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75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

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Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#141

Post by JohnFen »

zmgsabst wrote: post #138
danbolt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that what defines the proletariat is someone whose income primarily comes from their labour, rather than capital. In this case, plenty of academics and engineers certainly qualify if they need to work to live. I think the parent commenter is using the term in that context, rather than if they work a blue-collar job or if they’re middle class.

The distinction has never been “work to live”, but working class versus professional class. Also, academics and engineers don’t derive their income from labor, but from connections, bureaucratic status, and knowledge asymmetry. That’s why they’re part of the bourgeoisie and not proletariat. Eg, lawyers were never part of the proletariat — yet they also need to work to survive.

> Also, academics and engineers don’t derive their income from labor

I'm an engineer and absolutely derive my income from labor. I don't get paid for just knowing people or knowledge asymmetry, I get paid for producing stuff.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#142

Post by wccrawford »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #62
wccrawford wrote: post #61

I once reported something that my boss said to the heads of the company. They sent HR in to take care of it instead. My boss said, "I could get fired for what you said I did." He didn't deny it, just that I could cause him to get fired. I said, "Yeah!" or something similar. The company's response? I was to talk to my boss first next time before going above his head. For something he did that was (I think) illegal, an…

Give us a hint: was it legal pre-1965?

It's definitely unrelated to that, and I'm not even 100% sure it is illegal now.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#143

Post by lazide »

geraldwhen wrote: post #82
newZWhoDis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give us a hint: was it legal pre-1965?

I’ve heard “HR said we can’t hire any more white men”. Was that exactly what HR said? Who knows. But it affected that hiring round.

I’ve had friends told that by recruiters.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#144

Post by lazide »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #128
1letterunixname wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the lawsuit payday only works once. Regardless about how horrible an employer is, it marks someone as perpetually radioactive from being hired anywhere else.

Not really. How would future employers know? Part of their deal entailed the company would not say anything negative to any company looking to hire here in the future. Even if you file a lawsuit against a company they aren't going to generally say "Well, they filed a lawsuit against us". They generally don't say anything disparaging unless you are dealing with a mom and pop type of company.

A standard HR background check is looking for lawsuits from potential employees. No one wants to hire persistent litigators.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#145

Post by danbolt »

zmgsabst wrote: post #138
danbolt wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that what defines the proletariat is someone whose income primarily comes from their labour, rather than capital. In this case, plenty of academics and engineers certainly qualify if they need to work to live. I think the parent commenter is using the term in that context, rather than if they work a blue-collar job or if they’re middle class.

The distinction has never been “work to live”, but working class versus professional class. Also, academics and engineers don’t derive their income from labor, but from connections, bureaucratic status, and knowledge asymmetry. That’s why they’re part of the bourgeoisie and not proletariat. Eg, lawyers were never part of the proletariat — yet they also need to work to survive.

There are many ways we can use distinctions to classify everyone, but if we’re using the term proletariat like I mentioned, that’s certainly defined as someone who gets their income through labour power. [1]

I’m a bit confused by your examples with academics or engineers as well. If an engineer stops fulfilling their deliverables, they’ll likely stop being employed. Same goes for a postdoc not producing any research. I’ve certainly seen people get fired for failing to get work done even though they have connections in their industry. It almost seems like your conception of who is bourgeoises and who is not is based on how snobby the caricature of their job is.

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#146

Post by creer »

wespiser_2018 wrote: post #104

It doesn't surprise me 75% of SWEs report retaliation based on my experience in tech, but credit to 100% of people with integrity that spoke truth to power and risked paying the price. The world would be a lot better place (in my humble opinion) if more people spoke up when things were wrong, and were less afraid of losing a job at a company crossing an ethical line they hold. I know that's a luxury opinion, but if y…

More great corporate culture would be awesome. But it's very hard for the employee to distinguish between talk and policy versus reality on the ground. So even when the corporate culture and incentives are actually good and clean, it's risky for the employee to speak up.

What might help is more communication of the proportion of complaints or reports that resulted in what. In a "measure it if you want to see it happen" manner. The measure will then be gamed but hopefully that's only a second order effect.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#147

Post by Manuel_D »

DinoDad13 wrote: post #139
Manuel_D wrote: post #78

Earlier 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…

Do you have evidence that in-group preferences are happening? Your workplace becoming more diverse is not proof of in-group preferences.

The situation laid out in the comment above is that of a workplace becoming less and less diverse, not more.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#148

Post by jstarfish »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #38

I have watched HR videos while employed at every tech company I have worked at that would insist that retaliation is forbidden and it's ok to report wrongdoing. Let's say, for example, I wanted to report something along the lines of: becoming a manager, then every one on the team slowly being replaced with at . I'm not convinced this is possible without retaliation. I would love to see a survey with one question aske…

> I'm not convinced this is possible without retaliation.

This is true! Unfortunately nobody who investigates this stuff has any sense of discretion, so the subject gets tipped off during the questioning itself.

This isn't even limited to HR/corporate anything, I've had this happen with fucking CPS of all things. They didn't even try to be indirect and outright questioned the alleged perpetrator using the exact verbiage from my supposedly-anonymous report-- events of which only I was a witness to. My working relationship with the subject was great from there.

Right now I'm mulling over what to do with a report from HR personnel about one of their own, involving a [female] employee reporting their known-autistic, high-achieving [female] boss for actual espionage. Our workplace harassment policy says to report everything, even if it's hearsay. As with social media abuse claims, there is no consequence for false reporting or claims made in bad faith, so now I'm spinning wheels on this. I can't tell if it's a disgruntled employee, or the named exec trying to stage a persecution complex.

Whether or not she actually did it, based on the specificity of the claims, if I question the subject, she'll know who reported her. If she did do what's alleged, I can't prove it and she certainly wouldn't admit it, so the only possible outcome my intervention facilitates is opening the door for retaliation either way. I don't want to be the arbiter of HR's internal workplace politics, but who am I going to report false/bad-faith claims to? HR? (Legal won't hear anything without evidence.)

These decisions aren't easy. The workplace "rules" are so incoherent they're easily exploited. I'm taking the workplace harassment training right now; reportable offenses apparently include gossip about someone's hairstyle. Apparently nobody has ever played the game of crybullying before...

If it's not worth risking your entire career for, it's not worth reporting. Unethical business practices? Grow up. Fraud? There's probably a hotline for that. Sexual assault? Call the police. If you don't want retaliation from the company, don't fucking involve the company.

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#149

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

lazide wrote: post #144
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. How would future employers know? Part of their deal entailed the company would not say anything negative to any company looking to hire here in the future. Even if you file a lawsuit against a company they aren't going to generally say "Well, they filed a lawsuit against us". They generally don't say anything disparaging unless you are dealing with a mom and pop type of company.

A standard HR background check is looking for lawsuits from potential employees. No one wants to hire persistent litigators.

One time is a persistent litigator? A EEOC claim is private BTW.

Tl

Re: 75% of Software Engineers Faced Retaliation Last Time They Reported Wrongdoing

#150

Post by lazide »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #149
lazide wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A standard HR background check is looking for lawsuits from potential employees. No one wants to hire persistent litigators.

One time is a persistent litigator? A EEOC claim is private BTW. Tl

For many HR departments? Absolutely.
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