Laptops with Stickers

When I was going to conferences, my laptop stickers were a public display of "these are technologies that I use and you can strike up a conversation with me about them." To an extent, a resume that you can glance at from across the room.

It's a bit of a statement for what you're trying to communicate with that lid - professional experience, political statements, personal "this is neat"...

And part of this is a for me the lid of the laptop is something that I'd need to be able to be comfortable with displaying in front of a CxO without worry about if they may be offended or not (though perl might be offensive to some).

> though perl might be offensive to some

Now I'm tempted to make a set of: Perl, COBOL, Java Beans, Java EE, ActiveX, Silverlight, VB.Net, ActiveDirectory, Kerberos, ...

I've got stickers on my laptops. None of them are political, but I've got various indie fashion brands, music related, furry stickers, etc. If someone managed to be offended by them that's more their problem than mine. I can go work anywhere and have enough savings that it would be no inconvenience to me. I wouldn't want to work with someone who couldn't handle some trivial self expression on the back of a laptop.

So far no one has ever been offended by this though. HN is far more sensitive than the average CTO.

HN is still not a quarter as sensitive as most corporations that aren't tech.

> If someone managed to be offended by them that's more their problem than mine.

That can be a healthy attitude outside of work. People love personality.

But at work, that's not a healthy attitude. You're there to work together, not to be uncompromising in expressing yourself. Your stickers are probably fine, but I can also imagine plenty of musical artists that would certainly be offensive (and rightly so) to some people, whether for their lyrics or for their criminal behavior -- and then the attitude of "that's more your problem than mine" is not gonna fly.

Sure there is some content that is obviously not appropriate, but I'm not seeing it in the OP link. Meanwhile the comments here are filled with a thinly veiled anger over seeing rainbow flag stickers. These are the people I'd be quite happy to self filter themselves out in the workplace. Though I've never met someone like this in the office. Or at least they keep their thoughts to themselves offline.

I've met people like them in the office. My first job, people were deadnaming Chelsea Manning in the internal chat. One time I got stuck in a lift with two other people and they assumed I was a guy, and started talking about which of the HR reps they wanted to fuck. It was tedious and stressful, and the company did have an anonymous reporting system, sure; but fuck, there were only three people in the lift, anonymity goes to shit when there's only three total people present and two of them are in on it.

My work quality tanked shortly after because, a) I have ADHD so I was putting 200% into my job to tread water, b) the rampant misogyny and transphobia within the workplace was just suffocating, and c) I dared to use the anonymous reporting system to report people for being shitheads, and I stupidly admitted that to HR. I am 70% sure it was the last point there that got me fired lmao

This kind of shit is why I am no longer aiming to work in tech.

> These are the people I'd be quite happy to self filter themselves out in the workplace.

Same. If my stickers serve as a self-filter away from companies I'd rather not work at, or people I'd rather not work with, then that's a positive thing for me.

If someone's offended by, for example, a rainbow sticker on my laptop, well I'd rather not work with them, or for that company. I'll look elsewhere.

I've never seen anyone get offended by a rainbow sticker at work, at least not anywhere I've ever worked.

I have seen things that came across as misogynistic or very sexually suggestive, however, and the employee had to be asked to remove them.

There are plenty of cases where the problem really is with the employee and the sticker, not the people taking offense.

Safe to have a perl sticker as while it’s easy enough to put it on, nobody (including yourself) be able to read it.

Whoa, a little too edgy there, I’m calling HR

It's fairly readable. https://imgur.com/a/jWhyBmI

Considering how many of these stickers are about being gay or trans, compromising about expressing yourself sounds pretty grim. I wouldn't want to put that aside to get on with my co-workers.

That's why even though I like the weird and esoteric stickers you see here, I myself prefer the `unixstickers` style I think you're talking about. Debian, Arch, GNU, Python, bash, Ruby, Git, Vim, fork bomb, Tux, DEFCON, 127.0.0.1, &c. These are great for starting conversations, even in cafes. And you end up meeting some interesting people with shared culture.

It is about advertising one's (possible) shared culture. For me, my laptop is part of my professional culture and thus I try to keep it as crisp and professional in appearance as one's resume since its a bit... difficult to laptop lids in certain cases.

For my personal shared culture, that is the sort of thing that can be exposed (or hidden) on a case by case basis. My choice of t-shirt where I can button up or down depending on the context says a lot more about me than the lid of my laptop. Granted, it' one message at a time - but there are things that I've had on t-shirts that I made sure to button up before going into the office and seeing the boss (old school, and I still have it - those were durable shirts - https://www.flickr.com/photos/strihs/8536766235/ ). On the other hand, I wouldn't put https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop/design/let+me+work+on+your+... on my laptop no matter how much I agree with it.

I would be amendable to putting a square of #22b7f2 on my laptop, and that opens up an entire discussion if recognized (I'm not quite ambitious or passionate enough to color the entire laptop that color).

In another comment I linked https://imgur.com/a/jWhyBmI as my laptop lid.

Most other industries are very exposed to external clients or customers. Software developers who sit in an office and only see other internal employees have no reason cover up their personality like that.

You've never seen anyone get outwardly offended but I'm sure there have been a few. It's just a statistical probability. I fully support the cause and would not be offended but I encounter people everyday who most certainly are.

Just tell those people you're a big fan of Noah and the Old Testament. Then ask them about why they are wearing a cotton blend shirt.

I keep my travel laptop clean of any outward expression. Saves a lot of potential grief crossing borders or cultures.

My at home and around town laptop can be my canvas.

I've never understood why people were so proud to brag that they can't understand a relatively simple language like perl.

rofl. It goes full circle. You should see the shit that b2b sales and support reps say.

> comfortable with displaying in front of a CxO without worry

In today's timeline, you'd need to be concerned about what some random TSA agent felt about your stickers and if that might get you pulled aside for additional screening.

You forgot to add Flash ;)

My work computer is spotless. My personal conference (and work appropriate - security wouldn't find anything unprofessional or untoward on it) laptop is the one with some stickers that are technologies that I want to put on there. My personal computer at home is desktop... so no stickers there.

Even crossing company culture borders could be problematic if one is a consultant or sales engineer or professional services... This is one of those "in the wrong environment, something could scupper a deal - and you don't want that to be pinned on you."

Like I said in another comment, other coworkers of mine have tried to express themselves through misogynistic or sexually suggestive stickers. I wouldn't suggest having a Diddy sticker or anything right now.

My only point is that the "if someone is offended, that's their problem" attitude is not so black and white. People often use it to justify being an a**hole too. Obviously, gay or trans stickers are not in the category of offensive things. There are things that are appropriate to express, and things that are not. So yeah, sometimes you need to compromise on your self-expression at work because not all of it is appropriate for everyone, you know?

You joke, but I had someone tell me they were taken for questioning on entry to the US because their laptop had EFF stickers with some slightly edgy hacker culture phrases on them.

I'm annoyed by the political stuff. I haven't always worked at 100% left leaning companies and I find it really uncomfortable when someone e.g. calls the centre-left party I voted for a pack of communists. I don't like encouraging a norm of political self-expression because I have direct experience being on the other side of it and feel that it leads to both a less effective workplace and a more polarised society.

I'm sorry, but what makes you think I was joking? I have seen a co-worker get pulled aside for additional screening because he wore a t-shirt that had the words of the second amendment or some such printed in a way of looking like a pair of pistols. On the same flight, we sat with another individual who got himself arrested, missed his flight, and was eventually released to sit on our flight because he wore a belt adorned with bullet shells cut in half.

I'm not saying either one of them were the deepest of thinkers when choosing the garments for the day, but TSA also isn't employing the deepest of thinkers either, so why poke the hornets' nest

> But at work, that's not a healthy attitude. You're there to work together, not to be uncompromising in expressing yourself.

Well there was that corporate-approved "bring your whole self to work" thing in recent years.

> Obviously, gay or trans stickers are not in the category of offensive things.

It's at least plausible to taxonomize them under either politics or sexuality. Either of which larger categories some might consider categorically offensive or inappropriate.

Yes, I'm also saying that "vote for $PARTY" (categorically; regardless of which party) and anime catgirls are both potentially offensive or inappropriate. Depending on how much of a stick-in-the-mud people in your local environs are.

I have a bunch of stickers from hobbies like bikes and sim racing. I guess it serves a similar purpose!

Just about every enterprise has tech, and there are many, many sectors. There's also far more "tech folks" than developers at most companies, nor do all companies have devs on staff.

> On the same flight, we sat with another individual who got himself arrested, missed his flight, and was eventually released to sit on our flight because he wore a belt adorned with bullet shells cut in half.

I've heard of similar things before, and had the sense that this was less screeners being dumb and more legislators not fuzz-testing their work.

> Silverlight

You absolute monster. I'd managed to forget that that had existed.