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Update on an Employee Matter

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Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#121

Post by HarryHirsch »

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

Yeah, Github sure sounds like a lovely company to work for, and tone is set at the top.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#122

Post by geofft »

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.

The head of HR was Carrie Olesen, who doesn't seem like she had any odd political affiliations:

https://profilemagazine.com/2020/carrie-olesen-github/

https://github.blog/author/carrieoleson/

However, it's worth noting that the statement says "resigned from GitHub," and she was at Microsoft before the acquisition and moved to GitHub. I wonder if it means she's still with Microsoft. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#123

Post by bob29 »

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.

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my hn comment: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Yes, the thugs [0] are scary

[0]https://stallman.org/glossary.html#thug

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#124

Post by relbeek2 »

londons_explore wrote: post #17

"We did something wrong which we don't want to talk about, and as part of an agreement to save ourselves from a lawsuit we are now apologising publicly for that bad thing we did and we promise not to do that bad thing again"

Where is that quote from?

Also, they are talking about the issue to a more than reasonable extent than what other companies have in the past.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#125

Post by jakelazaroff »

chanakya wrote: post #116
Griffinsauce wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point is that at the time, in the immediate vicinity, there were significantly more Nazis “out there” than usual.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#126

Post by throwawaygh »

waterhouse wrote: post #120
throwawaygh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

> Have you heard of "dead baby jokes"?

Not since maybe middle school?

I'm not sure what to say. If an adult made a joke like this -- especially in a workplace -- I would assume they have some sort of developmental disorder. I understand that assumption might be wrong and that in any case I'm not qualified to make a determination, but... I've literally never met a normal and functioning adult who laughs at jokes like these.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#127

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#128

Post by odiroot »

biermic wrote: post #109
bmiller2 wrote: post #13

Well they left all the juicy parts out Context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... I can’t believe people talk like this on a work public channel.

Independent from the events: The way Github employees communicate with each other makes me kind of uncomfortable. In the companies I've worked here in Europe, such discussions just would not happen in a cooperate chat room.

Yes, we don't take calling anyone "Nazi" lightly. Well, at least level-headed people don't.

It's disrespectful to the people who were imprisoned, tortured and exterminated by the real Nazis.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#129

Post by blondin »

biermic wrote: post #109
bmiller2 wrote: post #13

Well they left all the juicy parts out Context: https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/15/22232766/github-employees... I can’t believe people talk like this on a work public channel.

Independent from the events: The way Github employees communicate with each other makes me kind of uncomfortable. In the companies I've worked here in Europe, such discussions just would not happen in a cooperate chat room.

i agree with you.

Re: Update on an Employee Matter

#130

Post by geofft »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #67
tyrust wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: >The current conflict began the day of the riots in Washington, DC when a Jewish employee told co-workers: “stay safe homies, nazis are about.” Some colleagues took offense to the language, although neo-Nazi organizations were, in fact, present at the riots. One engineer responded: “This is untasteful conduct for workplace [in my opinion], people have the right to protest period.” Ctrl-F for that to…

How is that denying there are Nazis?

If you read the full sentence in the article, you will note that it continues by saying that the label is "slandering." Something has to be untrue for it to be slander. Therefore, by saying that labeling people in the crowd as Nazis is slander, it denies that there were Nazis in the crowd.
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