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Update on an Employee Matter

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Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#111

Post by scatters »

relix wrote: post #107

Unrelated meta-question: In the screenshots in the article posted by bmiller2 https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... You can see something I honestly dislike very much in discussions - a "bombing" of emoji reactions during discussions. For instance, the "I think this comment is completely appropriate" has 35 "+"-sign emojis. I find this concept of "reaction bulldozing" to cause any discussion…

It's the equivalent to audience reaction in a debate. If you don't want it, take your conversation private.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#112

Post by rottingfruit »

eat_veggies wrote: post #41
surfer7837 wrote: post #25

I've just seen the screenshots from https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... You just shouldn't be speaking like that in a company Slack channel. Politics should really not be discussed at work, and especially not in a public Slack channel. It's not the right place for it. It makes me not want to work there if they are discussing politics all day in a public Slack channel

So a Jewish employee points out (factually!) that there are nazis at an armed attack on the capitol, and to be careful, and then gets fired for saying that. You call this "appalling from both sides?" I just have to laugh.

I don’t mean to ask this in an accusatory gotcha way I’m just wondering what your stance is on someone warning their coworkers in Portland, or somewhere else that there are “looting communists around so be careful.” Or something similar referring to a blm protest. Do you feel this is also appropriate in a workplace channel?

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#113

Post by morganw »

emphatizer2000 wrote: post #30
bmiller2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Earlier this week, the company hosted an “empathy circle” to “build understanding with members of the team on things that affect us.” It did not go over well with employees. Maybe they got fired for this terrible idea

Isn't that standard fare for workplaces everywhere in the world now? Not that I like it much, but it seems to be the normal approach.

I work at a company going hard on diversity and inclusion and they haven't gone even a baby step towards asking us to empathize with the grievances of people who feel fascism is the only thing that can help them.

Empathy isn't the same as tolerance, but I'd expect they'd either know the optics would be terrible or don't see the difference themselves.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#115

Post by throwawaygh »

benjohnson wrote: post #83
marcinzm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't call all protestors nazis in the slack message. They just said there were nazis protesting which is factually true.

My best attempt at equivelent from the right would be "stay safe, the Thugs are rioting" during a BLM protest. If that doesn't seem fair and feels condescending to you, then you can probably imagine how some on the right feel.

> My best attempt at equivelent from the right would be "stay safe, the Thugs are rioting" during a BLM protest.

But these warnings are a thing that companies do -- through official channels -- when protests that might become violent are held near one of their offices. If your office is in downtown Portland, and if you're on the list of people with office access during pandemic, then you've probably received a bunch of emails warning about looting and/or violence over the summer. Probably didn't use the word "Thug", but in this case there were actual literal nazis so the warning seems reasonable.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#116

Post by chanakya »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #94
chanakya wrote: post #57

There's detail missing, so it's hard to be sure, but this just seems like HR incompetence more than anything else, and it's right that the head of HR left. Companies shouldn't have political discussions in work forums, so the comment about Nazis was inappropriate. But was it a firing offense? They do talk about a "pattern of behaviour", but this comment can't trigger a firing. If they had just reinforced that work fo…

The comment warning coworkers about dangerous people out in the streets was inappropriate?

There are all sorts of dangerous people out there. Of the 16,000 people murdered in the US every year, how many are by Nazis? No, it's a political statement, which is fine, politics is good. The workplace is just not the place for it.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#117

Post by BuildTheRobots »

surfer7837 wrote: post #84
bastawhiz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain? On January 6 there was a man wearing a "Camp Auschwitz" hoodie with the word "staff" printed on the back, on national television. Do you believe this man is not a Nazi? And do you believe that Jewish people do not have a right to warn their coworkers to stay safe in light of people like this committing violent acts? I'm genuinely curious to understand what part you believe is political here, because…

I just don't think a company Slack channel is the right place for this, when tensions are high people can get upset and offended and it just creates a bad work environment. There are time and place for things like this, not over a Slack channel. I don't know about any about that, I haven't been keeping up on the news

> when tensions are high people can get upset and offended

People were waving swastikas, wearing camp Auschwitz hoodies, storming the capital building and beating a police officer to death with an American flag. The problem here is not calling a spade a spade. If you're offended by being termed a Nazi that possibly don't be advertising yourself as one.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#118

Post by tshtf »

babelfish wrote: post #24
pjc50 wrote: post #15

> Our head of HR has taken personal accountability and resigned from GitHub yesterday morning, Saturday, January 16th. You don't normally see consequences for senior officers for this kind of mistake. I would be curious to know who this person was and if they had any odd political affiliations.

When you fire a Jewish employee for (rightfully) calling out that Nazis were present at last weeks insurrection, but not folks who make jokes like “Hitler gave the Jews free healthcare” (per the Verge article another commenter posted), there better be consequences at the VP level

Hacker News in 2021: The above comment is grey.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#119

Post by watwut »

throwawaygh wrote: post #62
you_are_naive wrote: post #22

I am afraid to ask this but can someone explain the "nazi joke" to me?

(CONTEXT: I assume parent is referring to this comment from one of the github threads: "nazis gave the jews free healthcare". That comment was not made by the employee who was fired.) (edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813184 which adds some additional context. I assumed when writing this comment that the nazi healthcare joke was part of the 1/6/2020 thread & a direct response to warning about violence…

Nitpick: There are plenty of people like that who don't have any psychological disorder. Even after being evaluated by this or that crime. It is comforting to think there must be something psychologically wrong with them, but i don't think it is true.

And pretty often they are not socially marginalized either. They have friends and families and are interested into society. And they happily do those jokes with their friends and families.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#120

Post by waterhouse »

throwawaygh wrote: post #62
you_are_naive wrote: post #22

I am afraid to ask this but can someone explain the "nazi joke" to me?

(CONTEXT: I assume parent is referring to this comment from one of the github threads: "nazis gave the jews free healthcare". That comment was not made by the employee who was fired.) (edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25813184 which adds some additional context. I assumed when writing this comment that the nazi healthcare joke was part of the 1/6/2020 thread & a direct response to warning about violence…

Have you heard of "dead baby jokes"?

What's the difference between 100 dead babies and a Ferrari?

I don't keep a Ferrari in my garage.

Here's a sampling. https://thoughtcatalog.com/clint-conway/2016/08/50-of-the-fu...

Anyway, the thing that makes it funny is how absurd it is that the joke-teller would be an enthusiastic baby-murderer, -torturer, and/or -cannibal, depending on the joke (plus general surprise and shock).

For people who have grown up thinking that Nazis are obviously evil monsters and no civilized person could possibly be one of them, making jokes about gassing the Jews and that kind of thing can have a similar kind of appeal.

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