Speaking with a person who has recently entered the infosec industry...

...they’ve seen all the archetypes: the rockstar who shits on their colleagues, the manager who thinks they’re in the military, the hard workers who keep their heads down.

(Short thread)

When asked who they interact with in order to learn, my friend replied with:

“I seek out the kind ones.”

My friend described a small handful of colleagues that didn’t fit into the toxic work culture of:
- work 24/7
- exploit passion
- techbro toxic masculinity
- systemic sexism
- systemic racism

The small handful of colleagues that did the quiet work and kept their heads down so they weren’t fired, were also not promoted and passed over in recognition.

My friend said they started banding together, publicly calling out each others’ work even when passed over by leadership, exchanged knowledge and training, and supported each other despite the greater organization’s latent systemic efforts to keep them in their place.

They created their own professional network.

I can only imagine that once a single person from this group gets out to a better company, they’ll take every other person w/ them.

Thus gutting this place of the only real knowledge and work ethic that is currently propping them up.