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Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

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Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree about the (mis)labeling - I was not consciously doing it, if it makes a difference. It is something I will be cognizant of in the future. My point was to simply say that there is more to managing harassment than is presently being addressed. I have to work with men all my life, and I cannot do that if I start making them uncomfortable now ! This is the problem with this situation to begin with - it i…

Why did you leave out details about the initial issue? You described being defended by your manager - and you implied he only defended you because of your sex; he is sexist. This seems very important in this context.

space - impossible to cover everything in 10-12 minute read. sexism can also be non-verbal, which again, is hard to convey.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree about the (mis)labeling - I was not consciously doing it, if it makes a difference. It is something I will be cognizant of in the future. My point was to simply say that there is more to managing harassment than is presently being addressed. I have to work with men all my life, and I cannot do that if I start making them uncomfortable now ! This is the problem with this situation to begin with - it i…

Why did you leave out details about the initial issue? You described being defended by your manager - and you implied he only defended you because of your sex; he is sexist. This seems very important in this context.

also, when the hostility started, one of the men actually went - "it's like that now, is it ?". As if I had changed my behavior since my incident ( which i hadn't ). I have gotten called hottie, haughty like a supermodel, comments about needing to lose weight, comments about being unmarried, and much worse. These statements were also ALWAYS implied in a conversation, never direct. that's what makes it difficult to identify or confront.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#603
post #76

There's a curious lack of detail in this story. No direct quotes, or even reasonable level of detail to the accusations. For example: "One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism." I'm sure there's a way that a supervisor jumping to your defense could be sexist, but this isn't showing that, at all. "At a lunch with several other coworkers, one of these men orde…

Yes, we lack of details here. The statement A (sb jump at the defense of a coworker in a team event) does not imply B (this is a display of sexism) necessarily. Could be because she is a self-called very private/introverted person, not because is a woman. All supervisors know that introverted people can score poorly when dealing with "mosh pit like" and argumentative situations.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#604
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe you can prove anything. I mean to say that's my perspective on the universe: that it is physically impossible to prove anything. Tons of things can be reasonably proven. A videotape of an incident can pretty much settle a dispute as to what happened for example, except if very special arrangements are involved (the camera angle hides the actual act, etc).

Key word is reasonably.

Sure, there might be only one person on the universe, and all of us are in his dream, and we do arbitrary things, plus he changes the past. That will be difficult to refute to prove something. Or magic exists (which we can't prove it doesn't) and changed the facts of a cases -- e.g. it was X that stabbed Y, but a magician transformed as X.

That said, why would you want to prove something beyond "reasonably"?

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#605
post #4

These things happen at most companies .. people get jealous and have different ways of dealing with it .. it's up to management to handle it well, but since no one talks about it, there is no management for it ..

Just for context, I'm a man, and I'm very sorry this happened to you. This is a problem in cultures all over the world, and as a species, we simply have to do better. I have two female relatives who work in tech and both of them have had experiences very similar to yours. Sadly, the younger of my two relatives has had this experience at more than 1 company.

Your post highlights a critical issue: the near total lack of visible justice for the victims. So let me tell you about the invisible justice that gets meted out. This doesn't excuse what happened to you, but I want you to know that there are people who are trying to address this issue in a way that provides significant financial and professional consequences to the perpetrators.

As a manager, it's far easier for me to quietly - dare I say silently - kill someone's career at the company by dead ending them than it is for me to ever do anything formal. With respect to HR, most managers have about as much power as the average employee, which is to say that we can just as quickly end up on the wrong side of the fence as the person being harassed. HR is not our friend either! Therefore, in the case of ordinary harassment, the best thing an employee can do is find a quiet way to put a manager on notice that something is wrong. Then a manager can start watching. We can proactively go through emails. We can start looking for bad behavior while the perpetrator has no idea, and we have the power to use quiet, offhand remarks to make the perpetrators paranoid. We can reassign employees to different work, and we can take work away from them that they really enjoy. I recently punished a loud-mouthed developer by taking him off a feature that he originated and giving it someone else. Yeah, his work was excellent, but it's always easy to find justifications once I know that I have to act.

Men with sexist ideas about how the world should operate, or men who believe that bullying other employees is acceptable, need to understand a few things. When they just can't seem to get that promotion, and feel like they're constantly sand-bagged by their manager, it's very likely because their manager is doing invisible damage control. HR doesn't know. Their manager's manager doesn't know. They don't know, and even if they suspect, there's no way they can ever prove it because there's no paper trail. As a manager, I stop mentoring these guys for promotions and start teaching their well-behaved coworkers instead so that I have a nice slate of well-prepared employees for promotion season.

Even though most of this is invisible, it's happening and it costs these men tens of thousands of dollars over the two and three years they spend waiting for promotions that never come. It's incredibly easy to take someone's excellent technical work and find fault with it for any number of reasons. Yes, this strategy uses some of the same tactics as the perpetrators, but I learned a long time ago that bullies and sexists don't care about rules. So why should I?

Yeah, eventually a bully leaves and some of them get a higher salary elsewhere, but they don't get to leave with a better resume. They don't leave with that title. And make no mistake, their new employer figures them out pretty fast and the same thing happens.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#606
post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if i had the ability to be this clearheaded, we wouldn't be having this problem at all ..

Your contributions in this thread have been extraordinarily clearheaded, and levelheaded too. I'm a moderator here and want to thank you for that. It isn't easy to keep your balance this way when a large internet community is dissecting every grain of what you wrote, let alone on such a difficult topic.

thank you :-) that means a lot to me !

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#607

I'm sure that working in most companies in the Valley and in a heavily-male-skewed environment such as tech, there's STILL a lot of harassment and sexism, both explicit and implicit, and this has to be eradicated. It sickens me that women can't come to the workplace and just be treated like an equal. I've work with many intelligent women who are more intelligent and successful that I ever will be, and they deserve to…

I don't understand your remarks at all. In your first paragraph, you establish yourself as someone who believes that women deserve equal treatment in the workplace.

Yet you spend the rest of your remarks trying to destroy her credibility, and I think this hurts your credibility much more than it hurts hers.

>> The tone of the blog post leads to a lot of skepticism in me about the veracity of the events.

>> The contradiction is glaring, and she throws around these words pretty thoughtlessly without thinking how it reflects on the believability of her story.

>> Another pet peeve of mine is that she conflates misogyny with sexism.

>> Many men and women are sexist.

>> Very few are misogynists but they are sickening and scary, and need to be eradicated by any means necessary.

>> This was laughable, and also reflected poorly on the author.

>> It seems like she doesn't have a high EQ

Remarks like this make it almost impossible for me to believe that you really think women deserve equal treatment. Your post spends most of its time trying to invalidate everything she wrote by means of character assassination.

What gives?

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't a formal investigation happen anyways in an anonymous fashion? It takes the concerns seriously and also doesn't automatically assume I'll intent on either side. I don't see the point in dismissing op and assuming someone accused of harassment is the first person that needs protection and support over people who are concerned they are being harassed to the point they make complaints about it...

An anonymous formal investigation absolutely should happen. The OP seems to arguing that you shouldn't even question someone who claims they are being harassed, and that is what I take exception with. Both people in the situation should be treated as innocent until there is proof otherwise.

There is a difference between questioning someone and proceeding with the investigation to ascertain proof and actions if necessary. One assumes there are concerns that need to be looked into, the other one implies the accuser is lying ... the former is good faith and the latter is dissuading someone from proceeding.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does? The necessity that you should actually show something is occurring before a company destroys someone's reputation and livelihood? Reality is that people lie. Do you genuinely believe that an accusation should be taken as 100% truth simply on one person's word? Do you not see how easily that become a weapon? Even reprimanding a person, when there's no proof they've done anything wrong, establishes a bias ag…

Why can't a formal investigation happen anyways in an anonymous fashion? It takes the concerns seriously and also doesn't automatically assume I'll intent on either side. I don't see the point in dismissing op and assuming someone accused of harassment is the first person that needs protection and support over people who are concerned they are being harassed to the point they make complaints about it...

it should happen, but the company can either encourage it or discourage it .. and that stance is important ..

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#610
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

to be honest, women's careers are ruined far more than men. how many men do you know who have been ostracized ? trump is president for crying out loud.. and ailes is happily working for him..
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