So I’ve decided to decline. I really do have too much to do to spend an afternoon talking to people who may or may not apply for a job.
After I declined the offer to go to the career fair, our HR person (Amee! With two ee’s!) came over to apologize. She recommended me because she thought I was gay (despite the photos of my wife and kids in my office…). Amee is great, she gave me my offer years back, but there are times she’s so bubbly and obtuse I have to ask her if she’s trying to be that really bad stereotype of a bubbly, obtuse HR person. So that’s why my boss said he thought I’d be a really good person for it. He was too polite to correct Amee!
Some generic responses (because I don’t want to continue fights that started here):
- We’re looking for office workers and IT people, mostly. We contract construction services and I think we have three truck drivers.
- For a minute I contemplated writing about intrinsic classism in the assumption that highly-skilled professionals don’t go to career fairs. A few years ago there was actually a local career fair only for LGBTQ attorneys. I’ll just leave that out there.
- I’ve not been told that my company does or doesn’t have a bad rep with the LGBTQI (I saw the “I” added today in one story on national pride parades), so I think they’re just trying to expand their net. I know our HR person (Amee!) once spent a very uncomfortable day at a career fair she knew nothing about prior. It was for work release programs for felons. We handle a lot of customer-specific data with personally-identifying information. We can’t hire ex-felons per the terms of privacy agreements we have with our clients (their own security regs forbid them from hiring or contracting felons).
- That said, I have a bad impression about “diversity programs” because of some really badly-done diversity programs during my formative years. I’m suspect of them, perhaps unfairly, because I’ve seen so many done so badly. I won’t get into it here, that’s just trying to be aware of my own biases.
- I used to be concerned about LGBTQI activism at companies, but I’m not really anymore. A number of our clients were “partners” with the HRC, and were pushing, really evangelizing is a good word, initiatives by the HRC to do things like sponsor employee LGBTQI groups at work, have annual diversity training, support the Pride parades, things like that. And then it stopped. It was a new thing when I started at my company and like many new things, it goes away as soon as a bigger priority comes up.
- That said, my company has a policy against talking sex, religion or politics. None is tolerated, period. Fine by me, I’m there to work.
I’m calling this one quote out because it is something I’m very much concerned about:
Exactly, and vocal support for traditional marriage is considered by the activist gay to be “anti-gay” and “homophobic”, and is therefore considered to be an “attack” and then pressure mounts for the person who supports traditional marriage to be terminated. I am not talking about a Catholic who hands out fliers at work. I am talking about people who just casually mention their beliefs. Meanwhile vocal support for gay marriage is seen as protected free speech.
More broadly, it’s when someone takes a stance publicly. It isn’t unheard-of for companies to fire employees because of what they say publicly, outside of their role at the company. That, to me, is dangerous for many reasons.
(1) If you don’t invoke your company, there should be no tie to the company. I’ve seen (formerly working as a journalist) efforts by journalists to go after someone they disagree with and say “who does this person work for” in a very blatant effort to embarrass their employer and get them fired. That’s a Leninist tactic and scarcely better than asking their landlord to kick them out. Also a reason I left journalism (aside from the lousy pay).
(2) It really reduces public participation to those who speak what their employers believe, or who are self-employed. I’ve refrained from public debate (including, painfully, on an eminent-domain land grab by Wal-Mart, because they were a client of mine) a number of times so as not to risk losing my job because someone decides to tie me back to my employer.
(3) It’s absolutely an end to civil discussion. If I speak my mind, you disagree, you get me fired, what am I going to do? Maybe I’ll flip out and retaliate in a violent way. Even if I don’t, you’ve effectively silenced me and wrecked perhaps years of my life.
(4) I hate that we’ve come down to the point of “Bigots don’t deserve to have a job”. No, I don’t think people who disagree with gay marriage, or who think it immoral, are bigots. I think people who
hate gay people are bigots. People have a right to be wrong. People even have a right to be offensive. You have the right to ignore them, to rebutt them, to disagree with them, and to say offensive things back. But to get them fired? No two religions agree on everything, and yet we have freedom of religious expression - therefore, we must tolerate some degree of disagreement and even offense (as a Catholic, I find Islamic views on Christ offensive, and I’m sure they find my worship of the Lord Jesus Christ offensive as well).
This is exactly what I fear - not that there’s some thought police in the halls of my office (Amee! With two ee’s! And a pink slip cause you’re Catholic, Mr. Losh14!) but rather that it will become acceptable to marginalize people on the basis of religious affiliation, justified by the demand that no one speak out against gay marriage, or against something else that the State supports. Yes, I know gays are marginalized for being gay and I think that wrong as well. I should be able to say “I think gay marriage is intrinsically immoral” just as I should be able to say “I think it immoral to fire a person who is gay” without fear of losing my job.
