I think finally you are getting it yes Don’t put things in writing that might be embarrassing to the company or cause negative press if made public. It’s professionalism 101. The dissonance between how staff spoke internally and how they responded in public in LinkedIn I think shows the problem. If you aren’t willing to call him a horrible term on LinkedIn, don’t write it on a system subject to GDPR requests. It’s not rocket science.
I am coming to this a bit late, but I am trans and worked at Monzo
Monzo had pronouns long before I joined in peoples bios, it’s only when Slack made it an official feature there was a post like “hey you can use the official slack feature now!”
Everyone I knew at Monzo had pronouns, it might seem “pressure” because it’s peer pressure? But no one was like “you must do this”
This is a slight aside really but this is becoming a problem at my work too. It’s become ‘not normal’ to not state your pronouns. Obviously not sure what the solution is exactly. Tell some people not to put pronouns? I don’t know
“Hang on, I’ll call you” has been said many a time. Or I’ll go to whatsapp!
If you get “are you at home? Give me call” you know it’s really good!
His opinions are of no concern to Monzo (and by extension, Monzo’s employees, on a company system, and on company time). That’s the key difference between being a person and being a company: The company doesn’t get to pass any judgement on the person’s opinions.
The solution is to allow people to post their pronouns if they wish, and make no inference if someone doesn’t.
That’s what companies like mine are already doing though. But that doesn’t stop the problem of it potentially feeling odd to be the only person in a 200 person or so company without them.
Monzo seem to be a bit of a culture war fav of the Telegraph. Massive fuss about nothing
I have a reply awaiting to be approved. I actually wrote it before the last two replies, but the next post from me is the one currently held in the holding pattern. It’s nothing controversial:
I’m one of the few who doesn’t have mine in an org of 800, never under any pressure, and have always enjoy the roulette of having a name that confuses people to what gender I am
I don’t know how talking about an article could be construed as processing personal data under the GDPR definition of processing though?
Pronouns have never bothered me. I make a guess based on their name/voice/whatever and if I’m wrong they correct me and everything’s peachy from then on.
Never had it suggested that the company makes a list… I presume support have that kind of thing in notes for customers, but I’ve never looked (they’re not suicidal enough to let me talk to customers!).
Right but are you trans or cis? I don’t think anyone has suggested misgendering trans people bothers cis people.
As far as discussions on chat go… with everyone working from home it’s the same as chatting over the kettle when you’re in the office. We have ‘opinions’ about some of the more notorious customers… but mostly business related like them trying to get free stuff. None of it gets written down though, it’s all over voice.
Slagging off the boss, though… that’s fair game.
You might get it wrong first time you speak. but nobody’s getting upset about a one time error I’d hope.
More than once starts to sound deliberate, and I’d hope everyone got upset at that.
Is this the only source? As in theres a pay wall
My closest personal experience of this is from before people used ‘partner’ as standard and tended to ask ‘do you have a girlfriend?’. Sure you aren’t going to hold the assumption against them. But, then you have to correct them. And you don’t know how the person will react, whether it’ll change anything, and also it can just get a bit personally exhausting to constantly have to go through this tiny exercise with almost everyone you meet. Sometimes I just used to pretend to be straight because I didn’t want to go through breaking the assumption. These days almost everyone asks ‘do you have a partner’ and it’s much easier.
that’s my impression / parallel of why it can just make it easier for many trans people when it’s normalised to share pronouns up front rather than have to break an incorrect assumption.
That whole situation seems a bit screwed up… but the kid got his fees back and a bunch of support, which must help.
OTOH the article says Pokemon haven’t said anything about it?
Yes, although I do hate the use of “woke” in this way, as if it’s a bad thing. I’m woke (i.e. I’m alert to racial and social injustice) but I don’t take it to the extreme that some vocal minorities do, like threatening celebrities for having what in my view are often legitimate concerns.
There’s nothing ‘inclusive’ about excluding a teenager from a competition because they were nervous about stating their pronouns. I’d go as far as to say that’s potentially quite transphobic.