First time working for a southern company (NC) and it's been a real culture shock. It's probably the least diverse company I've worked for. Often company-wide meetings are held by like 8 white engineering men. I've also heard wildly offensive opinions all over the place, from my coworkers not realizing certain words are slurs, to offensive Q&A questions relating to DEI.
In terms of coworkers, I find there are many people who have been at the company for years and just simply haven't learned any industry best practices since then. I try to educate people, but because of the meritocracy culture, no one listens to me. I'm all for meritocracy, but there comes a point when you have to consider who is EDUCATED and maybe listen to them instead of giving your own uneducated opinion.
Specifically the head of People, Jen Dudeck, aggravates me. She is extremely sanctimonious and often seems to lose her temper in company meetings. She needs to brush up on DEI and how to talk to people.
Matt Hicks the CEO isn't much better. He is extremely tone deaf. After layoffs happened and we asked if C suite would take a pay cut, he started listing out the tenures of various exec members to somehow prove that they earned their positions. Meanwhile, he laid off regular people who had *also* been at Red Hat for DECADES.
Then, out of nowhere he went on a rant in a company meeting about how he doesn't like working from home and he won't *force* us to come to the office 3 days a week, but basically implied he would like that. *He did not provide one source to back up his claim of why people need to be in an office to achieve certain goals.* I was of course horrified given in my interview I was specifically marketed that RH was remote even before COVID. The interviewer (HR person) made it seem like WFH was integral to RH culture. Now i am dubious of that.
Next up is out CTO, Chris Wright. After layoffs, he joined us on video call from Japan. Considering he lives on the East Coast of the US, this was a blatant display of excess. I wonder if his travel budget could have been decreased to prevent a person from losing their job!
Red Hat also refuses to publicly condemn North Carolina's draconian anti-trans bills. Being an economic source that I'm sure NC wants to appease, a statement would really mean a lot. But they're cowards.
