Information Technology Corporation 404 Solutions Implementing Reverse DEI Policy

Head of the HR department at 404 Solutions, Stan Dards, explains the company's recent decision to normalise discrimination.  As one climbs the ladders of the corporate world, you learn many lessons, says Stan. Don’t be an overachiever or a workaholic, number one, nobody is going to value it or notice it and number two, it will become the norm by being always expected of you. Company reviews whether by its employees rating the company or customers giving feedback on its products or services, are probably fake. Don’t be friends with or date colleagues, after the two of you have a fight, coming to the office is going to be, in the words of Funnybot, “Awkward.”

But most importantly, in the modern age of globalised commerce, you are no longer limited to dealing with people in your specific geographic location. Thanks to the internet and video conferencing you will be dealing with people from all corners of the planet on a daily basis. From Tokyo in the east to California in the west, from Cape Town in the south all the way to Greenland in the north, as to my surprise it turns out that Eskimos have an internet connection now.

And dealing with people from various backgrounds, you start to pick up on certain trends which require you to start racially profiling people in order to avoid a headache. I’ll never forget the moment I first had this realisation my first year in the corporate world, says Stan.

Every corporate company has this yearly tradition known as a performance review. In theory, it should be a great day, your employer tells you how valuable of an employee you are, a couple of compliments and things you need to work on and then when it’s finished, you’re presented with a pay raise.

In this specific company though, they did the reverse. They would shit on you for an hour and a half, and if you didn’t break down, which was the case with most female employees, they’d go, “Alright you took a good verbal beating for 90 minutes, here’s a couple of extra bucks per month.”

And during this 90 minute verbal beating, they would ask a question, which in my opinion is a very unfair question, “So dear employee, what do you not like about working in this company?” Who the hell in their right mind is going to answer that question honestly?

Especially, when you’re in a meeting where you could either get a raise or be fired.  And when I was asked this question, I gave the most honest answer I could give, says Stan. It literally came from the gut!

The reaction on the faces of the people who were in the room, which was the CEO, head of Human Resources and my direct superior, was non-stop laughter. I asked if there were any more questions, they said no, and I walked out of the conference room.

Fifteen minutes later, the Human Resources lady comes over to my desk and whispers in my ear, that was the funniest thing we’ve ever heard in a performance review, the CEO is giving you an extra $500 raise per month, congratulations! Cool I thought ... being openly racist just got me a raise.

Then I moved on to another company. And by then the word was already out that dealing with the previously mentioned group of people was a nightmare. Now we didn’t have a name for them but if I had to come up with one, let’s use Hillary Clinton terminology and call them the “Basket of deplorables.”

One day a colleague comes up to me and says, “Hey you know what’s interesting, you’re the only sales rep who hasn’t had a customer from the basket of deplorables over the last 2 financial quarters, what’s your secret?”

And I came up with some excuse like I have a lucky rabbit’s foot or something goofy like that. But the real answer was pretty simple, I see the contact form when it comes in, and if in the name field I saw a Pumasanji, a Yakov, a Mohammed, an Obadalooi, I would immediately just press, delete.

Why would I volunteer for a potential headache down the road when clicking one button solves the problem. And if you think the “Basket of deplorables” had it bad, women have it even worse. White, black, Asian, doesn’t matter, women clients get done real dirty. I’ll never forget the first time I noticed this, says Stan.

I had just landed my first female client. The boss invites me to a conference room, congratulates me on the new contract, and asks for the details, “Tell me about our new partner, where is he from, what is his project about, etc..?”

I honestly reply, “Well, it’s a she, her name is let’s say Becky, she’s from New York, her project is about so and so, estimated to take three months to complete and could cost around $50k. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.”

He thinks about it for a while and then replies, “Huh .. $50k for 3 months, yea? Ok this is what I want you to do, get back in touch with this Becky and let her know that we were a little hasty with her project’s estimation and to be more accurate and professional we had to do a second re-estimation which comes out to 6 months and a million dollars.”

Obviously confused I asked, “Well, why would you like me to do that boss?”

To which he replies, “If you think I’m gonna have this Becky be on the phone with me day and night, day in and day out complaining, nit picking and poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, for a measly $50k, you’re out of your damn mind. Either get her to put up a million bucks or get rid of her now.”

Moral of the story, working in a globalised economy, sooner or later you will realise that racially profiling people and at times being sexist, is mandatory, if you want to maintain your psychological well-being.  It's for this reason we will be implementing a reverse DEI policy at 404 Solutions.