Rainbows and Cake

2008-06-27T23:09:00.005-04:00

My daughter went for an orientation meeting for her new job today. She landed a position on a special project with a rather large, well known company with locations all over the US.

After the meeting and a tour of the facilities, she was told she could go into the break room and have some cake.

Upon entering the break room, her eyes were met by the sight of rainbow banners all over the place, and a giant one in the middle of the wall shouting "GAY PRIDE", and a huge rainbow cake, sitting on the table. (the Gay Pride parade in NYC is this Sunday)

The woman that had taken her through orientation then told her how the company believes in tolerance and diversity and this was the reason for the decorations & cake.

While I am all for tolerance, I can't help but wonder if this is somehow counter productive.

How many people that work for the company are tolerating the diversity of their co-workers every day by biting their tongues and not expressing their point of view that is contrary to those they work with?

What kind of work environment is the company creating with things like this, for the fundamentalist Christians they may have working for them? How comfortable would they be walking into the break room to see something like this?

My daughter seems to think it is no different than hanging up the usual "Black History Month" stuff in schools during the month of February. But I tend to disagree.

There would be a big difference between hanging up an educational black history poster in an educational institution and decorating a whole room in "black pride" decorations and serving a "proud to be black" cake in a typical office building. Just like the issues with the Gay Pride party, this could create some definite workplace tension in some parts of the country.

I don't think a company makes a wise decision when they plan parties like this, and I think things like this have no business in the workplace and serve just to point out the differences among people and create division rather than tolerance.

Do we really need a party to remind a homophobe that the guy/gal he works with is gay, when he has gone through the trouble to put it out of his mind when he comes to work every day, so he can earn a living without getting himself into trouble?

Companies have gone out of their way to remove bias from the workplace, in an attempt to make race, gender, sexual preference, marital status, ethnicity and religion not an issue. They would like all of their employees to work with an attitude that they and everyone they work with is a gray genderless robot with no mind or beliefs of their own that have nothing to do with work. Parties like this bring it all back to being an issue by reminding everyone that they are not all gray, genderless, robots when they are on the job.

Ironic that it all comes down to cake, which you can't have and eat it too.

Cranial Soup

Rainbows and Cake