h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, the follow up postings were interesting and informative. And all of the ones from the enlightened UK were completely out of my experience.

You see, I am one of those pesky females who have had the temerity to work in a tech field, the poor judgment to have a "funny" last name, and the stupidity not to have died before becoming middle-aged.

And now I have the bad luck to be job hunting in a lousy economy, and I get asked all sorts of questions. Not anonymously. To my face. At a job interview. About my nationality (I'm an American) ethnic identity (I'm a Californian) and where my last name comes from (my family donated it) and do I have children (no) and why not (darn, I knew I forgot to do something). And I shouldn't even be asked these questions, because it is illegal.

And I get asked questions like, why are you applying for this job when you are overqualified (have you had a look at the economy lately?) or what are you doing in this town (I'm in love with my husband and I like living with him).

So, do I answer or do I just annoy the carp out of the standing between me and a paycheck?

I wonder about HR people. An HR person will tell you "I'm a people person" and then treat you like dirt.

So would I Mr. D!

Forgot to say that I agree with Lil, don't go anywhere Ag!

Don't you dare go anywhere, Ag, else we shall get terribly upset and have to send out a search party.

And Hyp, as we all know, you're the farthest thing away from being a shallow git.

And Eatsmice, you're more than entitled to your opinion. Just think what a good discussion it prompted. I may not agree with you - but you're still a mighty fine

As I've often said, the Salon is a place where we can disagree and have different opinions without falling out.

Ag, and don't go away. Your posts were very informative.

I've changed my tag again. I finished Enslaved and we are now in excess of 75G on the old gamer score. Assuming we don't add another 1,000 in the next few days (tongueincheek> I won't change again.

BTW my name and tag should read Magwitch - Trampled Under Foot

Don't you dare run away Ags, your posts are informative, interesting and thought through. And I claim my and for reading your first response.
From my perspective I have seen positive discrimination (and negative) within my service. The seemingly endless images of black or female personnel really gets up the noses of myself and my compatriots. Did anyone not know that there is a female pilot in the Dead Sparrows? The PR staff are still seeking the Holy Grail of the black, red-haired, lesbian, single-parent, dwarf from Greenland who will become the next boss of the service. I'm sure they will not rest till they find one and get them on the front pages.
The questionnaires we get on equality, job satisfaction etc are anonymous. But once you've entered your rank, age, sex, colour, base, job title, living on base or off, you may as well add your name too.
How much did those umpteen thousand forms cost the taxpayer?

Locally, the decision to take on a new headmaster who was barely sighted through diabetes, who could get lost within the school and was a poor manager to boot, damaged the school for a significant period. Valuable staff left and then his health quickly deteriorated enough that he was constantly sick within months of arriving. A sighted helper never appeared. But he ticked off that "group" box on the interview and more suitable candidates were ignored.
The turmoil the school faced you can imagine, temp heads and no clear direction until he finally "retired" and the post could be properly filled.

My service has changed for the better over the last two decades. Different groups of ethnicity/sexuality can now work without any issues - in my experience. But I'm fairly sure that it is far easier and less painful to get rid of a white, heterosexual male for being useless than someone that fills any other category.
Seen that too.
Not sure how many red-haired, female Jedis we have though, Mr D.

So, a balance is not needed, but discrimination on either side of the fence is wrong and unhelpful.

What are the Dead Sparrows??

Oh. Red Arrows?

What do you and your colleagues think about the DADT furor going on in the Amurrican armed services, then?

Ag, don't go. *gives to Tom, since she's never acquired the taste, and splits between the girls, because she can't have it today*

HN, I know your interview example is an example of an illegality, but I have to admit that I giggled through it, because I could hear your voice through the whole thing, and can definitely see you giving those answers in all seriousness.

"Affirmative action", or whatever you want to call it, isn't quite the bogeyman some folks make it out to be here in the States. I'd like to see actual numbers, real statistics, on actual instances where a more qualified candidate was passed over in favor of the half-black, half-Latina wiccan lesbian disabled single mother, or whatever the Holy Grail flavor of the month might be. Methinks it's an overblown issue to attract votes come election time.

And speaking of elections, I just finished my absentee ballot for the upcoming midterm elections! You can vote absentee in Montana even if you're not going to be out of the state or country; just sign up, and you'll get your ballot in the mail. You can fill it out in a civilized manner: at your dining room table, glass of by your side, with soothing music in the background (in my case, right now it would be Parliament-Funkadelic), and fill in the little bubbles for the least harmful idiot who might or might not vote the way you want them to.

Lil, the don't ask don't tell situation is a bit weird I must admit. A half-way house between a total no and a total yes.
Was it to appease the far right Christian Republican vote? We seem to see the Democrats as liberal and the Republicans as heading towards the conservative right.
I understand that the Democrats want it resolved to allow anyone to be open about their sexuality.
I knew one guy who was kicked out nearly twenty years ago for being gay. A sound operator who was known to be gay and was accepted by his immediate colleagues.
Speaking for myself I don't care what a person's status is - can they do the job is what is important (without using their status to gain sympathetic advantage when they can't).
Will your Republicans allow a new openness do you think?

No, Eats. The Republican base is the Christian right.

[GT]

What FG said.

Except that the Democratic caucus doesn't march in ideological lockstep like the Republicans have been doing for the past 9 or more years. We have Blue Dog Democrats who were elected by comparatively conservative districts and who can't be herded along with the majority. Ben Nelson of Nebraska won't vote for an extension of unemployment benefits beyond the current 99 weeks because of concerns about the budget. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana has egregiously been blocking a presidential appointment because of the embargo on offshore drilling. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, well, words fail me.

Anyway, that's what's making the midterm elections such a cliffhanger. And for you for your absentee voting, FG -- I just voted that way this week, too. I don't know whether anyone can vote early, but I had special reasons. Wouldn't it be incredibly civilized to do away with understaffed, under-machined polling stations and let everyone vote by mail?

Eats, everyone I've spoken to agrees with you; what affects unit cohesion is job performance and attitude, not sexual orientation. But thanks to half a dozen homophobic, sclerotic old white men in the senate, not only do we still have DADT but we don't even have a defense appropriations bill passed.

Would you rather be dead or have to listen to the recorded speeches of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III?

I'd rather be dead!

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^ I'm getting cynical in my dotage.

I am glad that HR collect those stats on who to recruit. it means that they take equal oppertunites seriously and they'll appoint fairly. That actually makes me feel better.I am also glad to tick the White male straight box, it's safer over here.

I find it interesting that by and large the only people who complain are people who have benifited from discrimination for years. Odd that? Are you scared of a level playing field? Or are you worried about being discriminated against? Well now you know how it feels! Not nice is it? But guess what if you challenge the company in court to prove that they are not discriminated against - then you could argue on the basis of fact. Because the evidence has been collected! On the form you object to.

What is your evidence that the headmaster was appointed because he was blind? Were you on the interview panel? Was his appointment challenged at a tribunal? Or was it all hearsay?

If I was recruiting for the RAF I would want the widest pool of applicants so I cpuld be sure I got the best talent. If no one from Wales applied I would be worried I was missing out on good people who lived in Wales. So If I recruited one or two people from Wales I would probably want to use them in a ad. I would then hope that other people from Wales would apply. As it has a reputation for being straight and slightly racist (which you do) wouldn't you want to put a black woman in your PR? normal to me.

I'm late to the discussion and using a keyboard that's hard to type on, but...

>> Employers should not be forced into making recruitment choices just to meet some form of "balance". The best person for the post in terms of ability should always get the job. No other factor should force the issue.

As Ag said, are not. T'Bank collected these stats every year and published them, in detail, internally. So I know for example that sexual and racial diversity was high among the counter staff, and that women and people with disabilities were well represented in low grade head office positions, but all minorities were less well represented in senior roles. People in the call centres tended to be younger. Women in junior roles were more likely to be older than the men in the same roles. This was true year on year.

Now, the captured and published this information, but there was no suggestion that it should influence any recruitment decisions. If they were minded to try to change these ratios, and I'm not sure they were, then there were plenty of ways to do so, starting with tryning to understand whether the ratios were the same in the pool of qualified applicants as they were in the final appointees. One factor was that they had very good flexible and part time working arrangements which enabled women to sustain long-term employment with them, albeit at the cost of being overtaken professionally by their male colleagues. Is that a bad thing or a good thing or just A thing?

I was far more interested by the higher ratio of people with disabilities in the lower levels. Were thy not getting support they needed to progress? Is it just too hard to both overcome disability AND achieve a senior role? Was it a statistical anomoly? Was their employment tokenism, as Eats suggests? Or were they discriminated against? Were they applying for more senior roles at all, and if not, why so?

The point is that adressing these questions is not a matter of crude favouritism, and you need to collect the stats in the first place in order to ask them at all.

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Careful Ben. You infer that my comment on one case is a blanket statement that disability employment is tokenism. Not true. A friend who died last year spent the majority of his adult life in a wheelchair, yet was a senior member in a massive accountancy firm, highly respected and well regarded. He was good at his job and not a token.

I have met a few guys in the force called Taff. The service is an equal opportunities employer and has worked endlessly over the last couple of decades to promote recruitment across all boundaries. The question really is why more people outside the expected "norm" don't want to join up. Is it just A Thing? Is the cultural or ethnic focus something different than serving your country? Is there something different to aspire to? A shame really as what Dr Z said is true, there are a lot of gifted kids out there from all backgrounds who would do well in the services. They're just not walking through the doors in any numbers.