Reverse racism in the IT workplace...

[slugg]

I don't want this to turn into a political discussion. I'm not trying to bait a flame war, either. I'm just honestly asking if any of you have experienced this.

My former boss is Indian. Our team was basically a melting pot of every race and color until he started his tyrranical rule. Systematically, he separated all the people who worked well together, set them up for failure, and made their lives a living hell until they quit. Not a single non-Indian was treated this way; only the Americans or Hispanics were treated this way. I was the last non-Indian left on the team by the time I quit. Now, every single person is Indian the only employees are the manager and his two leads; the rest are contractors from Tata.

We went from being the highest performing team in the entire line of business to the biggest turd, all in about 2 months. This manager would support his buddies and let them gang up on you. If you said left, they said right. If you said up, they said down. They didn't document anything and they'd only spend time with each other, so you were on your own, set up for failure.

When I quit, he didn't even ask why. We were on the phone for maybe 60 seconds, going over who I should give my laptop. That's it.

What a prick. Anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[brianmanahan]

nope, cant say i have ever run into anything like that. i have had terrible managers, but at least they were terrible equally to everyone. also have had a couple indian managers, and they were both quite good.

you would think that with him taking over the team and performance subsequently decreasing, his days in that position would be numbered.

 

[slugg]

Let me say that our first manager was Indian and he was fucking awesome. We still keep in touch.

 

[KentState]

I don't feel that it's racism as much as a cultural thing. I've seen people from different parts of India treat others from their same country differently. Hard to remove the caste system in a single generation.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Driving out employees and replacing them with contractors? Ugh. Please tell us who this company was so I can avoid needing them for anything important.

Most of the contractors we hire are Indian as well - it's not particularly race-ey, it's just capitalism at work: subcontracting rolls downhill - a bunch of people who make $40/hr pay $100/hr to borrow a guy in Mumbai who earns $20/hr, and usually isn't employed directly by the company we hired, either.

(Needless to say, we don't outsource a lot if we can help it.)

IMO, if he were racist, he'd be getting requisitions opened and filled with MORE of his friends.

1) A manager who has two cronies is old news. Cronies are always the same race, gender, alumni, frat, socioeconomic background, etc. That's how they become cronies. (It's a good gig if you can get it.)

2) A manager with 100% turnover is signing his death warrant. Unless it was approved beforehand, he's going to be gone swiftly.

3) A manager who subcontracts everything is a manager who was hired to reduce headcount and preside over the closure/disbanding of a department, probably.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I don't want this to turn into a political discussion. I'm not trying to bait a flame war, either. I'm just honestly asking if any of you have experienced this.

My former boss is Indian. Our team was basically a melting pot of every race and color until he started his tyrranical rule. Systematically, he separated all the people who worked well together, set them up for failure, and made their lives a living hell until they quit. Not a single non-Indian was treated this way; only the Americans or Hispanics were treated this way. I was the last non-Indian left on the team by the time I quit. Now, every single person is Indian the only employees are the manager and his two leads; the rest are contractors from Tata.

We went from being the highest performing team in the entire line of business to the biggest turd, all in about 2 months. This manager would support his buddies and let them gang up on you. If you said left, they said right. If you said up, they said down. They didn't document anything and they'd only spend time with each other, so you were on your own, set up for failure.

When I quit, he didn't even ask why. We were on the phone for maybe 60 seconds, going over who I should give my laptop. That's it.

What a prick. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Didn't you mean "not a single Indian" there? Also, are Americans and Hispanics mutually exclusive groups at your workplace, or do you mean white and Hispanic?

You said that the only people left are the project leads and some contractors. It occurs to me that that might have been the goal from the start. Contractors are sometimes cheaper and less of an overall hassle to employ for some businesses. They often handle their own taxes and healthcare and they are easier to fire and replace. Perhaps the guy wasn't doing it out of racism, but because of some new business plan within the company that didn't have a place for regular employees in it?

 

[TwiceOver]

So racism, not "Reverse Racism".

 

[zerocool84]

If he made everything turn into shit then wouldn't have the higher ups noticed?

 

[HeXen]

So racism, not "Reverse Racism".

It's only in reverse to those that still think racism means only whites hating another race or just a few people of a particular race.

 

[Attic]

So racism, not "Reverse Racism".

Yea this. Reverse racism is just a more PC way of saying Racism for some folks. Racism is racism though.


Sounds like in this case the offending guy is just a stubborn cultural type, and this comes across as him being a major ass which is getting understood as racism.

Just sounds like a stubborn asshole to me though. That can be very frustrating to work under.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Contact the EEOC, then sue them.

 

[Newbian]

Should had sued and made the big bucks so you never would have to work again.

 

[Sheep221]

I don't want this to turn into a political discussion. I'm not trying to bait a flame war, either. I'm just honestly asking if any of you have experienced this.

My former boss is Indian. Our team was basically a melting pot of every race and color until he started his tyrranical rule. Systematically, he separated all the people who worked well together, set them up for failure, and made their lives a living hell until they quit. Not a single non-Indian was treated this way; only the Americans or Hispanics were treated this way. I was the last non-Indian left on the team by the time I quit. Now, every single person is Indian the only employees are the manager and his two leads; the rest are contractors from Tata.

We went from being the highest performing team in the entire line of business to the biggest turd, all in about 2 months. This manager would support his buddies and let them gang up on you. If you said left, they said right. If you said up, they said down. They didn't document anything and they'd only spend time with each other, so you were on your own, set up for failure.

When I quit, he didn't even ask why. We were on the phone for maybe 60 seconds, going over who I should give my laptop. That's it.

What a prick. Anyone else have a similar experience?

Been through this exact thing although we were all same race (caucasians), sucks that such a companies even generate any revenue so they keep and continue to screw up employees and customers.

 

[slugg]

I screwed up some of the semantics in my statements... Sorry... English is not my first language, so cut me some slack.

Anyway, this guy keeps hiring his buddies. I interviewed some of his buddies and failed them, yet they still got hired. I'm out of there, anyway.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

seen this happen before, but not with the butting heads part.
new indian CTO comes in and brings in a bunch of IT managers that are also from india (or from indian descent). a bunch of consultants flown in from india for training to return to the motherland to work the overnight shift.
reeked of nepotism, but i left for greener pastures so i don't know what became of it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yea this. Reverse racism is just a more PC way of saying Racism for some folks. Racism is racism though.

BS. The people who most often cry "reverse racism" when life hands them lemons are the same crowd that whine about how PC everything is and why can't they use the perfectly cromulent words they grew up with anyway?

 

[Jodell88]

As described, this does seem like racism to me, or could be conveyed as racism.

 

[HeXen]

It's certainly possible though that he did hate the entire caucasian race but unless he said otherwise it's not realistic to say he does just because of a few incidents. He could just be a bigot selectively hating specific people for a myriad of reasons that know one but him may know or he just has favortism towards the race he's comfortable with. Some people are just that...more comfortable with certain races than others without necessarily hating them.

I hated a guy once just because he appeared smug all the time. I think he just always looked like that htough.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you reverse racism wouldn't that just be being normal and nice to everyone?

 

[Printer Bandit]

if you're not brown, get out of town.

 

[Six]

Sounds like the manager is trying to reduce cost, and he's just trying to make the higher paid employees leave to avoid paying unemployment benefits.

But I agree with the other posters that this is cronyism and not racism. See it all the time with small businesses and colleges. Sucks especially when your manager passes your hard work as that of his crony.

 

[Ruptga]

Racism is like speed; you can go in any direction at any speed, but speed can never be negative.

If he made everything turn into shit then wouldn't have the higher ups noticed?

Hah, yeah that's a good one.

I screwed up some of the semantics in my statements... Sorry... English is not my first language, so cut me some slack.

Anyway, this guy keeps hiring his buddies. I interviewed some of his buddies and failed them, yet they still got hired. I'm out of there, anyway.

I posted before reading the whole thread. You are forgiven. Anyway it sounds like he's motivated more by his incompetence and nepotism than by outright racism, but they definitely can overlap.

 

[Ruptga]

eff, DP.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Sounds like nepotism/favoritism.

But, what about the higher ups? For him to make such a dramatic change, I am sure they would notice,... unless they specifically hired him to flush all the current employees (who they may feel are over paid) and have him bring in cheaper labor.

Hate the guy all you want, but, unless upper management is totally detached from what is going on, he may be doing what they asked him to do. Especially since it sounds like he is bringing in subpar employees.

Anyway, best of luck to you and your future endeavors.

 

[maddogchen]

I've seen that before. New bosses generally hire people they know and like. In some cases its all the people of the same ethnicity or color. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I've had an Indian VP force the team to hire his cousin who was not very qualified for the job. They finally force him to quit before his 6 month probation was up. Not very service oriented or friendly or knew what he was doing.

I've had black managers hire only black people. Some were good, some were such a big headache that eventually they learned and hired only good people. But the manager from what i heard seemed to favor the black people that were hired when they made mistakes they were easily forgiven while others were not.

I've had chinese managers who only hired chinese people....and that worked out quite well in that case...

Oh...and last one was one guy who brought in most of his old team from another city. White guy that brought in white people...hahaha. Well they knew what they were doing because they worked on the same product but in another city. Company paid for them to migrate. But it really changed the culture of the team. And pushed a lot of existing people out. I left soon after.

but anyway it happens unfortunately. some good some bad. Can't do much about that unless it really really blows up in their faces.