FFS, when AT&T relocated their head office to Dallas, someone at the place which handles business licenses must have been asleep at the wheel, because I’m not sure that this bullshit is going to go down very well at all:
I have obtained a cache of internal documents about the company’s initiative, called Listen Understand Act, which is based on the core principles of critical race theory, including “intersectionality,” “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “white fragility.” CEO John Stankey [sic] launched the program last year and, subsequently, has told employees that private corporations such as AT&T have an “obligation to engage on this issue of racial injustice” and push for “systemic reforms in police departments across the country.”
According to a senior employee, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, managers at AT&T are now assessed annually on diversity issues, with mandatory participation in programs such as discussion groups, book clubs, mentorship programs, and race reeducation exercises. White employees, the source said, are tacitly expected to confess their complicity in “white privilege” and “systemic racism,” or they will be penalized in their performance reviews. As part of the overall initiative, employees are asked to sign a loyalty pledge to “keep pushing for change,” with suggested “intentions” such as “reading more about systemic racism” and “challenging others’ language that is hateful.” “If you don’t do it,” the senior employee says, “you’re [considered] a racist.”
Look, I know that most corporations are engaging in this wokeist fuckery, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t snarl at them for doing so.
Under the reign of World-Emperor Kim, these assholes would be forced to move their HQ to California, where they can play these little reindeer games to their hearts’ content, but among people who love to be forced to wear the White Man’s Hairshirt (not to mention face condoms).
Fuck ’em, and their racist crap.
Large public Corporations with consumer customer bases have little choice but to go along with this BS. They have PR departments and Personnel departments that are stuffed with diversity hires with nothing else to do than run the ” Diversity Classes” and computer based training slide decks that demonstrate that the staff has received the correct indoctrination. Having seen this in action, I can report that most of the staff view this crap as a little more than a nice break from the normal routine ( that hopefully also includes donuts). Mostly it goes in one ear and out the other.
One of the things I like about working remotely is that they can’t make me attend presentations about this kind of stuff. The most they can do is to e-mail me links to pages they want me to read and videos they want me to watch, which I ignore.
Ignore them at your peril. Most training programs include ID’s that track who has watched them and who has not, along with internal Q&A that you must score a passing grade. Failure to pass is detrimental to your employment — even in a Union Shop — and as a software Developer , I was still a card carrying member of the Steelworkers Union.
Not a problem. If they require me to watch a video, I start it playing. Then I mute the volume and go load my dishwasher or sort laundry.
It’s generally pretty easy to guess the “correct” answers if there’s a quiz.
My company has been doing the woke-thing too. I have until Dec 15 to complete my mandatory DI&E (Diversity, Inclusiveness and Equality) training, where I will be taught to recognize my biases and overcome them.
Funny thing #1: I’ve already announced my retirement on January 14, so it’ll be interesting to see just how mandatory this is.
Funny thing #2: I actually epitomize what they say they’re striving for. I don’t give a rats butt what color my co-worker’s skins are, who they pray to, what genitals they have or how they use them. I only care that they’re competent. I’m not going to date you, I’m going to work with you and all I give a crap about is that you DO YOUR JOB.
Mark D
well said
JQ
How very subversive of you. I love it!
“I’ve already announced my retirement on January 14, so it’ll be interesting to see just how mandatory this is.”
The last time I worked for a big company they had a stream of mandatory training they wanted everyone to do. Rather than refuse it, just postpone it a couple of times. It’s much funnier that way.
I used to be an AT&T Wireless customer, but I kicked them to the curb in June. Cut my mobile phone bill 80% by doing that.
“ Under the reign of World-Emperor Kim, these assholes would be forced to move their HQ to California, where they can play these little reindeer games to their hearts’ content‘
And where good Saint Andrew will deal with them in his good time.
Executives who institute this mandatory self flagellation should be removed from their positions of responsibility and black listed from every position of influence forever.
I would not be sad if they were decorated with hot tar and feathers
JQ
A “Black List” that we can all appreciate.
I worked for a company that forced the Sensitivity training BS on us. Every perp in the video was a white guy with one exception. Talk about offensive. I think we were supposed to do that on our own time but I made sure to do all my training on the company’s pay. Great benefits, poor pay and I had an utterly incompetent imbecile for a supervisor. Of course she was an affirmative action hire
JQ
They did this shit at Hewlett Packard back when I worked there. Shortly after 9-11 they had a big “misunderstood muslims” conference that we were all “encouraged” to attend. Which I didnt. Some earnest soul noticed my absence and said basically “Missed you at the meeting”, which drew my response, “The only thing I want to learn about Islam is where to drop the bombs.” That was back before you got instantly fired for saying such a thing.
I’ve mentioned this before, but under the circumstances it bears repeating:
When I began a previous job I had to take mandatory sexual harassment sensitivity training. Like JQ above, every example was of a male harassing a woman. Having been harassed by an older gay man at a previous job (which I handled in the time-honored method of telling him if he didn’t keep his hands to himself he was going to be searching for his teeth in his next day’s bowel movement), I asked about that situation. I was told that company policy was that men could only be the perpetrators of sexual harassment, never the victims, so any complaint by a man would be ignored.
That was over 25 years ago, I wonder how much has changed.
Mark D
Mark,
Not enough has changed. I worked in a department where there were a couple of women who would say the crudest most disgusting and graphic things in the lunch room. If I said the same thing you can bet that I’d be in HR the next day. when people complained about the women being crude and causing a hostile environment, their complaints were ignored. It’s still a one way street on sexual harassment. Look at the Duke Lacrosse players’ case. Charges don’t even have to be true.
JQ
JQ,
By change, I mean for the worse.
Other things I’ve seen:
At the company I mention above we had a woman go out on maternity leave for nearly a year. Since she had to have her job when she came back, her duties were spread out over the three men in her department. When she got back she got promoted, because her work was done so well over the past year.
Another time at a different company we got a new manager. She had the usual get-to-know everyone meeting, at which she said “My priority is to make sure women get promoted.” Had the tables been turned HR would have been all over it.
Had a female manager announce that she was getting an award, and we were all required to go to the (after work) presentation. Her award was for increasing profits, which was odd because it was a consulting gig, on a contract, with no overtime, so income was steady. Turned out she over-estimated our vacation time, so we worked more time that she budgeted for, so we made more money than expected and she got an award.
After 35+ years in the corporate world, I could go on.
Mark D
Mark,
Every story your shared is appalling. I’m sure there are more such stories.
JQ
Many moons ago I went to an AT&T facility to do some training. The person who had called asked how the trip went. I said fine, I left early and had breakfast at Denny’s just down the road from their plant.
The guy looked at me like I kicked his dog. He told me he could never eat a Denny’s after what the did to a black USSS agents. ( Some waitress had ignored a black agents but waited on the white ones). By this time a couple of women had come into the conference room and were shaking their heads in agreement. They had some “Awareness” class the day before and discussed this very incident.
I said that was in Maryland and this is Pennsylvania. They now waited for me to sprout horns and a tail. I was going to mention that everyone working at the Denny I ate at was black, from the manager , waitresses to the busboys.
They were quite happy to punish everyone connected Denny’s regardless of race, creed or orientation.
I shut up. I guess AT&T attracts true believers.
Too bad they didn’t put as much effort into maintaining their wireless network, might have kept this 20 year user instead of losing me to another.
This bit, “with mandatory participation in programs such as discussion groups, book clubs, mentorship programs, and race reeducation exercises,” does it remind anyone else of mandatory classes with the zampolit? Revolutionary struggle sessions, decades after the revolution was over? Or maybe a Muslim call to prayer in Tehran, that even the infidel ignores at his peril.
Or is it Winston Smith, learning to accept that 2+2 can equal 5, if his lords and masters dictate, but only if, and dare he not ask which it is today?
The left mocks and does not understand us when we call them a religion more nefarious and ridiculous than any other on earth. But this makes even Pastafarians look sane.
Kermit,
You’re absolutely right. These “re education programs” are all the indoctrination without the barbed wire fences of the gulag
JQ