of race, no one wants to work at a workplace where you know the majority of people think less of you. This is something that I think corporate America needs to understand better, if they genuinely want better diversity numbers.

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