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Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

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Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#311

Post by maehwasu »

4c2383f5c88e911 wrote: post #176
maehwasu wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In tech people get away with wildly unprofessional behavior as long as "they get stuff done", and personally I never felt that was acceptable. As a decent software developer, if my less talented co-workers, or, god forbid, some HR-type, started telling me constantly about how I needed to be more "professional", I would hand in my resignation the next day and go somewhere that didn't absolutely suck to work.

If I understand your reply correctly, you mean to say that it's acceptable to be a total douchebag as long as you are "talented"?

Yes, it's acceptable almost by definition. If people don't accept it, it means I'm not talented enough, and I need to find a new place to work.

Or be more "professional", but that's boring af.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#312

Post by retSava »

bgarbiak wrote: post #304
bobcostas55 wrote: post #287

>and downplays the impact of obvious and unobjectionable steps like [..] "give expectant mothers maternity leave" This is a bit off-topic, but maternity leave is neither obvious nor unobjectionable. There is significant empirical evidence that shows that policies such as long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression. Have a look at: * The impact of Nordic countries’ family friendly policies on…

But you want humans to have children, right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think fathers in Norway are forced to take a maternity leave, which are equally long as mothers' leaves. That's seems like a fair solution.

Friendly correction: for fathers, it's called a paternity leave. I thoroughly enjoyed mine, and recommend all parents to if possible do the same :)

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#313

Post by spdionis »

dreta wrote: post #69

An interesting read. Though, for me, VC in general is not the kind of job that favors people who are nice. When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism. What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white. For me, it set the tone for the whole article, and painted a clear pictur…

> What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white.

Exactly my thought. The moment I read that word I stopped being neutral towards the article and started considering it as "shit talking".

If you're writing about sexism there is really no reason to point out the men involved were white.

It sounds like "Look at those privileged nasty men!!! And they harrassed me!" instead of "These nasty men harrased me!".

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#314

Post by whostolemyhat »

bane wrote: post #290

I think it's very important to parse Pao from the reprehensible behavior she describes in her workplace. Being polite, Pao does not come off well in her own personal story. But she was also swimming in a garbage pit. I have no doubt that what she writes about is true, and probably even holds back on much of the frat house nonsense. There can be entire semesters spent at school exploring other avenues that she might h…

This is such a strange view - you don't care about Pao's side of the story because she's not a complete paragon of virtue? You also seem to be basing that on her time at Reddit, during which, as the article mentions, she was being smeared by Kleiner?

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#315

Post by etplayer »

alan-crowe wrote: post #174
jmkni wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way she was treated, though, was disgusting. I have zero doubt that her gender/ethnicity was a major motivating factor for the majority of people involved in this backlash and that a white male in the same position would have pretty much gotten a pass from the same people. /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/revengeporn where two incredibly toxic subreddits, and I was personally happy to see them go.

I want to speak up in favour of r/fatpeooplehate. The various weight loss subreddits (such as loseit, keto, intermittentfasting) often have personal accounts of being undermined by family and friends when trying to follow orthodox medical advice. It is hard to avoid getting fat when family and friends are already fat and encouraging you to join them. sangharakshita (a Buddhist teacher) preached that the central probl…

Does one not think that there could have been a better way to encourage people to lose weight than to laugh at them, ridicule them and, to be honest, hate them? I'm not so sure if I consider your analysis to be a valid representation of the intentions of the people there, though I have little experience with the community itself, this model of "helping" people seems very alien to me, and contrary to what I had (intellecutally) understood to be how people behave on the Internet.

I think also ultimately it is the choice of the person to find their encouragement, as much as it is very difficult. Diet communities are built around the idea of individual desire to improve (which is why posts like "Three weeks in and it's great!" get upvoted there) rather than having it 'forced' upon them.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#316

Post by urbanj »

spennant wrote: post #309
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression Of course it does. What it benefits is the actual human beings in question (child, mother, father). Most humans think that significantly increasing the well-being of your family, and in particular your infant, is a whole fucking lot more important than wages and career progression. Like all things in life it's a trade off, but an unobjectionally g…

> if a woman (or man) spent 8 hours every day of every vacation secretly working, they would definitely get better wages and career progression In a meritocracy, sure...

sucks that your mother didn't care enough about you to make you into a decent human being.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#317

Post by gthtjtkt »

bane wrote: post #290

I think it's very important to parse Pao from the reprehensible behavior she describes in her workplace. Being polite, Pao does not come off well in her own personal story. But she was also swimming in a garbage pit. I have no doubt that what she writes about is true, and probably even holds back on much of the frat house nonsense. There can be entire semesters spent at school exploring other avenues that she might h…

Yeah, I get the feeling that we're hearing one side of a very two-sided story. Maybe she feels the need to vindicate herself since the court didn't, but it's making her look like a sore loser. And she's trying to poison the well by claiming anyone criticizing her was part of a paid "troll army".

I remember her time at Reddit very well. She was almost universally disliked by the "troll army", AKA normal users who formed their opinions independently.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#318

Post by unholiness »

alan-crowe wrote: post #174
jmkni wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way she was treated, though, was disgusting. I have zero doubt that her gender/ethnicity was a major motivating factor for the majority of people involved in this backlash and that a white male in the same position would have pretty much gotten a pass from the same people. /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/revengeporn where two incredibly toxic subreddits, and I was personally happy to see them go.

I want to speak up in favour of r/fatpeooplehate. The various weight loss subreddits (such as loseit, keto, intermittentfasting) often have personal accounts of being undermined by family and friends when trying to follow orthodox medical advice. It is hard to avoid getting fat when family and friends are already fat and encouraging you to join them. sangharakshita (a Buddhist teacher) preached that the central probl…

Just so that people can get a fair view and not judge from a cherry-picked post, here's a link to the top part from this month[0].

It's a pretty broad sampling of: - Laughing at fat people - "I hate this bitch in this picture"-style hatred - A post literally pointed at the victim at Charlottesville, "exposing the truth" that she was fat, saying they "wonder why" she died.

And in my memory, /r/fatpeoplehate was much more toxic than this at the time it was shut down.

[0] https://voat.co/v/fatpeoplehate/top?span=month

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#319

Post by criddell »

CJefferson wrote: post #215
ptaipale wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don't understand it correctly, and I wonder how you can interpret it that way. I read the point that being "professional" is also about being able to do good programming work and take responsibility for what you do technically - not just appearing at the office at the right time, being courteous to other people and accepting HR buzzwords and policies and opinions without question.

I think "wildly unprofessional behavior" is things like sexually harassing other workers in your company, insulting people, that kind of thing. The problem here is I think people have different definitions of "wildly unprofessional behavior".

Figuring out what behavior is appropriate, understanding the corporate culture, and finding the best opportunities for you to help set and advance the agenda are all big parts of being a professional.

They are skills you have to develop though and young people will make mistakes as they figure out what the boundaries are. If you are fortunate enough to have a mentor in the business, you have a huge advantage.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#320

Post by Mithaldu »

Joeri wrote: post #202
Mithaldu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "she was the best person" No, based on the evidence she seemed to be the best person. I don't have much of an opinion on what exactly happened, but your claim there is overly confident.

When you hire someone you say that the person you hire is the best person available at that time for that role. Otherwise you hire the other person you think is best.

I'm not saying she wasn't, i'm just saying that neither they nor you can tell whether she actually was. Just that she seemed to be it. Maybe she was the best one, maybe appearances weren't quite that, maybe there were candidates they didn't recognize despite them being better. There are many options. Claiming she actually and factually was the best one is just overconfident though.

And yes, they may have said "she is the best", but that doesn't mean they actually got that right.

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