I worked for an digital ad agency for a while that was, on the surface, very accepting of people from many cultures. But the environment was oddly avoidant of cultural awareness. Admittedly, as an ad agency, they strove to make their clients happy, even to the degree that we had to hide competing products if client representatives were on site. So, the cultural presentation was “TV Culture” America.

But I worked with friends who were Black and Kurdish and South American, and they somehow were turned into cultural non-presences. It was very weird. I am not sure it was intentional. Certainly, various co-workers were not trying to neutralise the cultural differences. But the desire to avoid conflict combined with the dominant company culture created a barrier to getting to know people’s real experiences.

I had previously worked in a very Asian company, and Asian culture was a very pronounced part of the experience.

Since, I have worked in companies with many Indians, and a fair amount of culture from various parts of India is part of the experience.

I think tech has a variety of experiences, depending on the venue.

But I also think there is a tendency in tech to hide differences, and focus on “safe” cultural interactions.

Perhaps we in tech need to make more effort to bring the details of our varied lives into our work places, and into the things we produce as well?