"Toxic culture is overstated" = "I've never sat down and had any serious work discussions with women in tech, but I think I know everything."
Toxic culture in engineering is terrible. I've been in many different engineering and IT work environments for decades, and have seen a ton of women get picked on and bullied, both overtly and just subtly. Yeah it's not all women--some evolve shields, some become passive and numb, some double down on skill to get 1x the credit for 2x the effort--but it's definitely very real.
I also think quitting has been driven by remote work. What happens if person A had remote work during the worst part of the pandemic, erratic petty tyrant boss A decides its time to "come back" or "go hybrid" even though it seems nonsensical to someone with broadband and a remotely accomodatable job--and then person B, who is spouse/friend/relative of person A, has a completely different situation where non-maladjusted boss B is like "yeah man, as long as you are getting your work done, I don't care where you do it."
There is a strong desire to dump "MadMen" type boss A with prejudice. Not always, some people love getting out of the house to work, but for people who enjoyed pandemic remote work, to have to give it up for arbitrary reasoning based on the armchair organizational psychology theories of some dumb manager--those people are going to skate, and they should.
It's like one the one side you have this vague meme of "in person team building" and on the other, real costs like: car wear and tear costs, gas costs, mass transit costs, parking costs, weather related time costs like scraping, increased accident risk from commute, lost work time during commute, different/specialized clothing needs and uncomfortable work clothing standards, prep/logistics time like packing/unpacking/undocking/docking, MBWA/wanderer interruptions and ad hoc "coworker therapist sessions" in the office, less comfortable and ergonomically genericized desks and peripherals, uncontrollable environmental noises and temperatures...all to do something that can be done over a wire.
I'd sooner set an office building on fire than work out of it. I'm a genXer and I guess I get why boomers are like this but if you're my age or younger and you force people into an office, shame on your pathetic fake nerd soul.
Toxic culture in engineering is terrible. I've been in many different engineering and IT work environments for decades, and have seen a ton of women get picked on and bullied, both overtly and just subtly. Yeah it's not all women--some evolve shields, some become passive and numb, some double down on skill to get 1x the credit for 2x the effort--but it's definitely very real.
I also think quitting has been driven by remote work. What happens if person A had remote work during the worst part of the pandemic, erratic petty tyrant boss A decides its time to "come back" or "go hybrid" even though it seems nonsensical to someone with broadband and a remotely accomodatable job--and then person B, who is spouse/friend/relative of person A, has a completely different situation where non-maladjusted boss B is like "yeah man, as long as you are getting your work done, I don't care where you do it."
There is a strong desire to dump "MadMen" type boss A with prejudice. Not always, some people love getting out of the house to work, but for people who enjoyed pandemic remote work, to have to give it up for arbitrary reasoning based on the armchair organizational psychology theories of some dumb manager--those people are going to skate, and they should.
It's like one the one side you have this vague meme of "in person team building" and on the other, real costs like: car wear and tear costs, gas costs, mass transit costs, parking costs, weather related time costs like scraping, increased accident risk from commute, lost work time during commute, different/specialized clothing needs and uncomfortable work clothing standards, prep/logistics time like packing/unpacking/undocking/docking, MBWA/wanderer interruptions and ad hoc "coworker therapist sessions" in the office, less comfortable and ergonomically genericized desks and peripherals, uncontrollable environmental noises and temperatures...all to do something that can be done over a wire.
I'd sooner set an office building on fire than work out of it. I'm a genXer and I guess I get why boomers are like this but if you're my age or younger and you force people into an office, shame on your pathetic fake nerd soul.