Laptops with Stickers

Stickers themselves can be fun and quirky, but I for the life of me can't figure out why people would put such extremely divisive and workplace-unnecessary messaging on their MAIN WORK DEVICE as many of these have.

The kind of lack to integrate to a team having your pride flags, literal death threats to perceived enemies, furries, loli anime, etc on a thing you intend to bring to the workplace to do all your work on isn't good for your career and sure as hell won't not be noticed by people whose responsibility is to judge risk and liabilities for example.

Tech stacks, not party flags.

What's wrong with a pride flag? People commonly display their hetero marriages etc. at workplaces too. If either of those cause division in a workplace, that's a matter for HR or legal to resolve (if it is indeed a disruption).

Anyway it's unclear which of these are brought into offices.

>People commonly display their hetero marriages etc. at workplaces too

what :D Don't see a single sticker about those and no people don't go out of their way to flaunt their marriages at the workplace. There is a place that is flaunted though, and that is on the behind of their car. "Just Married". How those are used is at the right scope and visibility too.

>If either of those cause division in a workplace, that's a matter for HR or legal to resolve.

If you immediately go to HR (and expect there to be a HR, and for them to take you seriously for minor things) to balance interpersonal issues at work that might just be a sign those issues wouldn't be there without you. Just don't bring your issues to work, be a human.

>it's unclear which of these are brought into offices.

Well I hope for the sake of the users they don't. Sowing discord doesn't reduce just personal success but can soil any project.

I for the life of me can’t figure out why anyone would post such an extremely divisive comment.

Showing a pride flag at work isn't bringing an issue (just like having a photo of a husband and wife on a desk is not). Someone else having a problem with that and causing a disruption over it, is sowing discord and bringing an issue to work.

Because on HN, people are allowed to express things you disagree with.

Thanks for the reminder to put a pride flag on my new work computer. Can't for the life of me figure out why it'd be divisive though.

Also, why do you assume these aren't people's personal computers? Many people surely own computers personally, and of course people can express themselves on personal property.

I’m struggling to understand how you’ve put pride flags and death threats in the same category of “extremely divisive”.

I see others have asked the same question, but you don’t seem to have the courage to respond.

What’s divisive about a pride flag?

I struggle to believe you don't understand what they mean. There is many a homophobe in the world. GP isn't saying homophobia is good, simply that espousing a pro-LGBT viewpoint may upset people. Maybe they deserve to be upset, but that doesn't change that it may become your problem.

I think that normalising LGBT and its symbols was a necessary step towards acceptance. If it's still a controversial idea to some, it's on them.

In the same breath/sentence as “death threats”? You think that’s remotely the same?

Well, for a start, you don't know that these are MAIN WORK DEVICEs. Some of them may be personal devices seen at cons and so on.

That said, I'm not _that_ worried about people noticing that the scary gay has a rainbow sticker on his laptop. If someone at work has an issue with me being gay, well, they'll probably have that issue with me regardless of what is on my laptop, and that is very much their problem. You can't spend your whole life pandering to bigots.

> simply that espousing a pro-LGBT viewpoint may upset people.

Y'know, I'm pretty much fine with upsetting bigots. I'd assume that people inclined to be upset by a scary pride flag are also upset by my _existence_, so, y'know, I don't see a strong reason to moderate my stickers to protect the delicate feelings of idiots. If they're a homophobe they'll have a problem with me _anyway_.

They're talking about having a pride flag on their laptop, not having sex at work.

People can become upset for a great variety of reasons. I think it's better to accept to some extent that it happens than to design your life around not upsetting anyone.

Do you say the same about someone who has a picture of their spouse next to their computer?