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A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

nytimes.com

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Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#441

Post by godmode2019 »

woodruffw wrote: post #355
nitwit005 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem in this case would be they seem to be hiring almost exclusively from a rather obscure religious group. That means they're illegally discriminating against members other religions.

Cults are not “obscure religious groups.” It varies widely by state (and in federal jurisprudence), but most states have a “free association”-style test: if members aren’t free to come and go, it’s a cult and not a religion. Google would not be exposed to any significant liability here. Particularly not when the cult has a well-documented history of sexual abuse.

Surely that's not true?

Islam for example is a religion, that you can not leave.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#442

Post by buildbot »

tjmc wrote: post #438
abeppu wrote: post #274

So, if the author was fired for the reasons they believe, that's pretty bad behavior. But if he had not been fired, what was management supposed to have done about the cult members working for this department? Yes, the cult's leader sounds like a pretty awful person, but he wasn't working there. What were the cult members doing in their work in the department that was clearly wrong? It's suggested that there was favo…

Maybe the culture is different in tech. In my game - engineering within the construction industry, failure to disclose a conflict of interest in any kind of procurement over a few $100 is cause for instant dismissal and potentially criminal prosecution if there are kickbacks involved. So the wine procurement is open and shut corruption in my view. If I was betting on the outcome here, I suspect "Dan" from the article…

At least at Microsoft this would also get you fired pretty fast, according to the infamous standards of business conduct.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#443

Post by achow »

mandevil wrote: post #417
dubswithus wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, at a minimum they should have fired all these people for funding a pedophile with their salaries. Absolutely disgusting. > I found support groups where ex-members talk about their time in the group, including discussions of sexual abuse and grooming. > Members have described him grooming and sexually assaulting male followers, including minors

So, does that mean that funding the Roman Catholic Church is a fire-able offense? What about the Southern Baptist Convention? Or Penn State University (at least while Jerry Sandusky was working there)? Or Michigan State (at least while Nassar was there)? Or the BBC (whilst Jimmy Savile was there)? I'm definitely not trying to defend Fellowship of Friends here, just pointing out that a zero tolerance policy for suppor…

So all the CEOs that were fired due to sexual harassment charges were exception rather than the rule? Don't think so.

Somewhere in my employment letter it says, I'm representing the company outside my workplace and work hours as well (that is in personal life too), I can be fired if I bring disrepute to company anytime - ex. drunken brawl in a nightclub.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#444

Post by ineedasername »

rendall wrote: post #383
glenstein wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, to your point, it's especially appropriate to raise a red flag over a possible retaliatory firing based on him raising concerns.

I wonder if his continuous reporting rose to the level of harassment, and Google needed to shed him to avoid discrimination allegations.

It's pretty clear from the linked article that there was no continuous reporting. In fact he never reported if officially, not once. He had multiple discussions about it with a friend that was outside of his reporting chain and was fired more than a year after his last stated contact with any another employee over the matter.

Each comment of yours seeking to dismiss the issue stretches the bounds of reason even further, each one more tenuous than the last. This time you are even going so far as to turn the situation around and claim that-- counter to any evidence-- he is himself the villain with others the victim of his harassment. What began as somewhat reasonable questions about the issue by you has, as myself & others have addressed your points, grown into the ridiculous.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#445

Post by achow »

buildbot wrote: post #442
tjmc wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the culture is different in tech. In my game - engineering within the construction industry, failure to disclose a conflict of interest in any kind of procurement over a few $100 is cause for instant dismissal and potentially criminal prosecution if there are kickbacks involved. So the wine procurement is open and shut corruption in my view. If I was betting on the outcome here, I suspect "Dan" from the article…

At least at Microsoft this would also get you fired pretty fast, according to the infamous standards of business conduct.

At most of the big corp.

Somewhere in my employment letter it says, you are representing company outside of workplace and work hours as well (that is in personal life too).

I can be fired if I bring disrepute to company anytime - ex. involved in a weekend nightclub drunken brawl.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#446

Post by trhway »

abeppu wrote: post #274

So, if the author was fired for the reasons they believe, that's pretty bad behavior. But if he had not been fired, what was management supposed to have done about the cult members working for this department? Yes, the cult's leader sounds like a pretty awful person, but he wasn't working there. What were the cult members doing in their work in the department that was clearly wrong? It's suggested that there was favo…

>the cult itself is a shady organization with some bad people

my impression is that all those cults/churches - like for example LDS, scientology, masons, etc. - have favoring of business dealings with fellow members, be it hiring, promotion, supply and service contracts, etc. among the basic tenets of the cult/church.

The amount of nepotism in that group described in article is really nauseating. We had a senior engineer who was a spouse of an exec, and it was already making tremendous obstacles to the work - the managers and the director were tip-toeing around that engineer, it was borderline disgusting. Anyway didn't help - the director and thus the managers under him as well as several top engineers - the whole top of the house of cards of our department :) - were promptly gone the moment the director had disagreement with that engineer. In another team a young hothead guy got in disagreement with another spouse of another exec, and was immediately gone as a result. I can't really imagine how screwed the environment would be in the situation like that Google GDS - probably very suffocating and bordering on mental abuse for anybody who isn't a member of that cult.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#447

Post by JetAlone »

treeman79 wrote: post #144
derevaunseraun wrote: post #105

From the podcast: "He was the golden chain to heaven. The only way to get to heaven was to allow him sexual activity with me." ... What makes people join these groups to begin with?? Why do they believe such obvious lies?

Have raised kids and teens. They can be dumb as absolute shit. One daughter at 18 asked who she should vote for. So I tried explaining both sides of issues so she could make up her own mind. She got pissed and just told me tell her who to vote for. She had zero interest in thinking for herself from about 17 until 23 when she started to ask questions and wanted to understand things. Which was weird as she had been a h…

>She got pissed and just told me tell her who to vote for.

This sounds like so many zoomers I've encountered on the internet. "Just tell me what to do". There's just so much information in their world they don't cope well with the uncertainty.

I remember voting for the NDP at about age 18. I really believed that investing tax money in people who were in need was the most important investment we could make. I really thought that perverse incentives and corruption would be negligible. The Liberals won in our riding. We do FPTP in Canada, so my vote didn't really change anything. Then I voted Libertarian a couple years later, to send a heartfelt message that "I like freedom". Of course they were even less likely to win than the NDP.

Both times it was like a roller coaster, or a lottery, to form my underdeveloped opinion, wait in line, identify myself, give my papers, and later find out my chosen party didn't win. Your daughter missed out.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#448

Post by txru »

mtlguitarist wrote: post #219
txru wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the parent is referring more to referral/promo networks. For a positive example, I knew one of my senior managers basically brought 15 people from his previous company, to the point where a comfortable majority of people under him were from the company. This can be nefarious when the network arises from abusive or unhealthy environments.

Is this really a positive thing? It creates in-groups and decreases diversity. Sure, it makes hiring easier but this is exactly how you end up with old boys clubs.

In this case the result was positive, and it netted the company a very productive team. That type of situation is definitely risky though

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#449

Post by mandevil »

achow wrote: post #443
mandevil wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, does that mean that funding the Roman Catholic Church is a fire-able offense? What about the Southern Baptist Convention? Or Penn State University (at least while Jerry Sandusky was working there)? Or Michigan State (at least while Nassar was there)? Or the BBC (whilst Jimmy Savile was there)? I'm definitely not trying to defend Fellowship of Friends here, just pointing out that a zero tolerance policy for suppor…

So all the CEOs that were fired due to sexual harassment charges were exception rather than the rule? Don't think so. Somewhere in my employment letter it says, I'm representing the company outside my workplace and work hours as well (that is in personal life too), I can be fired if I bring disrepute to company anytime - ex. drunken brawl in a nightclub.

Well, the thing is, at least based on the article, Burton- the accused groomer/pedophile/sexual assaulter- does not work for Google. If he did, I'm all for firing him right into the Sun. The article makes no allegations that any of the people employed by Google participated in or covered up the sexual assaults, just that they were members of a organization led by a sexual assaulter. I just get a little antsy about firing people who are not themselves accused of sexual assault- or even accused of direct knowledge and coverup of the assaults, because I don't see a clear and convenient way to differentiate the Fellowship of Friends from the Southern Baptist Convention from the Boy Scouts of America, (unless you want to ban all "cults" and think that can stick).

I don't know more about the FoF than what's in the article, but I've done some reading about a similar sexual assault ridden cult, NXIUM, and their the hierarchy was such that clearly some people were assaulting, and some were assaulted (and some were on both sides at different points), and I would want to be damn sure that I was firing people on the assaulting side but not the people on the assaulted side of the line, and for the people who were both... I dunno, really hard question.

Re: A religious sect landed Google in a lawsuit

#450

Post by granshaw »

vhiremath4 wrote: post #332

> One of the things they became known for was placing bookmarks in metaphysical bookstores — some members have described looking for guidance in a book, coming across a Fellowship of Friends bookmark, and joining the group as a result. Not gonna lie, this is a pretty clever recruiting technique.

My thoughts exactly. Say what you will about cults, but they often have very clever and effective “marketing” tactics - lots that startups could learn from, as long as you don’t do anything unethical
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