OPINION:
In the backlash from firing engineer James Damore, the CEO of Google said, “[L]et’s not forget what unites us as a company — our desire to build great products for everyone that make a big difference in their lives” (“Google’s ’diversity’ campaign seeks social, not technical, innovation,” Web, Aug. 13). Very nice words — yet that is all they are.
Let’s say you go to a restaurant to have dinner. If the restaurant is well-known for having the best seafood in town, what possible difference would it make to you how diverse the cooks, waiters, cashiers or parking attendants were? Would you be more likely to return to this expensive restaurant because the cook was a man, the waitress was a woman and the cashier was a from a specific ethnic group?
I fail to see how a person’s sex or ethnicity is pertinent to the matter of building “great products for everyone.” One would just hope the people creating the products are well-qualified.
By its actions, Google actually advanced Mr. Damore’s message, showing that the company’s diversity policies are both hypocritical and stupid, and that there are real differences between the genders.
I was fired many years ago as part of a five-woman office staff with an all-male engineering firm. When I asked what was wrong with my work, I was told it had been fine. When I questioned why I was being fired, I was told that the engineers spent most of their day coming upstairs to see me. I replied, “Then you should have fired them.”
As it turned out, I shortly thereafter secured a wonderful position at an impressive organization where I flourished. The moral: Never give up, for you will find the place where you were meant to be.
JACQUELINE A. POSTAL
Silver Spring
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