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

651–660 of 692 posts

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#651

Post by smsowmya »

qb45 wrote: post #641
smsowmya wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh. i did not take any favors - i want my career to be built on merit and not favoritism - that is why i left the company. but do people realize that's not actually fair ? and this happens to a lot of women, not just me.

Hey, I didn't want to say that you were taking favors from the guy. I reacted to your defense of him here on HN - you initially described him as awkward and sexist but later said that he was just treating you fairly. If he was awkward there's no point pretending he wasn't. If he provoked others to hate you, there's no point pretending he didn't. It's not your fault anyway and coworkers were wrong to retaliate on you…

From my response There was no quote because it was him being nicer to me than to the other men thought he should have been - it was actually him not treating me like a second class citizen. It was this "equal" status that made the others feel that I got better treatment. Note "equal" not equal. Note "nicer than they thought he should have been".

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#652

Post by smsowmya »

bdrool wrote: post #499
smsowmya wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something called benevolent sexism ...

I am sorry to hear you experienced that. For those who doubt it: yes "benevolent" sexism (or racism) is real, unfortunately. There are many ways it can manifest itself, but what it always boils down to is someone with the proverbial "good intentions" who decides to treat someone differently, even in a way they think of as positive, for no other reason than because of their sex (or race). It can be particularly poison…

indian women being considered "exotic" is one of those..

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#653

Post by witty_username »

majormajor wrote: post #457
witty_username wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I tried searching "worker rights due to union" and "union worker rights" and only found pages about unions protecting the right to associate. What should I input into Google?

Google searching like that is going to have trouble separating news from history. Maybe just start with "history of worker rights." Or maybe just the wikipedia labor movement article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_movement It's not all strictly about changes forced through unions vs other types of activists, but once unions were made legal they were one of the strongest methods for demanding and enforcing thes…

> Throughout the world, action by labourists has resulted in reforms and workers' rights, such as the two-day weekend, minimum wage, paid holidays, and the achievement of the eight-hour day for many workers. There have been many important labour activists in modern history who have caused changes that were revolutionary at the time and are now regarded as basic. For example, Mary Harris Jones, better known as "Mother Jones", and the National Catholic Welfare Council were important in the campaign to end child labour in the United States during the early 20th century. .

a) two-day weekend

How is this a right? Some people want to work less; some want to work more. If it were forced by unions, forcing a two-day weekend stops people from working more.

b) paid holiday

Same; not everyone wants paid holidays as opposed to getting more money in their pockets.

c) minimum wage

The minimum wage stops less skilled people from working; this especially affects blacks and teenagers. I see the minimum wage as a negative effect of unions (nobody wants their job to be replaced by a cheaper worker).

d) Again, not everyone wants to work an 8-hour day. Poor people want to work more and other people want to work in different schedules (like a 3 day week).

It is not clear to me why a), b), and d) can't be achieved without unions if people wanted those 3.

I have no problem with people having a), b), and d) voluntarily and unions persuading people and employers for those causes; but I don't want workers to be forced to have those three (there's no free lunch--these worker "rights" come at the expense of the worker's salary).

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#654

Post by Twisell »

smsowmya wrote: post #601
pokemongoaway wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep but so the counsel I would give to anyone in such an undesirable situation will be the same I give to everyone that is subject to any form of harassment in workplace : Gather proofs!

A good friend of mine just get out of an impossible job position where she was under constant oppression of her boss and one of her subordinate (that incidentally was a friend of her boss)...

She started documenting everything so that when thing escalated she had proofs to show the big boss and guess what the big boss sided with her. But she left anyway for a better work environement.

But guess what, this story involved only women (boss, big boss, subordinate). So that's why I think that no matter which "type" of discrimination you met at your job place (sexual, racial, physical, age, etc...) the common response is "document you experience". Cause you'll need this to sound credible.

PS: For people who can read french, I'll recommend reading the "comme convenu" story of the illustrator Laurel. She had documented the bad experience her family has gone trough in the form of a web comic book. They choose to co-found a startup in California but were basically hostage of a startup CEO that hold them using financial and visa menace. (The story is not yet finished) https://commeconvenu.com

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#655

Post by foldr »

hueving wrote: post #643
foldr wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it would make any difference if they quoted me or not. But you are not comparing like with like here, as she did not mention any specific person.

Her supervisor is a specific person that would be easily identifiable by internal Apple employees, specifically the ones that work directly with the accused.

No, she has more than one supervisor.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#656

Post by BipolarElsa »

digler999 wrote: post #527
donatj wrote: post #159

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 [blank…

a male "alpha"/masculine-type coworker pulled this trick several years ago. self-deprecates about his weight. he was fairly good at conversation/joking/etc, and somehow he made these self-deprecating jokes somewhat funny. He wasn't even obese, just a larger guy. One day the coworker sitting right next to him poked fun at his weight, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore, and the "victim" of the joke reported it to HR.…

If I spent the majority of my time cultivating a self-deprecating sarcastic humor around my colleagues, I think some teasing would definitely be in order. What that guy did was stupid and selfish: if you claim the limelight, then you better fucking own it.

I for one LOVE it when people pile on with the teasing. It's amazing. Truly American aspect of the workplace.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#657

Post by ksec »

ben174 wrote: post #428
tps5 wrote: post #148

I think commenters who are reacting negatively to this story are reacting to the vocabulary rather than the story. Obviously I'm not a witness, but I tend to believe that these events took place more or less as the author describes them. At the same time, words like "sexism" and phrases like "as a minority..." are a big turn-off to some readers, myself included. This isn't because I don't believe in racism/sexism/xen…

The vocabulary is absolutely flawed. These are very bold claims which need to be backed up with facts. For instance, the behavior is clearly spelled out here: One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism. OP explains how she felt and tells us exactly what action caused her to feel that way. However: The group started insinuating... They also made remarks implyin…

> just how she interpreted them

That is EXACTLY the root of the problem. People interpreted them differently. Especially if there are a country / cultural difference.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#658

Post by smsowmya »

mtrimpe wrote: post #632
notfitforwrk wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing the book. I am an employee of another big tech company currently going through similar process of HR not being very helpful despite raising grievance for last two months. The book is on point. With children and family, the fight is not worth the stress and permanent health impact.

Indeed. I wouldn't suggest anyone enduring months and months of not feeling safe at a visceral level if you also have the choice to disengage. If you find a way to keep feeling safe, like I imagine having a good pro-bono legal advisor could have done for me, then by all means go ahead. If not, then there's also no shame in just moving on.

i agree about walking away, but i think by the time you think its a legal issue, its too late. its not easy to find a job when you have anxiety or depression - i tried a lot to do that. i also trusted the company, which i think is a fair thing to do.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#659

Post by mtrimpe »

smsowmya wrote: post #658
mtrimpe wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I wouldn't suggest anyone enduring months and months of not feeling safe at a visceral level if you also have the choice to disengage. If you find a way to keep feeling safe, like I imagine having a good pro-bono legal advisor could have done for me, then by all means go ahead. If not, then there's also no shame in just moving on.

i agree about walking away, but i think by the time you think its a legal issue, its too late. its not easy to find a job when you have anxiety or depression - i tried a lot to do that. i also trusted the company, which i think is a fair thing to do.

> i also trusted the company, which i think is a fair thing to do.

I thought the same; but like you was mistaken in that. Looking back I've come to realize that, even though it shouldn't be, as soon as you get HR involved it's become a legal issue.

But yeah; my point was that if solid legal backing could prevent you from developing the anxiety and depression, like I think it would have for me, then it could be worth going through with it...

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#660

Post by smsowmya »

dominotw wrote: post #134
kalleboo wrote: post #26

> No one at the company took responsibility for anything other than protecting the company’s liability in case of a lawsuit The tech industry absolutely doesn't need unions /s

no because people can quit and losing good people is a liability for any company. I am assuming that she continues to work there despite being treated poorly is due to immigration issues which make it impossible to switch jobs. We need to end immigration bonded slavery.

i don't work there any longer. i don't believe in allowing anyone the kind of leverage that results in me being abused.
Post reply on HN