Thread by @polotek

What's funny to me is that they either thought people wouldn't actually do it, or more likely they are confused and dismayed at how much "whole selves" some of us have. I'm reminded of @AnandWrites talking about how limited a lot of these tech leaders actually are.

https://twitter.com/chrisalbon/status/1311305333508202496

I wanna try to convey something important. And it's hard because even I get tired of being cynical sometimes. But I think it's important to unpack what's really happening here as these companies admit that they don't care about what happens to you outside of work.

Those who advocate for increased diversity, equity, and inclusion have been pushing this mantra of "bring your whole self to work". We do it because we recognized it was necessary in order to make space for people who aren't white dudes. Our whole selves have never been welcome.

Even as we saw uptake on this from tech leaders, we knew it wasn't because most of them actually cared. It falls under the heading of "I'll tell you whatever you need to hear if it means you'll show up and do work". And that's okay with me. It's part of the contract.

The problem here is that it was never a request for just lip service. They didn't really understand what they were signing up for. They have never had to deal with people's whole selves. They thought it wouldn't actually matter. It does.

"Bring your whole self to work" has been turned into a platitude. A pithy slogan. It was never that. What it means is that as companies demand more and more of our time and labor, we demand that they offset that by addressing the other life things that impact our lives.

You can't demand ever-increasing productivity from people without working to make sure they have more space to provide that productivity. It's not free. People don't have infinite capacity. If you want more, you have to create more. There is a cost.

What we are seeing is that tech leaders were never ready to pay that cost. They thought this would be the same kind of extractive, one-sided relationship that they've always had with us. Some lip service and some extra perks to keep us quiet. Nah son. It's different this time.

There is a growing movement against the status quo of extractive capitalism. And it is driven by growing inequality. More and more people can see that these assholes are not suffering due to our getting "distracted" from work. They are still making billions off of us.

The idea that "bringing politics into the workplace" is hurting business just doesn't bear out. We are supposed to be in a major recession. And yet tech companies are the most profitable companies that have ever existed. We're watching the most successful IPOs in history unfold.

This isn't about their bottom line. It never was. What this is about is that these tech leaders are finding it hard to ignore our demands. In order to keep us productive, they have to keep addressing these things that are not about business. And they just don't want to do that.

After the last several years of being pushed into DEI work, we're seeing them lose energy to keep pretending to care. Brian Armstrong, Zuckerberg, they're telling you straight up. Keep your whole self outside of work. If it's not about making them money, they don't wanna hear it.

So here's the thing. The relationship between employer and employee has always been about a shared contract. If you want to extract my labor, here's what I need from you. And just like productivity demands keep going up, our demands need to keep going up as well.

That's just business, just as surely as any other form of business that these assholes claim to care about. They can either meet our demands or stop making money off of us. It's that simple. They just don't wanna hear it. So we're going to have to show them.

The purpose of this thread is to get more of you to start thinking about this as a labor movement. If you let them control you by holding your livelihood under threat, they will continue to extract more and give you less. But you have leverage. You have to use it.