Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 692 posts

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#151

Post by foldr »

tyingq wrote: post #129
foldr wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the point of the article. She's helping us out by giving us a heads up about a problem in the industry. If you choose to disbelieve her, that's your prerogative. It's pointless to make a pretence of scrutinising the article when it's obviously impossible for her to prove beyond all doubt that her recollection of events is accurate. Just believe it or don't. Don't go asking "where's the proof??"…

Not looking for her to "prove beyond all doubt". But, there's several stories in there where a direct quote of what was said to her would be more enlightening than her interpretation as to the motive behind what was said. Or failing a direct quote...how about just the basis of his "defense" of her. Did he call out the high quality of her work (seems fine), or did he say to lay off because she was fragile (seems not f…

I think you are just demanding that she presents the whole story in excruciating detail so you can pick over it. I think it was smart of her not to do that, and I think that we should generally assume that women are capable of figuring out when they're being harassed.

I see nothing odd in her leaving out direct quotations. She's telling us about a problem. She's not submitting evidence to a tribunal. However much detail she gives, you'll just say that it's not enough according to some arbitrary standard.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#152

Post by Helmet »

smsowmya wrote: post #56
AlexB138 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, actually, it's not. You're accusing someone of something very serious that puts their livelihood at stake. You need to have proof in that situation. It's a very intense and emotional experience, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to automatically assume the alleged victim is being honest.

And that's what makes victims think 100 times before making a formal allegation .. and why most don't report it.

Yes, but consider the opposite scenario, where the onus is placed on the accused. Virtually every situation would be a nightmare to deal with; careers would be ruined on false allegations, and eventually accusers would lose credibility. I understand where you are coming from, and I do empathize with your situation and believe that Apple should have done more, but I'm firmly in the camp that the onus of proof should be on the accuser while also firmly believing that the accusers claims should be taken very seriously.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#153

Post by clifanatic »

FilterSweep wrote: post #137

> I had never before encountered this kind of visceral hatred This comment rang some bells for me. Have a friend from the Netherlands who was in undergrad with me, and one day in confidence he told me one of the things he didn't understand most in America is how someone can harbor, and actively maintain, such a passionate hatred for someone they aren't intimately involved with. While this hatred is most definitely pr…

> I had never before encountered this kind of visceral hatred

You should try being a white man on the internet.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#154

Post by pg314 »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #127
tnones wrote: post #53

I can't help but notice the contradiction. A man jumped to her defense, which was sexism, and then her co-workers got resentful, which she wanted to be defended from but wasn't, and that was sexism too. Somehow, we all need to display more empathy for her situation. I imagine there's a different side to this. Her coworkers noticed her getting treated differently and started teasing her about it, in a typical form of…

A man jumped to her defense, which was sexism, and then her co-workers got resentful, which she wanted to be defended from but wasn't, and that was sexism too I would argue, quite strongly, that you're not in a position to make that call. Being a privileged, white male it was hard for me to see what woman are put through in terms of casual sexism in the workplace and in society. Since my girlfriend works as a seconda…

It is indeed easy as a white male to miss the sexism and racism. It's only by being empathic and actually listen to victims that you learn to see it.

If you dismiss accounts of victims or try to second-guess them like happens so often (examples abound in these comments), it should be no wonder that victims are hesitant to bring these issues up.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#155

Post by ashark »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #124
ashark wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem (EDIT: to expand, this is the problem with voluntary associations when it comes to acting effectively toward their goals, and if you follow this general rabbit hole far enough, basically why government is a thing )

In reality, price discovery does not require any such monopoly. For example, the stock market is highly efficient at price discovery, yet there is no single monopolistic buyer who chooses prices for everyone who wants to purchase a stock. I am aware of the debate as to whether index funds should be illegal (e.g. [1]), but I don't find them super compelling. Index investors are not, in fact, passive, they are merely i…

Unions don't exist to improve price discovery per se, they exist to reduce the power imbalance between massive autocratic organizations given great power (for good reason) by the state and individual workers, on a broad set of issues that does usually include compensation.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#156

Post by AJ007 »

aedron wrote: post #75
smsowmya wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did confront them and ask them to stop, but I still had to work with them, and they didn't entirely stop .. Unless you expect women to have taken Harassment 101 as a college course, they are really flying blind with this one .. when more than one person is involved or supervisors are involved, it's not that easy to say oh here, let me pull so many people into HR .. legalities aside, it's the end of a happy working…

I have been in adversarial relationships at my workplace that took a huge toll emotionally and eventually physically, just as you described. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I think it's good that you are talking about it and hope you recover - I still get stressed just thinking about those situations, years later. I did learn the hard way how to deal with it, which I think is mostly about attitude. I think part of your…

Workplace abuse is definitely a massive problem. Like personal relationships, it isn't something that the abused party can simply walkaway from without a major impact on their own life.

I would guess a double digit percentage of jobs globally are abusive. A big chunk of which wouldn't even qualify as consensual employment - either through unpaid slave labor or misleading information about wages and work conditions.

There needs to be more transparency about employment and the people involved in them. I think we will eventually see something like LinkedIn but which provides both positive and negative feedback about people and doesn't require a user to sign up for a profile to exist.

There is a hard question as to where to draw the dividing line. Without robots, some jobs are just abusive - period. Many jobs lower the life expectancy of the workers, and I suppose the alternative would be (without robots) that no one does them. In the West we kind of get to firewall ourselves off from this, and we get to use, sell, or consume the product after all of the dirty work is done. At the minimum, reducing non-consensual employment will help push the true economic costs of produced goods closer to reality and eliminate the market forces which benefit non-consensual labor (basically cheating.)

In terms of adversarial work environments, which if not addressed can easily become mutually abusive, no matter what the policies of a company are, the fired workers are going to end up working somewhere else. A big company like Apple may be capable of implementing ideal processes and eliminate those workers, but what happens at the next company they show up in? Should an employment blacklist exist at the federal level, or should employers only allow known abusive employees just to work in isolation?

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#157

Post by Helmet »

dragonmum wrote: post #141
dominotw wrote: post #123

>woman and minority in tech its a bit of stretch to call Indians a minority in tech, if anything we are vastly over-represented by any standard.

> we are vastly over-represented by any standard. Population India in 2013 : 1.3 billion Number of Indians in the technology sector = ? Lets be generous and say that all Indians in the USA work in the tech sector. That would be 2 million. Then lets be even more generous and add the entire population of Bangalore, 4 million as tech workers. 6E6/1.3E9 = 0.4 percent. That's a simple standard showing that you are a minor…

Considering the entire population of India is an absurd premise when discussing Asian-Indian representation in the US tech sector. Asian-Indians make up about 1% of the US population - I don't know how many work in tech in the USA, but I can guarantee you it's a greater share than 1%.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#158

Post by PlugTunin »

Volt wrote: post #142
PlugTunin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't sexist for a man to jump to her defense. Sometimes people defend other people, irrespective of gender. Had it been a woman who'd come to her defense, that too could be criticized. Her department likely has more men. Blame statistics. Edit: Actually, OP characterizes gesture by the dude defending her as "sexist".(Above opinion stands.)

From the article: >One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism.

I apologize. I read the article, but overlooked that. It's an odd comment for her to make -- and one I'd be curious to know her explanation for.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#159

Post by donatj »

There is a mental trap I have personally fallen into I will dub the "Friendliness Trap" where you start to incorrectly think of someone you work closely with as your close friend due to the forced proximity and "friendly" interaction. This can foster inappropriate workplace behavior your brain justifies as OK.

For instance friendly teasing, sometimes even started by the person themselves (e.g. "Oh, you know us [blanks], good at [blank]") can be taken way too far. People wrongly get the sense that something is OK because the person doesn't complain or laughs along and it can escalate to the point of full on harassment and your brain still thinks "[person] is my buddy, it's OK". I think it's partially human nature and wanting to fit in. The person being teased doesn't want to come off adversarial, the person teasing thinks it's "their joke".

I realized long ago simply don't tease people at work. They are not around you by choice. Don't assume people at work are friends in the way your drinking buddies are friends. You honestly have no idea how they really feel about it until it's too late, save it for your friends who are around you by choice.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#160

Post by mikebay »

I think we should also talk how Apple is harassing people who use they products.

Also apple's NSA connections would be nice to hear more..

Or just how they remove apps in AppStore..

Too many reasons. Only money matters anymore. People cannot be happy in they work anymore or bosses proud of they companies. All today's big companies are built with swet and tears mostly.

Post reply on HN