I'd love to see a follow up of your decision and out comes. Possibly a tellHN later on. The advice in these situations seems pretty consistent in this unfortunate situation. Document, Lawyer, fire, support. If you do follow up id be particularly interested in the outcome of the support piece of the puzzle and how to balance group dynamics associated with the affected party in the aftermath. Any kick back...etc.
Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
591–600 of 622 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#592Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except I wouldn't ignore textual evidence "because women can be unreasonable" or "men can be assholes".
Straw-man. Or possibly framing the original argument stereotypically/in bad-faith. Concluding you only have one side of the story, is not the same as, nor necessitates ignoring it. One alternative is getting the other side of the story. I also find the phrasing "because women can be unreasonable" to be suspicious - there is no reason to put it this way rather than "people can be unreasonable"; OP made no claim that o…
I did not make up the phrase, just read the comments and the memes and the rhetoric by the OP. They are exactly what you disagree with. OP didn't just say "listen to his side" which is reasonable (albeit dangerous and should be handled by legal rather than personal means)
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#593Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you go to the police?! This is an employment matter, not a criminal matter. And she needs to tell the boss, because she wants to head off retaliation in the workplace. I get tired of hearing these excuses about age, background, I didn't know what the word meant, in my old workplace I got to harass ladies all the time and it was fine. Just act like a professional. I'd even give the guy a pass if he said, "Lo…
> Why would you go to the police?! This is an employment matter, not a criminal matter. When you call it sexual harassment it's criminal. Otherwise you're basically saying that sexual harassment is not a crime. With regards to going to the boss, I'm perplexed with the role of the boss and the company in an interaction between two adults. Maybe that's a cultural issue, but I think it's the court's job to decide if an…
When you call it sexual harassment it's criminal.
IANAL, but if/when this is eventually made criminal, urban construction will basically cease when they haul all the construction workers off to prison for catcalling. The reason the employer is involved is that the employer wants to avoid getting sued. On the street, there is no employer, and no one to care if remarks are made, so long as those remarks don't constitute assault.
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
Straw-man. Or possibly framing the original argument stereotypically/in bad-faith. Concluding you only have one side of the story, is not the same as, nor necessitates ignoring it. One alternative is getting the other side of the story. I also find the phrasing "because women can be unreasonable" to be suspicious - there is no reason to put it this way rather than "people can be unreasonable"; OP made no claim that o…
I did not make up the phrase, just read the comments and the memes and the rhetoric by the OP. They are exactly what you disagree with. OP didn't just say "listen to his side" which is reasonable (albeit dangerous and should be handled by legal rather than personal means)
Actually the only point I've really made is you shouldn't automatically assume the woman is being resonable whilst also assuming the man is unresonable. I'll happily admit that the converse is also true, but since 90% of the thread has jumped to the conclusion the guy should be fired, it hardly needs to be said.
Where you're going wrong, is that you're attributing more to whats actually been said, which is sadly the problem I have with this entire thread.
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#595Lawyer lawyer lawyer LAWYER lawyer LAWYER . I think the consensus in the grown-up business world is "fire immediately for cause." I would bet substantial money that when you lawyer lawyer lawyer they will advise you to do that and document the heck out of it. The calculus is really, really simple: if you don't, then you will with probability approaching one get this incident or a similar incident cited during a threa…
I agree with the consensus that you need a lawyer to navigate you thru this, but if you fire them without their being made aware of their actions constituting harassment you are liable. Further if you do not conduct an investigation that involves all parties you are liable. I have seen more grey area cases where a complaint is filed and it comes out she is married, things went to far and now it gets walked back as harassment (usually due to a husband finding a chat log). Not saying this is what's happening here but that's the point you don't know, you have one side of the story and acting on one side of the story puts you in a bad legal position. Further harassment requires a warning that the actions are not appropriate and constitute harassment (documented) by either the individual or a supervisor and a second violation before it is actionable. This often gets construed with sexual assault which is actionable immediately. Basically the TL;DR is "get a lawyer before you do anything".
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#596Earlier quoted context omitted.
> had success That's a really gross way of describing your overbearing behavior in a work setting. As if spitting out sexually-charged comments is some sort of win/not-quite-lose scenario. Yeah, let's just keep calling women MILFs, or calling guys DILFs, or whatever the pickup line du jour is, until it "succeeds", and until then, well, just keep trying. That doesn't sound like a creepy, overbearing trait to exhibit a…
There's a difference between me calling you a DILF either in jest, as an actual compliment or because I want to see how you react than repeating it ad nauseam. Also you seem to be imagining that everyone's doing this during working hours and that there's no context to the comments. If I just walked into work and started yelling such things at people, I imagine folks would quite rightly pause, but the "had success" po…
Why do you keep harping on someone "appreciating" or "liking" the comments? It comes off as you equivocating your sexual advances towards coworkers as being something worth giving, that the existence of one time where you made a comment that wasn't rebuked is now the case law for it being OK that these things are said to people who might very well be totally disgusted by the person who says it, because one person, at one point in time, wasn't disgusted.
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a difference between me calling you a DILF either in jest, as an actual compliment or because I want to see how you react than repeating it ad nauseam. Also you seem to be imagining that everyone's doing this during working hours and that there's no context to the comments. If I just walked into work and started yelling such things at people, I imagine folks would quite rightly pause, but the "had success" po…
Why do you keep harping on someone "appreciating" or "liking" the comments? It comes off as you equivocating your sexual advances towards coworkers as being something worth giving, that the existence of one time where you made a comment that wasn't rebuked is now the case law for it being OK that these things are said to people who might very well be totally disgusted by the person who says it, because one person, at…
Sigh. You seem to be missing the point which is that a not insignificant percentage of relationships spawn from the work place. You may want no part in that, and that's fine, but the idea that we should never act human to each other because professionalism is something that a significant percentage of people dont appear to agree with.
So whilst I'm not suggesting you go in tomorrow and tell your nearest female colleague they have nice tits, I'm arguing that at some place at some point in some context it's entirely possible to compliment and make appreciated advancements on a colleague, otherwise office relationships wouldn't happen.
Now if you accept that sometimes it may be okay, under certain circumstances, to do such things, you also need to accept it's possible to make an unwanted pass at someone. You may find that disgusting but most people would just find it slightly awkward and am slightly bemused at the reaction of some of you.
The other point I was generally making, is that whilst some woman will never appreciate such a comment and some will, some of the time some will appreciate you making the comment whilst being quite annoyed if I did. But all I'm really saying is the matter may be more complex that the "he needs to be fired" comments.
Of course you're free to draw the line before calling someone a MILF, and again this is without context, but if you really find saying such a thing under any circumstances abhorrent, I'm going to go out in a limb here and suggest you're just no fun.
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asking someone on a date that isn't interested in you is harassment. Calling someone a MILF is definitely harassment. Do you seriously think telling someone in a professional setting that they're a mother you'd like to f--- is not harassment? When asking someone on a date that isn't interested in you is? Read your HR policies - if you don't, I suspect you'll be in trouble like this someday, based on your attitude tow…
> Asking someone on a date that isn't interested in you is harassment. Asking someone on a date when it is apparent that they aren't interested is harassment.
"Asking someone on a date when it is apparent that they aren't interested is harassment."
> Having autism is harassment.
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you keep harping on someone "appreciating" or "liking" the comments? It comes off as you equivocating your sexual advances towards coworkers as being something worth giving, that the existence of one time where you made a comment that wasn't rebuked is now the case law for it being OK that these things are said to people who might very well be totally disgusted by the person who says it, because one person, at…
Sigh. You seem to be missing the point which is that a not insignificant percentage of relationships spawn from the work place. You may want no part in that, and that's fine, but the idea that we should never act human to each other because professionalism is something that a significant percentage of people dont appear to agree with. So whilst I'm not suggesting you go in tomorrow and tell your nearest female collea…
Look, I know all about workplace romances - I am married to a woman I met at work.
I think YOU are missing the point. There is no word (MILF included) that I will categorically say should NEVER be uttered at work.
I will say, however, that you better be VERY close with your coworkers before you start saying it. The kind of close that is IMPOSSIBLE to get to in the first few weeks of employment at a place. The fact that this guy just started working at the company and already called someone a MILF (and who clearly didn't like it, since she complained to the CEO) means he is being horribly inappropriate, and has no excuse.
Re: Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?
#600Lawyer lawyer lawyer LAWYER lawyer LAWYER . I think the consensus in the grown-up business world is "fire immediately for cause." I would bet substantial money that when you lawyer lawyer lawyer they will advise you to do that and document the heck out of it. The calculus is really, really simple: if you don't, then you will with probability approaching one get this incident or a similar incident cited during a threa…
"I think the consensus in the grown-up business world is 'fire immediately for cause.'" Concurring that this is the correct answer.
I make this statement from the perspective of having employees since 1979 in multiple concurrent businesses. If they have no respect at the beginning they will have less respect next week.
You must choose between your business and the new guy. In a year, you will have one or neither.