Re: Help! First TW job interview

[Tony Rocco <trocco -at- ONDISPLAY -dot- COM>]

        It's pretty frightening to hear someone dismiss ageism and other
forms of discrimination as "perfectly acceptable" given a particular
cultural context. So, by Mr. Barefoot's logic, racism and sexism are OK when
the culture supports and approves of  it. Well, it's pretty hard to say
anything against racism, sexism, and homophobia with that sort of
perspective, Mr. Barefoot. If the cultural context doesn't approve of it, it
wouldn't exist in the first place. If the cultural context does approve of
it, it's perfectly OK and no one can criticize it.

        And, regarding Mr. Barefoot's appreciation for people openly venting
their "undeniable biases:" genuine feelings of bias toward a group of people
who share a particular trait does not make it acceptable to put that bias
into effect in one's hiring practices.

        One context of which Mr. Barefoot should be aware is that of people
on this list who don't approve of discrimination of any form regardless of
whether or not it's deemed acceptable within the context in which it occurs.

        - tgrrr

        Good morning,

        There is a valid lesson to be learned in this thread, for both Mr.
Smith and
        the bevy or respondents. We live, work and write in a globalized
economy,
        and need to be aware of the cultural assumptions we make. In his
first post,
        Mr. Smith failed to indicate what country his job interview was in,
so I
        think most people (including Mr. Rocco, below) assumed it was in the
United
        States. One went as far as to point out the federal law on the
issue. I will
        point out, with a bit of nationalist pride, that a Canadian, Ms.
Credland,
        was prudent enough to note Mr. Smith's e-mail address and not leap
to any
        conclusions. Mr. Smith might have foreseen this oversight, and the
rest of
        us might have followed Ms. Credland's lead in clarifying it.

        From a cultural perspective, it may be perfectly acceptable in
"northern
        Europe" to hire people based on age. In fact, it seems genuine in
that it
        recognizes people's undeniable biases. As technical writers, we
should
        always consider the context within which we're operating. Thanks.
DB.

        -----Original Message-----
        From: Tony Rocco [mailto:trocco -at- ONDISPLAY -dot- COM]
        Sent: Friday, March 12, 1999 11:23 AM
        To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
        Subject: Re: Help! First TW job interveiw


        Well, Stan, there is a pretty egregious problem with the job posting
you are
        responding to. The first requirement listed is the age of the
applicant.
        Discrimination based on age is akin to discrimination based on race
or
        gender. You can't say, "White male, 25 - 25, wanted for tech writer
        position."  What this employer has done is highly illegal and could
result
        in serious legal consequences.


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=
        Send commands to listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g., SIGNOFF
TECHWR-L)



 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=