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Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

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Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#661

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #575
mistermann wrote: post #542

Wowza, maybe they do have a problem. I'm not sure I agree with all of the complaints there but it does seem they have at least some genuine issues that should be addressed. Just being completely honest, this reinforces my general opinion to be very cautious around females, avoiding it where possible is probably a wise idea.

I don't see any way that this comment can be called civil, and you are not welcome to break the HN guidelines when commenting here. No more of this, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13197217 and marked it off-topic.

Which guideline, flamewar?

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#663

Post by AlexB138 »

dang wrote: post #583
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.

In this context, "No, actually, it's not" is not a particularly civil way to make this point. The valid concern you're raising would not be hard to express in a good-faith way. I think we can all agree that there are multiple concerns and it's not obvious how to balance them. The fact that you led with "No actually" instead, and ended by imputing a strawman ("everyone needs to automatically assume") gives your commen…

I'm sorry if I've violated some set of community standards. I personally find this article rather distasteful and lacking in details. The cultural signaling strewn throughout it come off as an attempts to raise an angry internet mob against a company based on what is very clearly a bias representation of the situation. This sort of manipulation and axe-grinding is not something I see as being in particularly good faith, so my distaste for it colored my comments.

I tried to make sure I wasn't attacking anyone, but rather the ideas presented. I'll keep your guidance in mind if I find myself making such comments again.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#664

Post by markdog12 »

rayiner wrote: post #618
mistermann wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean offense, but this comment seems completely insane to me - you are saying that in the majority of cases, anything insulting said among coworkers is meant as an insult rather than good-natured ribbing? I look at the world today and despite an absolutely massive improvement in acceptance of diversity, many so called minorities seem to think things are even worse. It makes me wonder if there is some sort of…

Coworkers are not friends as a general rule. You get to choose your friends--you don't get to choose your conworkers. As a consequence, the inter-coworker relationship is a highly artificial and delicate one. Good natured ribbing has no place in it.

Yet good natured ribbing between co-workers happens all the time. And many co-workers like each other and became good friends.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#665

Post by tptacek »

markdog12 wrote: post #664
rayiner wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coworkers are not friends as a general rule. You get to choose your friends--you don't get to choose your conworkers. As a consequence, the inter-coworker relationship is a highly artificial and delicate one. Good natured ribbing has no place in it.

Yet good natured ribbing between co-workers happens all the time. And many co-workers like each other and became good friends.

And many don't, but are provided with no effective way to avoid it. I'm not sure what your argument is here.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#666

Post by jeffbush »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #635
jeffbush wrote: post #201

This seems negligent on the part of HR (as well as genuinely awful). In California, all managers are required by law to take three hours of sexual harassment training every other year. One thing that stood out to me is that there is no need to make a formal harassment claim: when anyone mentions they have experienced harassment to a manager, even in a private conversation, the manager is required to report it and inv…

Appearing to genuinely care is a good pose for someone who has to collect interviews. I'm sure journalists have to fake concern to get the information they want. These HR people have to be empathetic so they succeed at getting the interviews. It doesn't have to go farther than that. I agree that when events occur, people should make their own records.

"Appearing to genuinely care" is different than being empathetic. The former implies the person doesn't really care, the latter is by definition concern for another person.

My comment on HR people caring was a more general statement on my interactions with HR in a variety of situations. As a manager, I often see both sides of HR/employee interactions.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#667

Post by stcredzero »

wpietri wrote: post #568
stcredzero wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complaining about identity politics is how white men practice identity politics That's either illogical or racist. It could only be logical if you have as an axiom that white men can't possibly have a legitimate reason to complain about identity politics, which is itself a racist axiom. Are you claiming that every non-white who practices identity politics is perfect and correct?

It's observational. Because we white men are the default, we don't have to directly advocate for white men; we just have to push against anything that draws attention to our unequal status. You are also mostly arguing with something I didn't say. I'm not saying all complaints about identity politics are illegitimate. Just that when white men are practicing identity politics, one tool they use is to complain about ide…

Because we white men are the default

As a person of color, I have to say that this is one of the most corrosively racist concepts there is, flat out. White people aren't special. They aren't a "default." Everyone else isn't a flavor of the month. The "everyman" isn't a white man. Because to say such is to relegate everyone else to 2nd rate status.

I'm not saying all complaints about identity politics are illegitimate. Just that when white men are practicing identity politics, one tool they use is to complain about identity politics.

It sure sounds like you're saying that all complaints from white men about identity politics are illegitimate or are somehow special because they come from white men. That strikes me as racist. Also, it sure makes white people sound special somehow.

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#668

Post by trump2016 »

Twisell wrote: post #592
ben174 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was thinking the same. I'm a man an being recently made more aware of how some females friend perceive some so called "un-harmful cheesy jokes" I often advocate to my boss or college that they shouldn't make such jokes because you can never now how they are perceived. However to escalate the problem up to the HR you need at least some ground. At some point she said than HR asked here to explain what she found was o…

> I'm a man an being recently made more aware of how some females friend perceive some so called "un-harmful cheesy jokes" I often advocate to my boss or college that they shouldn't make such jokes because you can never now how they are perceived.

Dafuq? So nobody is allowed to make jokes?

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#669

Post by Twisell »

trump2016 wrote: post #668
Twisell wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking the same. I'm a man an being recently made more aware of how some females friend perceive some so called "un-harmful cheesy jokes" I often advocate to my boss or college that they shouldn't make such jokes because you can never now how they are perceived. However to escalate the problem up to the HR you need at least some ground. At some point she said than HR asked here to explain what she found was o…

> I'm a man an being recently made more aware of how some females friend perceive some so called "un-harmful cheesy jokes" I often advocate to my boss or college that they shouldn't make such jokes because you can never now how they are perceived. Dafuq? So nobody is allowed to make jokes?

Nope but you just have to be aware of the repercussions. My boss is really a nice guy, but for wathever reasons, he and some colleagues started a gimmick about one of my female coworker that she was "forbiden" to make a fourth kid because we needed her too much at work.

While initially fun (because she clearly stated that she wanted only 3 kids as a personal choice) this joke had become cheesy and hurtful for her. She was actually starting to feel guilty because they were so insistant.

And this situation sucked because she's a great coworker, a great mum and she didn't deserve to feel guilty. Especially since no-one really cared in truth, it was just "a joke". So I told my boss and he stoped quickly and now everybody involved feel better. He was just sincerely unaware of the impact of theses recurring jokes.

So yes of course you can make joke but it's just critical to be aware that you can sometime unwillingly hurt people. And when that happen you should just stop this joke and maybe even apologize (depending on how far you went before you realize your joke wasn't funny).

Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective

#670

Post by qb45 »

mixedCase wrote: post #662
smsowmya wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

read the blog.

I did read you claimed Apple apologized to you before I wrote that response. Which is why I asked where is the apology.

On her desk :) Why does it matter to you to see this damn paper?

It seems to me that the OP deliberately avoids naming concrete people and publishing whatever paper trail she has. Which is probably a good thing, after some known cases of one-sided accounts published completely with details and real names resulting in lynch mobs against the accused and sometimes also against the victim. Discussion forums are not a court, which is where you submit this kind of papers to "prove" things to one another in slightly more civilized and controlled conditions.

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