If you're working at a French company or in France, you can knock at any union's door and report retaliation. They will give you advice, access to a psychologist and legal council (and representation if you want to go further)
75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
111–120 of 159 posts
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked at a place where the person in charge of hiring for that department passed on a great candidate that was black, not because he didn't like black people IMO, but because he said "if were wrong about him being great, black people are way too hard to fire". That was the only openly crazy racist statement I've really ever heard in a corporate environment.
It may be useful to separate fact and ideology here. I.e.: (1) Does such a dynamic exist? (2) If so, what's the right way to deal with that fact during hiring? It's harder to have a meaningful discussion if those two things are conflated.
The only black person I've ever seen get 'fired' in my work life, actually got paid $20k to leave after threatening to kill two coworkers. When corporate security came down to interview everyone, he started saying he was driven to these extreme feelings because he was passed up for promotions because he was black. In all honesty, he was well below average at his job and was lucky to even remain working let alone get a promotion. But still, he got $20k to leave.
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
In-group preferences. Granted, there are non-discriminatory explanations: say your manager just happens to know a lot of potential referrals that are of the same identity group. This is totally plausible, most people do indeed tend to have more social connections with people sharing identity characteristics. It's hard to know for sure if favoritism is happening. The way to tell would be to send effectively identical…
It should be noted that even if there is a non-discriminatory explanation, it is still illegal under the disparate impact legal theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
Not exactly, as per your link:
> ...an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class...
Requiring doctors to have an MD is going to have a disparate impact on all sorts of factors, including protected classes. Likewise, an anonymized leetcode question isn't going to pass candidates uniformly across identities. But there's a pretty strong case that the use of such measures is justified.
Prioritizing candidates with a referral might be argued to be a disparate impact without justification, and that's somewhere there might be a stronger case but it's not so clear cut.
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. You report these things verbally in person, not on written media. This has two advantages: your employer can decide to investigate or forget about it, and you can judge whether you are getting a bad response in person during your report, and act accordingly. You make a report in writing if you could personally be held liable, and you want your disagreement on the record. But doing so is a burning your bridges m…
> You report these things verbally in person, not on written media. I think this is dangerous. If push comes to shove, you will not have anything to defend yourself with, because of no documentation.
I'm not sure what scenario you have in mind, in which the thing they have been annoyed by would be useful as a defence.
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#115Early in my career, I dealt with this garage.
Once, I reported the VP of engineering for instructing me to commit fraud. I got back "Just do what he says, he's got experience in these things.". Then they hired someone to take over my team.
Another time, I reported someone for sexual assault to HR. I shared the incident without names at first and HR told me "oh, that's awful. Who is it? They need to go.". When I shared the name, I got "oh. Well, they are too important to the company. I'll talk to them."
I put in my resignation shortly after that.
I won't work for people like that anymore.
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should be noted that even if there is a non-discriminatory explanation, it is still illegal under the disparate impact legal theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact
Not exactly, as per your link: > ...an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class... Requiring doctors to have an MD is going to have a disparate impact on all sorts of factors, including protected classes. Likewise, an anonymized leetcode question isn't going to pass candidates uniformly across identities. But there's a pretty strong case that the use of such measures is justified. Prioritizing candi…
Notably, "justification" is an affirmative defense (they don't have to prove you were unjustified - you have to prove you were justified. Guilty until proven innocent, in other words), and in practice must meet a very high bar - e.g. Griggs v. Duke Power Co., that started all this, ruled that an IQ test for management positions is not justified. More recently, a test for teachers where Whites had a higher pass rate than Blacks or Latinos (no word on Asians) was also ruled unjustified:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-latino-teachers-collectin...
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#117Your ability to get hired for jobs relies on your future employees knowing that you didn't "rat" on your previous employers. Every company has skeletons in the closet so keeping your mouth shut is part of what gets your hired
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#118I was listening to a podcast with Jim Rutt and he said that he encouraged people to give "bad news" and to not shoot the messenger. He was also against office politics and fired people for it. I wish more companies had this culture.
I don't know about Jim Rutt, but my overall impression is that most, if not all, companies are supposedly encouraging this culture of giving "bad news" and non-retaliation. Also reinforced by the usual compliance voodoo about supposedly anonymous reporting opportunities. I've never gained the impression that that was anything more than lip-service. The two people I know of who dared to say something were shown the do…
Not surprised at all. The behavior of the shitheads is downstream of the assholes at the top.
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely every profession. Exposing a problem either makes someone more powerful than you look bad, or makes you look bad for throwing someone else under the bus. Either way you're at risk of either retaliation or bad working relationships. The only relatively safe way to report problems is to do it anonymously and pray it doesn't come back on you.
https://www.asce.org/career-growth/ethics/code-of-ethics is my guideline.
It is very brief and sharp, perhaps pro-active on creating an environment where bullshit does not happen, so perhaps optimistically, it does not need to be reported.
Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing
#120Oh yeah, the worst thing you can do is speak up at work. Especially if any of the higher-ups are assholes up to no good. That's why recruiters value long-term stays at a job because it shows that you either have too much to lose or are too much of a coward to stand up for yourself.
Internal recruiters might value that, but third-party recruiters don't. The more people jump around between companies, the more money they make in commissions.