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Google staff walk out over women's treatment

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#411

Post by brokenmachine »

XorNot wrote: post #387
jshevek wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble imagining truly complete anonymity being helpful. This is an invitation to abuse the system. Abuse could result from personal conflicts and office politics, or even people who wish to undermine the system itself by entering bad data.

The point of an anonymous system is to encourage people to speak up without a first-mover problem, because in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior. Someone receiving exactly 1 report is probably not a problem. Someone who accumulates reports continuously as team members change probably is .

> in every case of ongoing sexual harassment there is never just 1 victim - it's always a pattern of behavior.

citation please

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#412

Post by amanaplanacanal »

nekmekbrek wrote: post #397
stale2002 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are innocent then nothing will happen to them as the investigation won't find anything. That's how it should work. If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. It is ridiculous to complain about an investigation, which should be the entire goal. To investigate and figure ou…

> If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. Reading this genuinely frightens me. Our legal system, with due process and "beyond reasonable doubt" and all the rest, regularly convicts people who are later found to be innocent. And, of course, regularly acquits people who are late…

This seems to be an argument against investigating anything ever.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#413

Post by scotty79 »

nekmekbrek wrote: post #397
stale2002 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are innocent then nothing will happen to them as the investigation won't find anything. That's how it should work. If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. It is ridiculous to complain about an investigation, which should be the entire goal. To investigate and figure ou…

> If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. Reading this genuinely frightens me. Our legal system, with due process and "beyond reasonable doubt" and all the rest, regularly convicts people who are later found to be innocent. And, of course, regularly acquits people who are late…

> HR departments will simply get it right all the time.

They weren't getting it right when they were letting harrassers off the hook.

It's not about truth or justice. It's about corporation trying to get rid of pesky humans doing human things. Harrassing, accusing. Until recently sweeping things under the rug was the best way to deal with it. Winds changed. Now it's cheaper to kick out men even if they possibly did nothing.

Woman reporting harrasment was a problem and was silenced or fired. Now man getting accused is the problem, gets aame treatment as women got earlier because now it's more efficient to get rid of him.

Perfect justice is never efficient.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#414

Post by amanaplanacanal »

bdhess wrote: post #176
nixgeek wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s actually not true, it varies by state, but many allow private criminal prosecutions to occur. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution

Many? From the list I count six where the wording implies that a prosecution can occur without permission from the executive branch.

I wonder how often this actually happens? In any case this is interesting.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#415

Post by scotty79 »

zaccus wrote: post #282
danharaj wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, people here are more concerned with a phenomenon that is measurably rare relative to the downright epidemic that people are seeking to counteract. I think that says a lot about one's values.

How rare false accusations are is completely irrelevant. If the goal is justice, then due process is non-negotiable. Period.

The goal is not justice. The goal is to limit the damage done by misbehaving employees, as cheap as possible.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#417

Post by justtopost »

rongenre wrote: post #402
sizzle wrote: post #314

"A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously " Can anyone help me understand the rationale behind the anonymous part, with respect to due process and how the framework for anonymous accusations can be abused by bad actors? Edit - I have a question about the anonymous nature of reporting to HR, with respect to due process for the accuser and accused, maybe some o…

"What about the men?" is a bingo square not an argument.

Until you replace 'men' with any other sex, race, gender, etc. Calling valid, if perhaps overblown concerns is just 'bingo squares' maybe you need to consider your own bias.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#418

Post by stale2002 »

nekmekbrek wrote: post #397
stale2002 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are innocent then nothing will happen to them as the investigation won't find anything. That's how it should work. If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. It is ridiculous to complain about an investigation, which should be the entire goal. To investigate and figure ou…

> If someone gets accused of something, there should be an investigation. And if they did something wrong it will be outstanding obvious. If they didn't, then they won't find anything. Reading this genuinely frightens me. Our legal system, with due process and "beyond reasonable doubt" and all the rest, regularly convicts people who are later found to be innocent. And, of course, regularly acquits people who are late…

What I am saying is that if someone is genuinely harassing other people, then there will be lots of complaints.

If there is one complaint, then it will be easy to find a dozen of them.

And what I am saying is, a company should only punish someone if they find a dozen of them.

It is not he said she said. It is instead he said and a dozen people said otherwise.

This is what the investigation is for. I am saying that there is nothing wrong with a company punishing the outstandingly obvious cases, which is almost all cases, and then giving the benefit of the doubt to the rest of them.

IE, nobody should ever be punished for a single anonymous complaint. Instead that single anonymous complaint should be used to talk with other people, and to determine if there are instead a dozen of them.

Let the edge cases go unpunished, and target the obvious harrassers, which is almost all of them.

Let's give a similar example. Imagine someone was going into meetings and just yelling slurs at other employees. And they did this mutiple times. Do we need to police to be called to fire this guy? No. We don't.

Do we have to worry about false accusations of this guy yelling slurs at meetings? No. We don't. There will be a dozen people who will easily be able to verify that yes this guy did this thing, mutiple times, and there is no danger in firing him.

And you should also notice that this isn't necessarily even illegal, therefore it makes no sense to call the police.

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#419

Post by ummonk »

justaguyhere wrote: post #174

How is this handled at other biggies in the valley - Apple, Microsoft etc? Do they also have the arbitration thing? There was an awesome site on the front page yesterday, that compared career levels in the companies. Someone should make one comparing these companies on things like - treatment of women/minorities, age discrimination, side project policies, access to upper management etc

This is one (imperfect) source of info I've used during my search for potential new employers: https://www.teamblind.com/surveys/2017

Re: Google staff walk out over women's treatment

#420

Post by sheepmullet »

cimmanom wrote: post #408
sheepmullet wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what alternatives would you suggest There are many well tested solutions but they all carry different trade offs. E.g. - Have a zero tolerance policy on relationships between colleagues. This works well in smaller to mid-size companies. Or, - When you receive a complaint move the accuser and accused into different teams. Etc.

> Have a zero tolerance policy on relationships between colleagues. This works well in smaller to mid-size companies. This addresses only the tiniest subset of issues, and mostly the ones toward the consensual end of the spectrum. Groping; quid pro quo suggestions (subtle or explicit); coercive threats (subtle or explicit); lewd remarks; invitations to strip clubs; etc ad nauseum (and yes, they're nauseating) have no…

> This addresses only the tiniest subset of issues, and mostly the ones toward the consensual end of the spectrum.

Not at all - in practice it removes ambiguity which is where most of the issues stem.

> this almost inevitably punishes the person lower on the reporting chain

At a large company that is not true - it’s actually the opposite.

For those below director level it’s usually a privilege to be able to shift teams.

On the other hand when you are director level and up it’s usually a negative because most of your ability to operate effectively comes from the interpersonal relationships you have built up.

> It's also a pretty damn weak reaction.

It’s a weak reaction based on typically weak evidence. In fact most commonly there is no evidence at all.

What it does is it ensures any abuse is stopped.

In practice it’s one of the most effective techniques I’ve seen because it can be used to nip problems in the bud - nobody feels too bad about using the system early and often.

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